Events

Up to 1800 
 768 - Carloman and Charlemagne are crowned Kings of the Franks.
 1000 – Leif Ericson discovers Vinland, becoming the first known European to set foot in North America.
 1238 – James I of Aragon conquers Valencia and founded the Kingdom of Valencia.
 1264 - The Kingdom of Castile conquers the city of Jerez, under Islamic control since 711.
 1446 – The Hangul alphabet is published in Korea.
 1514 – Marriage of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor
 1582 – Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
 1604 - Supernova 1604 is observed; It is the last supernova to-date to be observed in the Milky Way.
 1635 – Founder of Rhode Island Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he spoke out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land.
 1701 – The Collegiate School of Connecticut (later renamed Yale University) is chartered in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
 1708 - Peter the Great defeats the Swedes at the Battle of Lesnaya.
 1740 - Dutch colonists and others begin massacring Chinese people at Batavia (now Jakarta), eventually killing 10,000 people and leading to war.
 1760 - Seven Years' War: Russian forces occupy Berlin.
 1767 - Surveying of the Mason–Dixon line between Pennsylvania and Maryland is completed, unofficially marking the boundary between Northern and Southern US States.
 1771 – The Dutch merchant ship Vrouw Maria sinks near the coast of Finland.
 1776 – Father Francisco Palou founds Mission San Francisco de Asis in what is now San Francisco, California.
 1788 – The first bridge in Australia is built over the Tank Stream in Sydney.
 1799 - Sinking of the ship HMS Lutine, killing 240 people.

1801  1900 
 1803 - Flooding on the Portuguese island of Madeira kills 600 people.
 1804 – Hobart, Tasmania is founded.
 1806 - Prussia declares war on France.
 1812 – War of 1812: In a naval engagement on Lake Erie, American forces capture two British ships; the HMS Detroit and the HMS Caledonia.
 1820 – Guayaquil declares independence from Spain.
 1824 - Costa Rica gets rid of slavery.
 1829 - A climbing expedition led by Friedrich Parrot reaches the summit of Mount Ararat, the highest mountain in Turkey.
 1831 – Capo d'Istria is assassinated.
 1834 - Opening of the Dublin to Kingstown railway, the first public railway in Ireland.
 1854 - Start of the Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War.
 1861 - American Civil War: Battle of Santa Rita Island.
 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Tom's Brook – Union cavalrymen in the Shenandoah Valley defeat Confederate forces at Tom's Brook, Virginia.
 1871 – The Great Chicago Fire is brought under control.
 1874 – General Postal Union was created as a result of the Treaty of Berne.
 1888 – The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.
 1900 - The Cook Islands become a territory of the United Kingdom.

1901  1950 
 1911 - An accidental bomb explosion in Hankou, Wuhan, China, leads to the ultimate fall of the Qing Dynasty.
 1913 - Steamship SS Volturna catches fire in the Mid-Atlantic Ocean, killing 136 people. Over 300 lives are saved.
 1914 – World War I: Siege of Antwerp – Antwerp, Belgium falls to German troops.
 1919 – Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds "win" the World Series.
 1934 - In Marseille, King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and then-foreign minister of France Louis Barthou are assassinated.
 1936 – Generators at Boulder Dam (later renamed to Hoover Dam) begin to transmit electricity from the Colorado River 266 miles to Los Angeles, California.
 1940 – World War II: Battle of Britain – During a nighttime air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral is pierced by a bomb.
 1941 - A coup in Panama declares Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia to be the country's President.
 1942 – Statute of Westminster Adoption Act formalizes Australian autonomy.
 1944 – World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin begin a nine-day conference in Moscow to discuss the future of Europe.

