| 218 | BC | Hannibal completed the crossing of the Alps into Gallia Cisalpina [est - “around the setting of the Pleiades”] -- Learn More |
| 63 | BC | Catiline's Conspiracy: C. Cornelius and L. Vargunteius attempt to assassinate Cicero at his home in Rome |
| 0 | | Feast of St. Willibrord, "The Apostle to the Frisians" and Patron of The Netherlands and of Luxembourg, and that of St. Prosdócimo of Padua, Patron of Padua |
| 83 | | Q. Cassius Secundus, legionary of the XX Valeria Victrix, borrows 100 denarii from his comrade G. Geminius Mansuetus |
| 1307 | | William Tell shoots the apple off his son's head [Trad] |
| 1500 | | Cesare Borgia captures Brighella |
| 1559 | | the “Peace of the Pyrenees” between France & Spain, finally ended the protracted Italian Wars (1494-1559) -- Learn More |
| 1637 | | Anne Hutchinson is banished from Massachusetts for heresy |
| 1793 | | French Revolution abolishes religion, initiating two centuries of mass slaughter in the name of "Reason" |
| 1811 | | William Henry Harrison defeated the Ohio Country Confederacy, led by Tecumseh's brother, the Prophet Tenskwatawa, at Tippecanoe -- Learn More |
| 1861 | | Battle of Port Royal Bay/Ft Walker/Ft Beauregard, SC |
| 1861 | | Grant's First Battle: Belmont, Mo. |
| 1863 | | Battle of Rappahannock Station & Kelly's Ford, Va. |
| 1865 | | The Confederate cruiser CSS 'Shenandoah' surrenders to British authorities at Liverpool, after having circumnavigated the globe and taken nearly 40 prizes -- seven months after Appomattox |
| 1872 | | Sailing merchant ship 'Marie Celeste' sails from New York, bound for mystery |
| 1917 | | Battle of Beersheba: British take Gaza from the Turks, on the third try |
| 1917 | | The Bolsheviks stage a coup, initiating over seven decades of Communist misrule in Russia [Oct 25 OS] -- Learn More |
| 1918 | | United Press erroneously reports an armistice has been signed |
| 1919 | | The Palmer Raids: Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer initiates a roundup of alleged subversives and foreign agents, c. 10,000 detained over several months |
| 1931 | | Mao Tse-Tung proclaims the Chinese People's Republic |
| 1936 | | the Battle for Madrid began, in the Spanish Civil War -- Learn More |
| 1942 | | FDR broadcasts to the French; first presidential address in a foreign language |
| 1944 | | Chinese New 22nd Div takes Shwego in northern Burma. |
| 1954 | | US spy plane shot down by Russians over Sea of Japan |
| 1973 | | The War Powers Act becomes law |
| 1983 | | Bomb explodes in US Capitol, causing heavy damage but no injuries |
| 2009 | | The USS 'New York' (LPD-21) is commissioned in New York City, commemorating the casualties of 9/11 |
| 2010 | | the German Army formally rededicated a monument honoring Jewish soldiers of the Kaiser's War that had been destroyed by the Nazis -- Learn More |
| 630 | | Constans II "the Bearded," Romano-Byzantine Emperor (641-668), last emperor to visit Rome |
| 1728 | | Captain James Cook, intrepid navigator & explorer, k. 1779 |
| 1797 | | Silas Horton Stringham, Rear Adm., U.S., d. 1876 |
| 1860 | | Jean-Baptiste Eugène Estienne, French general who promoted aviation and mechanization, d. 1936 |
| 1867 | | Maria Sklodowska-Curie, Polish nationalist, Nobelist in chemistry & physics, d. 1934 |
| 1875 | | Mikhail Kalinin, Stalinist co-conspirator, d. 1946 |
| 1879 | | Lev Bronstein, aka Leon Trotsky, intellectual mass murderer, k. 1940 |
| 1914 | | Jesús Antonio Villamor, Filipinio airman who downed two Zeros in a P-26, d. 1971 |
| 1952 | | David Petraeus, soldier, scholar, spymaster |
| 8 | BC | Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, 62, friend to Augustus, patron of Vergil & Horace |
| 1225 | | Count Engelbert II of Berg (1189-1225), c. 40, Archbishop Engelbert I of Cologne (1216-1225), murdered by his cousin Count Frederick of Isenberg, whom he had found stealing church funds. |
| 1307 | | Hermann Gessler, Hapsburg Bailiff of Altdorf, shot by William Tell |
| 1837 | | Elijah Parish Lovejoy, 35 less two days, abolitionist journalist, murdered in Alton, Illinois, by a pro-slavery mob |
| 1862 | | Mirza Abu Zafar Sirajuddin Muhammad Bahadur Shah Zafar, 87, the last Mughal Emperor of India (1837-1857), in exile in Rangoon |
| 1944 | | Richard Sorge (46), former Russian Imperial Guardsman, & Hotsumi Ozaki (43), journalist and politician, Soviet agents, hanged in Tokyo |
| 1959 | | Victor Andrew McLaglen, sometime Guardsman & Captain, 10th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, boxer, & actor ("Gunga Din," "Yellow Ribbon," etc.), died at 72 |
| 1962 | | Eleanor Roosevelt, former Flotus, who sent four sons to war, at 78 -- Learn More |
| 1974 | | Nanny Sandra Rivett (29) is bludgeoned to death by erstwhile Coldstream Guards officer John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, having mistaken her for Lady Lucan in the dark; he promptly vanishes and is still at large |
| 1980 | | Steve McQueen, sometime marine, actor ("The Sand Pebbles", "The Great Escape"), at 50 |
| 2013 | | Manfred Rommel, 84, Luftwaffe veteran, son of the field marshal, internationalist |