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533 Byzantine general Belisarius made his formal entry into Carthage, having conquered it from the Vandals.

1002 Death of Otto-Henry, Duke of Burgundy.

1389 Death of Pope Urban VI.

1522 Hernán Cortés, explorer of Mexico, became the Spanish colony's governor-general.

1534 Pope Paul III gave Benvenuto Cellini, his favourite artist and goldsmith, safe conduct despite Cellini's murder of his rival, artist Pompeo.

1552 The Khanate of Kazan was conquered by troops of Ivan Grozny.

1582 Pope Gregory XIII implemented the Gregorian Calendar (devised February 24). In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year was followed directly by October 15, skipping over 10 days. Other countries followed at various later dates.

"The Julian calendar, standardized in 46 B.C.E., was revised by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 C.E. The length of the year in the Julian calendar was figured at 365.25 days, which is greater than the correct length of 365.2422 days by 0.0078 days. The error accumulated over time and Pope Gregory XIII revised the calendar by omitting the accumulated portion which totaled 10 days at the time, from the month of October, 1582. He ordained that Thursday, October 4, be followed by Friday, October 15. The leap-year rule was also revised, making the century years 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, etc., non-leap years. The years 1600, 2000, 2400, etc. which are divisible by 400 were made into leap years. In this way, the average year-length of the calendar was brought down to 365.2425 days, the residual error now being 1 day every 3300 years."   Source

1764 While visiting Rome, Edward Gibbon observed a group of barefoot friars singing vespers in the ruined Temple of Jupiter, a sight which inspired him to begin work on a history that was published as The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

At first he intended only to write on the city, but his project grew to encompass the empire. He started writing his classic work in London in about 1772 and the massive task occupied him for approximately 15 years, until June 27, 1787, between 11 pm and midnight on a Wednesday night, to be precise.

"Consisting of 71 chapters, 2136 paragraphs, some one million and a half words, and close to 8000 footnotes, the Decline and Fall encompasses a millennium and a half of history, covering not merely the Western Roman Empire from the days of the early emperors to its extinction in A.D. 476, but also the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire, which lasted for another thousand years until it was vanquished by the Turks in 1453. Spatially, the work covers three continents and ranges from the frozen wastes of Siberia to the cataracts of the Nile, from China and Mongolia to the Strait of Gibraltar. It even encompasses, within its asides, the New World of America and the antipodes of New Zealand. Reading the Decline and Fall, one cannot help but feel as if he were traveling in H. G. Wells' time machine, finding himself sometimes at the Forum of Rome in the 2nd Century, some other times in the forests of Germany in the 5th Century, yet some other times in the deserts of Arabia in the 7th Century."   Source

1811 Death of Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, painter.

1815 Napoleon I of France (Napoleon Bonaparte) began his exile on St Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.

1821 The Central American federation gained its independence from Spain.

1824 Trial by jury was instituted in New South Wales, Australia.

1840 On the island of St Helena, the body of Napoleon Bonaparte was exhumed. See August 18.

1860 "Grace Bedell, age 11, wrote to Abraham Lincoln with a request, grow a beard and she would try to get her four brothers to vote for him as president. In November, Lincoln won the election, then he grew a beard."   Source

1863 American Civil War: The first successful submarine, the CSS Hunley, sank during a test, killing Horace Lawson Hunley (its inventor) and a crew of seven.

1878 The Edison Electric Company began operation.

1880 Tres Castillos Mountains, Mexico: Mexican soldiers killed Chief Victorio (Lone Wolf), Chiricahua Apache leader, one of the greatest Apache military strategists (or he killed himself).

1883 The Supreme Court of the United States declared part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to be unconstitutional, since it allowed individuals and corporations to discriminate based on race.

1891 Death of Gilbert Arthur à Beckett, British writer.

1894 Alfred Dreyfus was arrested for spying – the Dreyfus affair began. Dreyfuss was not vindicated until July 12, 1906.

1908 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), Indian leader and proponent of civil disobedience, was arrested and sentenced to two months' rigorous imprisonment.

1917 World War I: At Vincennes outside Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari was executed by firing squad at the Château de Vincennes near Paris, for spying for Germany. She threw a kiss to the twelve riflemen.

1924 New York's great statue, Liberty Enlightening the World was designated a National Monument.

In Roman mythology, Liberty is Libertas, the goddess of freedom. Originally a deity of personal freedom, she evolved to become the goddess of the commonwealth. Her temples were found on the Aventine Hill and the Forum. She was depicted on many Roman coins as a female figure wearing a pileus (a felt cap, worn by slaves when they were set free), a wreath of laurels and a spear.

Libertas was presented in 1884 as a gift from the French Grand Orient Temple Masons to the Masons of America in celebration of the centenary of the first Masonic Republic, as much as a gift from France to America. The cornerstone of the statue has an inscription that records that it was laid in a Masonic ceremony. It is believed that sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi (1834 - 1904) conceived the original statue as an effigy of the Egyptian goddess Isis, and only later converted it to a 'Statue of Liberty' for New York Harbor when it was rejected for the Suez Canal. The statue of Isis was to be of "a robed woman holding aloft a torch" (Weisberger, Bernard, Statue of Liberty: 1st Hundred Years, p.30, quoted in Lloyd, James, Beyond Babylon, p.103).

Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

1927 Britain's Public Morals Committee attacked the use of contraceptives.

1928 USA: Graf Zeppelin, the German airship, landed in New Jersey after its first transatlantic crossing.

1932 Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) made its first flight.

1939 The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed La Guardia Airport) was dedicated.

1940 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), Indian leader and proponent of civil disobedience, sanctioned individual civil disobedience in wartime. He started the Anti-War Individual Satyagraha movement with Vinoba Bhave (September 11, 1895 - November 15, 1982) as the first Satyagrahi.

Gandhi Timeline

1940 The Great Dictator, a satiric social commentary film by and starring Charlie Chaplin, was released.

1945 World War II: Former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, was executed by firing squad for treason.

1946 Nuremberg Trials: Founder of the Gestapo and recently convicted Nazi war criminal, Hermann Göring, poisoned himself hours before his scheduled execution.

1951 Television sitcom I Love Lucy premiered, starring comedian Lucille Ball and her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz.

1953 Jockey Mike Morrissey, while riding the Southwell Park Steeplechase, England, was thrown out of his saddle and landed in another.

1954 Hurricane Hazel struck some eastern states of the USA.

1960 John, Paul, George and Ringo recorded for the first time, with bassist Walter Eymond of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, at Akustic Studios, Hamburg.   Source

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: A stand-off ensued between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, putting the entire world under threat of a nuclear war (crisis lasted 13 days from this point).

1964 Britain voted in a Labour government, and its leader Harold Wilson became the youngest British prime minister of the century.

1965 Vietnam War: The anti-war student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam staged the first public burning of a draft card in the United States.

1966 US President Lyndon B Johnson signed a bill creating the United States Department of Transportation.

1969 Vietnam War: Approximately two million Americans took part in Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam antiwar demonstrations across the United States (organized by Sam Brown and David Mixner).

Nixon's Savage Attack on the Greatest Anti-War Movement in US History

1970 Australia: Thirty-five construction workers were killed when a section of the new West Gate Bridge in Melbourne collapsed into the Yarra River below.

The Great Storm

1987 (Till October 16) The Great Storm of 1987 hit France and England. The worst storm to hit England since November 26, 1703, it was responsible for the deaths of 18 people in England and four in France. Winds gusting up to 185 kph (115 mph) cut a swathe of destruction across London and elsewhere. In southern England, 15 million trees were lost, including one-third of the famous Kew Gardens in London and six of the seven famous oak trees in Sevenoaks in Kent.

(From Wikipedia: Contrary to popular myth the town isn't named after the seven oak trees that stood alongside the cricket pitch ... Those trees were one of several sets of seven oaks around the town and date from 1902 when they were planted to commemorate the coronation of King Edward VII. The town's name is derived from the Saxon word 'Seouenaca', the name given to a small chapel near seven oak trees in Knole Park around 800.)

Although the storm, which originated as a small disturbance along a cold front in the Bay of Biscay, was declared a rare event, expected to only happen on average every several hundred years, the Burns Day storm hit Britain in January 1990, less than three years later when a gust of  228.5 kph (142 mph) was recorded at Fraserburgh.

Sequence of satellite images of the storm

List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom    Severe Storms Index

1990 Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.

1991 Following a bitter confirmation hearing that involved allegations of sexual misconduct, made against him by Anita Hill, a 35-year-old law professor, the United States Senate voted 52 to 48 to confirm Judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court of the United States.

1992 In Russia, Andrei Chikatilo was found guilty of 52 serial murders.

1997 The Cassini probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on its way to Saturn.

Cassini-Huygens is a joint NASA/ESA unmanned space mission intended to study Saturn and its moons. The spacecraft consists of two main elements: the Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe. It was launched on October 15, 1997 and entered Saturn's orbit on July 1, 2004. It is the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn and just the fourth spacecraft to visit Saturn.

The Huygens probe, supplied by the European Space Agency (ESA), was named after the Dutch 17^th-Century astronomer, Christiaan Huygens, and its purpose is to scrutinise the clouds, atmosphere, and surface of Saturn's moon Titan. It was designed to enter and brake in Titan's atmosphere and parachute a fully instrumented robotic laboratory down to the surface.

Cassini Mission Homepage by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory    Cassini Imaging Homepage

Cassini information by the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC).

ESA Huygens Homepage about the probe that will study Titan's atmosphere and possibly the surface

Cassini's Tour de Saturn part A B D  E  F – descriptions of the 4-year tour of Saturn by Bruce Moomaw

SpaceflightNow news coverage of the mission

Countdown to Cancel the Cassini Space Probe by the Baltimore Peace Network in 1997 due to concerns over the use of plutonium

1997 The first supersonic land speed record was set by the ThrustSSC team from the United Kingdom.

2001 NASA's Galileo spacecraft passed within 180 km (112 mi) of Jupiter's moon Io.

2003 China launched Shenzhou 5, their first manned space mission.

2003 Ilham Aliyev became President of Azerbaijan, succeeding his father Heydar Aliyev.

2003 USA: Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed following numerous failed petitions by her parents to prevent such action.

2005 Iraqi constitution ratification vote.

2005 Riot in Toledo, Ohio broke out during a Neo-Nazi protest; more than were 100 arrested.

Tomorrow: How they elect the Pope

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