1951  2000 
 1957 – Neil H. McElroy was sworn in as the 6th Secretary of Defense of United States.
 1959 - The Conservatives under Harold Macmillan win the United Kingdom general election.
 1962 – Uganda becomes a republic.
 1963 – In northeast Italy, over 2,000 people are killed when a large landslide behind the Vajont Dam causes a giant wave of water to overtop it.
 1967 – A day after being caught, Che Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia.
 1969 – In Chicago, Illinois, the United States National Guard is called in for crowd control as demonstrations continue in connection to the trial of the "Chicago Eight" (trial started on September 24).
 1969 – Students from the University of the Philippines formed the first Upsilonian Congress and established the Upsiloan Alpha Beta Grand Fraternity in Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines.
 1970 – The Khmer Republic is proclaimed in Cambodia.
 1980 - Pope John Paul II shakes hands with Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama in a private audience in Vatican City.
 1981 - End of capital punishment in France.
 1983 - Attempted killing of President of South Korea Chun Doo-hwan. He survives, though 17 people are killed.
 1986 – United States District Court Judge Harry E. Claiborne becomes the fifth federal official to be removed from office through impeachment.
 1989 – An official news agency in the Soviet Union reports the landing of a UFO in Voronezh.
 1989 – In Leipzig, East Germany, 70,000 protesters demand the legalization of opposition groups and democratic reforms.
 1991 – Ecuador becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
 1992 – A 13 kilogram (est.) meteorite lands in the driveway of the Knapp residence in Peekskill, New York, destroying the family's 1980 Chevrolet Malibu.
 1995 – An Amtrak Sunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde, Arizona.

From 2001 
 2002 – After losing a massive amount of ground during the summer of 2002, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 7,286.27, its lowest level in five years. The NASDAQ also hit a six-year low of 1,114.11.
 2004 - The new Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh is officially opened.
 2004 – Jo Brauner resigns as the anchor of German Tagesschau news show after 30 years.
 2004 – Democratic elections held for the first time in Afghanistan.
 2004 – The tri-annual federal election is held in Australia and Liberal Party of Australia leader, John Howard, wins a fourth term as Prime Minister in a landslide victory over opponent, Mark Latham of the Australian Labor Party.
 2005 – China's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping officially announced the new accurate height of Mount Everest is 8848.43 m.
 2005 - 16- and 17-year-olds are allowed to vote in the state election in Burgenland, Austria.
 2006 – North Korea carries out its first-reported bomb test.
 2007 - Yoko Ono opens the John Lennon Imagine Peace tower on the island of Videy near Reykjavik, Iceland.
 2009 – First Lunar impact of the Centaur & LCROSS spacecrafts, as part of NASA's Precursor Robotic Programme.
 2009 – Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
 2011 - Sebastian Vettel wins his second Formula One World title, as the youngest driver to win two Formula One World Championships in-a-row.
 2012 - Members of the Pakistan Taliban attempt to kill education activist Malala Yousafzai, by shooting her in the head. She survives the attack after receiving medical treatment.
 2014 - UKIP wins its first parliamentary seat in a UK by-election in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, through defected Conservative MP Douglas Carswell.
 2017 - Iceland becomes the least-populated country to qualify for a FIFA World Cup, defeating Kosovo 2-0 in Reykjavik.

Births

Up to 1900 
 1201  Robert de Sorbonne, French theologian (d. 1274)
 1261  King Denis of Portugal (d. 1325)
 1328  King Peter I of Cyprus (d. 1369)
 1581  Claude Gaspard Bachet de Meziriac, French mathematician, poet and scholar (d. 1638)
 1585  Heinrich Schütz, German composer (d. 1672)
 1586  Archduke Leopold of Austria (d. 1632)
 1704  Johann Andreas Segner, German physician, physicist and mathematician (d. 1777)
 1757  King Charles X of France (d. 1836)
 1782  Lewis Cass, American politician (d. 1866)
 1788  Jozsef Kossics, Slovenian writer (d. 1867)
 1796  Joseph Bonomi the Younger, English Egyptologist (d. 1878)
 1833  Eugen Langen, German entrepreneur, engineer and inventor (d. 1895)
 1835  Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer (d. 1921)
 1840  Simeon Solomon, British artist (d. 1905)
 1846  Julius Maggi, Swiss businessman (Maggi condiment) (d. 1912)
 1848  Caroline Alice Elgar, English author (d. 1920)
 1852  Hermann Emil Fischer, German chemist (d. 1919)
 1854  Myron T. Herrick, Governor of Ohio (d. 1929)
 1858  Mihaijlo Idvorski Pupin, Serbian-American physicist (d. 1935)
 1859  Alfred Dreyfus, French military officer (d. 1935)
 1863  Alexander Siloti, Ukrainian pianist, composer and conductor (d. 1945)
 1873  Karl Schwarzschild, German physicist and astronomer (d. 1946)
 1874  Nicholas Roerich, Russian polymath (d. 1947)
 1879  Max von Laue, German physicist (d. 1960)
 1880  Charlie Faust, American baseball player (d. 1915)
 1881  Victor Klemperer, German writer (d. 1960)
 1886  Rube Marquard, American baseball player and manager (d. 1980)
 1888  Nikolai Bukharin, Russian politician (d. 1938)
 1888  Irving Cummings, American actor and director (d. 1959)
 1892  Ivo Andric, Yugoslavian writer (d. 1975)
 1892  Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (d. 1941)
 1893  Mario de Andrade, Brazilian writer (d. 1945)
 1897  M. V. Bhaktavatsalam, Indian politician (d. 1987)
 1900  Alastair Sim, Scottish actor (d. 1976)
 1900  Joseph Friedman, American inventor (d. 1982)

