EVENTS
- 1889 – Thomas Edison shows the first motion picture.
- 1908 – Bosnian crisis. Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary declared the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had been nominally under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The takeover raised tensions within the Balkan region in Europe and threatened to end in a war.
- 1927 – The first “talkie” opened in New York. The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson was the first full-length feature film using spoken dialogue.
- 1928 – Chiang Kai-Shek is made Chairman of the Republic of China.
- 1949 – “Tokyo Rose” (Iva Toguri d’Aquino) was sentenced in San Francisco to 10 years imprisonment and fined $10,000 for treason. She had broadcast music and Japanese propaganda to American troops in the Pacific during World War II. She was pardoned by President Gerald Ford in 1977.
- 1973 – The Yom Kippur War started as Egypt and Syria launched attacks on Israeli positions on the East Bank of the Suez and the Golan Heights.
- 1976 – Coup in Thailand. Admiral Sangad Chaloryu staged a coup ousting the civilian government of Seni Pramoj.
- 1978 – Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini was granted asylum in France after being expelled from Iran for his opposition to the Shah.
- 1981 – Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat is assassinated.
- 1995 – First exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star discovered. Swiss astronomers Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor announced the discovered the exoplanet called 51 Pegasi B or Bellerophon. The Jupiter-like exoplanet orbits a star called 51 Pegasi, which has a magnitude of 5.49. 51 Pegasi B takes 4.23 Earth days to orbit around its star.
- 1996 – Country music singers Faith Hill and Tim McGraw are married
- 2007 – First successful human-powered attempt to circumnavigate the world. Englishman Jason Lewis set out on the journey, also called Expedition 360 on July 12, 1994, from Greenwich, London. The over 46,000-mile expedition around the world took him 4,833 days, during which he used only human-powered modes of transportation including bicycles, roller blades, and a pedal powered boat.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1769 – Isaac Brock (English army officer)
- 1846 – George Westinghouse (Inventor)
- 1914 – Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl was born in Larvik, Norway, October 6, 1914 (He used Kon-Tiki and other primitive ocean-going vessels to prove the possibility of transoceanic contact between ancient, widely separated civilizations.
- 1930 – Hafez al-Assad (Syrian general, politician, 20th President of Syria)
- 1955 – Tony Dungy (Football coach)
- 1963 – Elizabeth Shue (Actress)
- 1973 – Rebecca Lobo (WNBA star)
- 1985 – Mitchell Cole (English footballer)
DEATHS
- 1542 – Thomas Wyatt (English poet)
- 1892 – Alfred, Lord Tennyson (English poet)
- 1981 – Anwar Sadat (Egyptian politician, 3rd President of Egypt, Nobel Prize laureate)
- 1989 – Bette Davis (American actress)
- 1992 – Bill O’Reilly (Australian cricketer)