What Happened on October 19th in History
30 historical events on this date
The League of Nations places economic sanctions on Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia.
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Italy against Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to May 1936. In Ethiopia...
New York World-Telegram reporter Herbert Ekins won a race against two other New York newspaper journalists to travel around the world on commercial airline flights. He accomplished the feat in 18 œ days. His opponents were New York Evening Journal reporter Dorothy Kilgallen, who finished in second place, and New York Times reporter Leo Kieran.
The New York World-Telegram, later known as the New York World-Telegram and The Sun, was a New York City newspaper from 1931 to 1966.
The cargo vessel Sinfra is attacked by Allied aircraft at Crete and sunk. Two thousand and ninety-eight Italian prisoners of war drown with it.
Sinfra was a cargo ship built in 1929 as Fernglen by Akers Mekaniske Verksted in Oslo, Norway, for a Norwegian shipping company. The ship was sold to Swedish owners in 1934 and to a French company...
Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
Streptomycin is an antibiotic medication used to treat a number of bacterial infections, including tuberculosis, Mycobacterium avium complex, endocarditis, brucellosis, Burkholderia infection,...
United States forces land in the Philippines.
The Battle of Leyte in the Pacific campaign of World War II was the amphibious invasion of the island of Leyte in the Philippines by American forces and Filipino guerrillas under the overall command...
A coup is launched against Juan Federico Ponce Vaides, beginning the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution.
Juan Federico Ponce Vaides was the acting President of Guatemala from 4 July 1944 to 20 October 1944. He was overthrown by a popular uprising on 20 October 1944 that began the Guatemalan Revolution.
Presidents North Carolina Gave the Nation, a monument honoring three presidents of the United States, was dedicated at the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Presidents North Carolina Gave the Nation is a monument located on the grounds of the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. It is dedicated to and depicts the three...
China defeats the Tibetan Army at Chambo.
The Battle of Chamdo occurred from 6 to 24 October 1950. It was a military campaign by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to capture the Chamdo Region from a de facto independent Tibetan state....
Korean War: The Battle of Pyongyang ends in a United Nations victory. Hours later, the Chinese Army begins crossing the border into Korea.
The Korean War was an armed conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea...
Iran becomes the first country to accept technical assistance from the United States under the Point Four Program.
The Point Four Program was a technical assistance program for "developing countries" announced by United States President Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address on January 20, 1949. It took its...
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is published.
Ray Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror,...
The General Assembly of the European Broadcasting Union approves the staging of the first Eurovision Song Contest.
The Eurovision Song Contest was first held in 1956. Following a series of exchange broadcasts in 1954 through its Eurovision transmission network, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) commissioned...
The Soviet Union and Japan sign a Joint Declaration, officially ending the state of war between the two countries that had existed since August 1945.
The Soviet Union did not sign the 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan, which had reâestablished peaceful relations between most other Allied Powers and Japan. On 19 October 1956, Japan and the Soviet...
The United States imposes a near-total trade embargo against Cuba.
A United States embargo has prevented U.S. businesses and citizens from conducting trade or commerce with Cuban interests since 1960. Modern diplomatic relations are cold, stemming from historic...
President Nixon rejects an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.
Audio recordings of conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Nixon administration officials, Nixon family members, and White House staff surfaced during the Watergate scandal in 1973...
Niue becomes a self-governing colony of New Zealand.
The Schedules of the Niue Constitution Act 1974 form the Constitution of Niue. It stipulates the make-up of the executive branch of the government, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch....
The president of Mozambique and a prominent leader of FRELIMO, along with 33 others, die when their aircraft crashes into the Lebombo Mountains.
On 19 October 1986, a Tupolev Tu-134 jetliner with a Soviet crew carrying President Samora Machel and 43 others from Mbala, Zambia to the Mozambican capital Maputo crashed at Mbuzini, South Africa....
The United States Navy conducts Operation Nimble Archer, an attack on two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf.
Operation Nimble Archer was the 19 October 1987 attack on two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf by United States Navy forces. The attack was a response to Iran's missile attack on MVÂ Sea...
Black Monday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%, 508 points.
Black Monday was a global, severe and largely unexpected stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987. Worldwide losses were estimated at US$1.71 trillion. The severity sparked fears of extended...
The British government imposes a broadcasting ban on television and radio interviews with members of Sinn FĂ©in and eleven Irish republican and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups.
From October 1988 to September 1994 the British government banned broadcasts of the voices of representatives from Sinn FĂ©in and ten other Irish republican and loyalist groups on television and...
The convictions of the Guildford Four are quashed by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, after they had spent 15 years in prison.
The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were two groups of people, mostly from Northern Ireland, who were wrongly convicted in English courts in 1975 and 1976 of the Guildford pub bombings of 5...
SIEV X, an Indonesian fishing boat en route to Christmas Island, carrying over 400 migrants, sinks in international waters with the loss of 353 people.
SIEV X was the name assigned by Australian authorities to an Indonesian fishing boat carrying over 400 asylum seekers en route to Australia, which capsized in international waters with great loss of...
Mother Teresa is beatified by Pope John Paul II.
Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa or Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity and a Catholic saint.
Thirteen people are killed when Corporate Airlines Flight 5966 crashes in Adair County, Missouri, while on approach to Kirksville Regional Airport.
Corporate Airlines Flight 5966 was a scheduled passenger flight from St. Louis to Kirksville, Missouri, United States. On October 19, 2004, the British Aerospace Jetstream 32 aircraft operating the...
Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until his overthrow in 2003 during the United States-led invasion of Iraq. He previously...
Hurricane Wilma becomes the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum pressure of 882 mb.
Hurricane Wilma was the most intense tropical cyclone in the Atlantic basin and the second-most intense tropical cyclone in the Western Hemisphere, both based on barometric pressure, after Hurricane...
A bomb explosion kills eight people and injures 110 more in Lebanon.
On 19 October 2012, Wissam al-Hassan, a brigadier general of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) and the head of its intelligence-oriented information branch, died along with several others...
One hundred and five people are injured in a train crash in Buenos Aires.
The Buenos Aires train crash occurred on October 19, 2013 when a passenger train failed to stop at a terminal station in Buenos Aires, Argentina, injuring 105 people. As of October 2013, the causes...
Members of Parliament met at the House of Lords to discuss the United Kingdom's Brexit deal, this was the first Saturday sitting in Parliament since 3 April 1982 during the Falklands War.
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. Its origins lie...
Pieces of the French Crown Jewels are successfully stolen during a heist on the Louvre Museum in Paris..
The French Crown Jewels and Regalia comprise the crowns, orb, sceptres, diadems and jewels that were symbols of Royal or Imperial power between 752 and 1870. These were worn by many Kings and Queens...