1901  1950 
 1903  Walter O'Malley, American sports executive (d. 1979)
 1906  Léopold Sédar Senghor, Senegalese poet and politician (d. 2001)
 1906  Sayyid Qutb, Egyptian journalist and Islamist thinker (d. 1966)
 1907  Jacques Tati, French director and producer (d. 1982)
 1907  Quintin Hogg, Baron Halisham of St Marylebone, English politician (d. 2001)
 1908  Werner Haeften, German officer and Resistance activist (d. 1944)
 1909  Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 2000)
 1909  V. Nalliah, Sri Lankan Tamil politician
 1911  Joe Rosenthal, American photographer (d. 2006)
 1915  Clifford M. Hardin, American politician (d. 2010)
 1918  E. Howard Hunt, American spy (d. 2007)
 1918  Lila Kedrova, Russian actress (d. 2000)
 1920  Jason Wingreen, American actor (d. 2015)
 1920  Yusef Lateef, American musician and composer (d. 2013)
 1921  Tadeusz Rozewicz, Polish poet and playwright (d. 2014)
 1922  Fyvush Finkel, American actor (d. 2016)
 1923  Donald Sinden, English actor (d. 2014)
 1925  Robert Docking, American politician, 38th Governor of Kansas (d. 1983)
 1926  Danièle Delorme, French actress and producer (d. 2015)
 1928  Einojuhani Rautavaara, Finnish composer (d. 2016)
 1929  William M. Gray, American scientist (d. 2016)
 1931  Antony Booth, British actor (d. 2017)
 1933  Peter Mansfield, British physicist (d. 2017)
 1934  Abdullah Ibrahim, South African pianist and composer
 1935  Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
 1936  Edmond Keosayan, Armenian-Soviet musician and movie director (d. 1994)
 1936  Brian Blessed, British actor
 1938  Heinz Fischer, Austrian politician, former President of Austria
 1939  Nicholas Grimshaw, English architect
 1940  John Lennon, English musician and songwriter (The Beatles) (d. December 8, 1980)
 1940  Gordon J. Humphrey, American politician
 1941  Chucho Valdés, Cuban pianist and composer
 1941  Giancarlo Bercellino, Italian footballer
 1942  Shukri Ghanem, Prime Minister of Libya (d. 2012)
 1943  Renato Cappellini, Italian footballer
 1944  John Entwistle, British musician (d. 2002)
 1944  Nona Hendryx, American singer-songwriter, producer and actress
 1944  Francis Girod, French movie director (d. 2006)
 1946  Fernando Brant, Brazilian poet and journalist (d. 2015)
 1947  France Gall, French singer (d. 2018)
 1947  Joe Wark, Scottish footballer (d. 2015)
 1947  Bob Moose, American baseball player (d. 1976)
 1948  Paul LePage, American politician, Governor of Maine
 1948  Jackson Browne, American musician
 1949  Bob Leinbach, American singer-songwriter and musician (Orleans)
 1949  Rod Temperton, English songwriter and producer (d. 2016)
 1950  Reichi Nakaido, Japanese rock music guitarist
 1950  Jody Williams, American teacher and aid worker, Nobel Peace Prize winner

