1987: British Rail Class 43 (HST)) hits the record speed of 238 km/h for rail vehicles with on-board fuel to generate electricity for traction motors.
1984: After the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India on 31 October 1984, by two of her Sikh bodyguards, anti-Sikh riots erupts.
1982: Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of its factory in Marysville, Ohio; a Honda Accord is the first car produced there.
1960: While campaigning for President of the United States, John F. Kennedy announces his idea of the Peace Corps.
1957: The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at the time, opens to traffic connecting Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.
1956: The Indian states Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Mysore are formally created under the States Reorganisation Act; Kanyakumari district is joined to Tamil Nadu from Kerala.
1952: The United States successfully detonates Ivy Mike, the first thermonuclear device, at the Eniwetok atoll. The explosion had a yield of ten megatons TNT equivalent.
1951: Operation Buster-Jangle: Six thousand five hundred American soldiers are exposed to 'Desert Rock' atomic explosions for training purposes in Nevada. Participation is not voluntary.
1948: Six thousand people die when a Chinese merchant ship explodes and sinks off southern Manchuria.
1945: The official North Korean newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, is first published under the name Chongro.
1944: World War II: A United States Army Air Forces F-13 Superfortress conducted the first flight by an Allied aircraft over the Tokyo region of Japan since the 1942 Doolittle Raid.
1944: World War II: Units of the British Army land at Walcheren in the Netherlands.
1943: World War II: In support of the landings on Bougainville, U.S. aircraft carrier forces attack the huge Japanese base at Rabaul.
1941: American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography.
1938: Seabiscuit defeats War Admiral in an upset victory during a match race deemed "the match of the century" in horse racing.
1937: Stalinists execute Pastor Paul Hamberg and seven members of Azerbaijan's Lutheran community.
1928: The Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet, replaces the Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet.
1920: American fishing schooner Esperanto defeats the Canadian fishing schooner Delawana in the First International Fishing Schooner Championship Races in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
1918: Malbone Street Wreck: The worst rapid transit accident in US history occurs under the intersection of Malbone Street and Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York City, with at least 102 deaths.
1916: In Russia, Pavel Milyukov delivers in the State Duma the famous "stupidity or treason" speech, precipitating the downfall of the government of Boris Stürmer.
1914: World War I: The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) departed by ship in a single convoy from Albany, Western Australia bound for Egypt.
1914: World War I: The first British Royal Navy defeat of the war with Germany, the Battle of Coronel, is fought off of the western coast of Chile, in the Pacific, with the loss of HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth.
1911: World's first combat aerial bombing mission takes place in Libya during the Italo-Turkish War. Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti of Italy drops several small bombs.
1897: The first Library of Congress building opens its doors to the public; the library had previously been housed in the Congressional Reading Room in the U.S. Capitol.
1896: A picture showing the bare breasts of a woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time.
1848: In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, Boston Female Medical School (which later merged with the Boston University School of Medicine), opens.
1520: The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, is first discovered and navigated by European explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the first recorded circumnavigation voyage.
1512: The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.
1214: The port city of Sinope surrenders to the Seljuq Turks.
1179: Philip II is crowned King of France.
1141: Empress Matilda's reign as 'Lady of the English' ends with Stephen of Blois regaining the title of King of England.
996: Emperor Otto III issues a deed to Gottschalk, Bishop of Freising, which is the oldest known document using the name Ostarrîchi (Austria in Old High German).
365: The Alemanni cross the Rhine and invade Gaul. Emperor Valentinian I moves to Paris to command the army and defend the Gallic cities.