1066 – The Norman conquest of England began with the Battle of Hastings.
1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeated King Edward II of England at the Battle of Old Byland, and forced Edward to accept Scotland’s independence.
1586 – Mary, Queen of Scots, went on trial for conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth I of England.
1656 – The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends.
1758 – Seven Years’ War: Frederick the Great suffered a rare defeat at the Battle of Hochkirch.
1774 – American Revolution: The First Continental Congress denounced the British Parliament’s Intolerable Acts and demanded British concessions.
1863 – American Civil War: Confederate troops under the command of A. P. Hill failed to drive the Union Army completely out of Virginia.
1884 – George Eastman received a U.S. Government patent on his new paper-strip photographic film.
1888 – Louis Le Prince filmed the first motion picture, Roundhay Garden Scene.
1908 – The Chicago Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers, 2–0, and clinched the 1908 World Series; this would be their last until winning the 2016 World Series.
1910 – English aviator Claude Grahame-White landed his aircraft on Executive Avenue near the White House in Washington, D.C.
1912 – Former president Theodore Roosevelt was shot and mildly wounded by John Flammang Schrank. With the fresh wound in his chest, and the bullet still within it, Roosevelt delivered his scheduled speech.
1913 – Senghenydd colliery disaster, the United Kingdom’s worst coal mining accident, claimed the lives of 439 miners.
1933 – Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and World Disarmament Conference.
1939 – World War II: The German submarine U-47 sank the British battleship HMS Royal Oak within her harbor at Scapa Flow, Scotland.
1940 – World War II: The Balham underground station disaster killed sixty-six people during the London Blitz.
1943 – World War II: Prisoners at Sobibor extermination camp covertly assassinated most of the on-duty SS officers and then staged a mass breakout.
1943 – World War II: The United States Eighth Air Force lost 60 of 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses during the Second Raid on Schweinfurt.
1947 – Chuck Yeager became the first person to exceed the speed of sound.
1949 – The Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders in the United States convicted eleven defendants of conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the federal government.
1952 – Korean War: The Battle of Triangle Hill was the biggest and bloodiest battle of 1952.
1955 – Buddy Holly, Larry Welborn, and Bob Montgomery open for Bill Haley & the Comets in Lubbock, TX. Eddie Crandell saw the show later arranges for Holly to record his first demo.
1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis began when an American reconnaissance aircraft took photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles being installed in Cuba.
1964 – Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence.
1964 – The secret marriage of Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones) to Shirley Ann Arnold took place.
1964 – The Soviet Presidium and the Communist Party Central Committee each voted to accept Nikita Khrushchev’s “voluntary” request to retire from his offices.
1966 – Grace Slick made her first appearance with Jefferson Airplane.
1968 – Apollo program: The first live television broadcast by American astronauts in orbit was performed by the Apollo 7 crew.
1968 – Jim Hines became the first man ever to break the so-called “ten-second barrier” in the 100-meter sprint with a time of 9.95 seconds.
1972 – Joe Cocker was arrested with his band in Adelaide, Australia. The police claimed to have confiscated marijuana, heroin and hypodermic syringes.
1975 – “Rock and Roll All Nite (Live)” / “Rock and Roll All Nite” was released by KISS.
1977 – Bing Crosby died of a heart attack at the age of 76.
1979 – The first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights drew approximately 100,000 people.
1982 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan proclaimed a War on Drugs.
1990 – Composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein died at the age of 72.
1997 – The soundtrack to the film “Casablanca” was released for the first time.
1998 – Eric Rudolph was charged with six bombings, including the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia.
2000 – A lawsuit was filed against Don Henley in Little Rock, AR. The suit claimed that a fan was hit in the forehead with a maraca during on October 4, 2000 concert.
2003 – The Steve Bartman Incident took place at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois. The incident explained: Marlins batter Luis Castillo hit a fly ball into foul territory in left field. Cubs outfielder Moisés Alou pursued the ball and leapt near the fence in an attempt to make the catch. Along with other spectators seated against the wall, Cubs fan Steve Bartman reached for the ball, but he deflected it, disrupting Alou’s potential catch; the umpire judged the play not to be fan interference. If Alou had caught the ball, it would have been the second out in the inning, and the Cubs would have been just four outs away from winning their first National League pennant since 1945.
2004 – Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701 crashed in Jefferson City, Missouri. The two pilots (the aircraft’s only occupants) were killed.
2004 – The iTunes Music Store reached 150 million songs sold.
2012 – Felix Baumgartner successfully jumped to Earth from a balloon in the stratosphere.
2021 – About 10,000 American employees of John Deere went on strike.
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