1951  1975 
 1952  Sharon Osbourne, wife of Ozzy Osbourne
 1952  Dennis Stratton, English guitarist (Iron Maiden)
 1953  Tony Shalhoub, American actor
 1954  Scott Bakula, American actor
 1954  James Fearnley, British musician (The Pogues)
 1955  Steve Ovett, British athlete
 1958  Alan Nunnelee, American politician (d. 2015)
 1959  Boris Nemtsov, Russian politician (d. 2015)
 1960  Kenny Garrett, American jazz saxophonist
 1961  Ellen Wheeler, American actress, director and producer
 1962  Hugh Robertson, English politician
 1962  Onokuni Yasushi, Japanese sumo wrestler
 1962  Jorge Burruchaga, Argentine footballer
 1964  Guillermo del Toro, Mexican movie director
 1964  John Ralston, Canadian actor
 1966  David Cameron, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
 1967  Eddie Guerrero, American professional wrestler (d. 2005)
 1967  Artur Davis, American politician
 1968  Troy Davis, American high-profile death row inmate (d. 2011)
 1969  PJ Harvey, English musician
 1969  Steve McQueen, English artist and director (12 Years a Slave)
 1970  Steve Jablonsky, American movie and television composer
 1970  Annika Sörenstam, Swedish golfer
 1970  Kenny Anderson, American baseball player
 1971  Jason Jones, American director, producer and actor
 1973  Erin Daniels, American actress
 1973  Fabio Lione, Italian singer-songwriter and keyboardist
 1973  Carlos Pavon, Honduran footballer
 1974  Shmuel Herzfeld, American rabbi and activist
 1975  Sean Lennon, American musician, son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono
 1975  Mark Viduka, Australian footballer

From 1976 
 1976  Nick Swardson, American actor and comedian
 1978  Nicky Byrne, Irish singer (Westlife)
 1979  Gonzalo Sorondo, Uruguayan footballer
 1979  Brandon Routh, American actor
 1979  Chris O'Dowd, Irish actor
 1979  DJ Rashad, American DJ and musician (d. 2014)
 1979  Alex Greenwald, American musician, actor and record producer
 1980  Henrik Zetterberg, Swedish ice hockey player
 1981  Darius Miles, American basketball player
 1982  Antonio Mendonca, Angolan footballer
 1982  Shi Jun, Chinese footballer
 1983  Stephen Gionta, American ice hockey player
 1983  Andreas Zuber, Austrian racing driver
 1983  Spencer Grammer, American actress
 1983  Jang Mi-Ran, South Korean weightlifter
 1983  Zeng Jinyan, Chinese blogger and human rights activist
 1984  Djamel Mesbah, French-Algerian footballer
 1986  Laure Manaudou, French swimmer
 1987  Samantha Murray, English tennis player
 1990  Marcus Willis, English tennis player
 1992  Tyler James Williams, American actor and singer
 1993  Lauren Davis, American tennis player
 1993  Scotty McCreery, American singer
 1994  Jodelle Ferland, Canadian actress
 1996  Bella Hadid, American model
 2008  Bo, dog of Barack Obama

Deaths

Up to 1900 
 1047 – Pope Clement II (b. 1005)
 1253 – Robert Grosseteste, English statesman and bishop
 1273 - Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Germany
 1390 - King John I of Castile (b. 1358)
 1555 – Justus Jonas, German Protestant reformer (b. 1493)
 1562 – Gabriele Falloppio, Italian anatomist (b. 1523)
 1569 – Vladimir of Staritsa, Russian prince (b. 1533)
 1581 - Louis Bertrand, Spanish missionary and saint (b. 1526)
 1597 – Ashikaga Yoshiaki, Japanese shogun (b. 1537)
 1691 – William Sacheverell, English statesman (b. 1638)
 1709 – Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, English mistress of Charles II of England (b. 1640)
 1729 – Richard Blackmore, English physician and writer (b. 1654)
 1793 – Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, French missionary (b. 1718)
 1806 – Benjamin Banneker, American astronomer (b. 1731)
 1808 - John Claiborne, American politician (b. 1777)
 1831 – John Capodistria, Governor of Greece (b. 1776)
 1841 - Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Prussian architect and painter (b. 1781)
 1857 - Josef Ressel, Austrian inventor (b. 1793)
 1873 - George Ormerod, English historian and antiquarian (b. 1785)
 1897 - Jan Heemskerk, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (b. 1818)
 1900 - Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Austrian composer and conductor (b. 1843)

1901  2000 
 1924 – Valery Bryusov, Russian writer and critic (b. 1873)
 1934 – King Alexander I of Yugoslavia (assassinated) (b. 1888)
 1934 – Louis Barthou, Prime Minister of France (assassinated) (b. 1862)
 1937 - Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse (b. 1868)
 1941 – Helen Morgan, American singer and actress (b. 1900)
 1943 – Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)
 1950 - George Hainsworth, NHL goaltender (b. 1895)
 1953 - Jimmy Finlayson, Scottish-American actor (b. 1887)
 1955 – Theodor Cardinal Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna (b. 1875)
 1956 – Marie Doro, American actress (b. 1882)
 1958 – Pope Pius XII (b. 1876)
 1961 – Werner Jaeger, German mathematician (b. 1888)
 1962 – Milan Vidmar, Slovenian electrical engineer and chess player (b. 1885)
 1967 – Che Guevara, Argentine revolutionary and guerilla leader (executed) (b. 1928)
 1967 - Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, English chemist (b. 1897)
 1967 - Andre Maurois, French writer (b. 1885)
 1972 – Miriam Hopkins, American actress (b. 1902)
 1974 – Oskar Schindler, German businessman (b. 1908)
 1976 - Walter Warlimont, German general (b. 1894)
 1976 - Bob Moose, American baseball player (b. 1947)
 1978 – Jacques Brel, Belgian musician (b. 1929)
 1985 - Emilio Garrastazu Medici, President of Brazil (b. 1905)
 1987 – Clare Boothe Luce, American diplomat (b. 1903)
 1987 – Guru Gopinath, Indian classical dancer (b. 1908)
 1987 – William P. Murphy, American doctor, won the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1892)
 1988 - Felix Wankel, German engineer (b. 1902)
 1989 – Penny Lernoux, American journalist and writer (b. 1940)
 1991 - Dagmar Lange (Maria Lang), Swedish writer (b. 1914)
 1995 – Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1903)
 1995 - Kukrit Pramoj, Prime Minister of Thailand (b. 1911)
 1996 – Walter Kerr, American theater critic (b. 1913)
 2000 – David Dukes, American actor (b. 1945)

From 2001 
 2001 – Dagmar, American television personality (b. 1921)
 2002 – Aileen Wuornos, American serial killer (b. 1956)
 2005 - Louis Nye, American actor (b. 1913)
 2006 – Paul Hunter, British snooker player (b. 1978)
 2008 - Gidget Gein, American musician (b. 1969)
 2009 – Horst Szymaniak, German footballer (b. 1934)
 2010 – Maurice Allais, French economist (b. 1911)
 2012 - Paddy Roy Bates, British founder of the Sealand micronation (b. 1921)
 2013 - Chopper Read, Australian crime figure and author (b. 1954)
 2013 - Wilfried Martens, former Prime Minister of Belgium (b. 1936)
 2014 - Peter A. Peyser, American politician (b. 1921)
 2014 - Jan Hooks, American actress and comedienne (b. 1957)
 2015 - Ravindra Jain, Indian composer (b. 1944)
 2015 - Tony Rafty, Australian caricaturist (b. 1915)
 2015 - Du Runsheng, Chinese politician (b. 1913)
 2015 - Jerry Parr, American secret service agent (b. 1930)
 2015 - Geoffrey Howe, British politician (b. 1926)
 2016 - Andrzej Wajda, Polish movie director (b. 1926)
 2017 - Manuel Busto, French cyclist (b. 1932)
 2017 - Allan Chumak, Russian faith healer (b. 1935)
 2017 - Rafe Mair, Canadian lawyer, political commentator, journalist and politician (b. 1931)
 2017 - Jean Rochefort, French actor (b. 1930)
 2017 - Fernando de Szyszlo, Peruvian painter, printmaker and sculptor (b. 1925)
 2017 - Michel Diefenbacher, French politician (b. 1947)
 2017 - Hessie, Cuban textile artist (b. 1936)
 2018 - Warner Saunders, American news anchor (b. 1935)
 2018 - Thomas A. Steitz, American Nobel Prize-winning biochemist (b. 1940)
 2018 - Carolyn Warner, American politician (b. 1930)

Observances 
 Independence Day (Uganda)
 Leif Erikson Day
 Hangul Day (South Korea)

October 09