October 1

What happened that day?

• 331 BC: Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.
• 366: Pope Damasus I is elected.
• 959: Edgar the Peaceful becomes king of all England.
• 965: Pope John XIII is elected.
• 1553: Coronation of Queen Mary I of England.
• 1588: Coronation of Shah Abbas I of Persia.
• 1730: Ahmed III is forced to give up the throne.
• 1787: Russians under Alexander Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn.
• 1791: First session of the French Legislative Assembly.
• 1795: The Austrian Netherlands (present-day Belgium) are annexed by Revolutionary France.
• 1800: Spain cedes Louisiana to France via the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso.
• 1814: Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw Europe's political map after the defeat of Napoleon the previous spring.
• 1827: Russo-Persian War: The Russian army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination of Armenia.
• 1829: South African College is founded in Cape Town, South Africa; it will later separate into the University of Cape Town and the South African College Schools.
• 1832: Texian political delegates convene at San Felipe de Austin to petition for changes in the governance of Mexican Texas.
• 1843: The News of the World tabloid begins publication in London.
• 1854: The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts, to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American system of watch manufacturing.
• 1861: Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management is published, going on to sell 60,000 copies in its first year and remaining in print until the present day
• 1880: First electric lamp factory is opened by Thomas Edison.
• 1887: Balochistan is conquered by the British Empire.
• 1890: Yosemite National Park is established by the U.S. Congress.
• 1891: Stanford University opens its doors in California.
• 1898: The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie.
• 1903: Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series.
• 1908: Ford puts the Model T car on the market at a price of US$825.
• 1910: [[Los Angeles](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles) Times](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times) bombing: A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, killing 21.
• 1918: World War I: Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence, also known as "Lawrence of Arabia", capture Damascus.
• 1918: Sayid Abdullah becomes last Khan of Khiva.
• 1920: Sir Percy Cox lands in Basra to assume his responsibilities as High Commissioner in Iraq.
• 1928: The Soviet Union introduces its first five-year plan.
• 1931: The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York opens.
• 1931: Spain adopts women's suffrage.
• 1936: Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain.
• 1937: The Japanese city Handa is founded in Aichi Prefecture.
• 1938: Germany annexes the Sudetenland.
• 1939: After a one-month Siege of Warsaw, hostile Nazi forces enter the city.
• 1940: The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.
• 1942: World War II: USS Grouper torpedoes Lisbon Maru not knowing she is carrying British PoWs from Hong Kong
• 1943: World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.
• 1946: Nazi leaders are sentenced at Nuremberg trials.
• 1946: Daegu October Incident occurs in Allied occupied Korea.
• 1947: The North American F-86 Sabre flies for the first time.
• 1949: The People's Republic of China is established and declared by Mao Zedong.
• 1955: Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is established.
• 1957: First appearance of In God we trust on U.S. paper currency.
• 1958: NASA is created to replace NACA.
• 1960: Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1961: The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is formed, becoming the country's first centralized military espionage organization.
• 1961: East and West Cameroon merge to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.
• 1962: First broadcast of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
• 1964: The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley.
• 1964: Japanese Shinkansen ("bullet trains") begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.
• 1965: General Suharto puts down an apparent coup attempt by the 30 September Movement in Indonesia.
• 1966: West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with eighteen fatalities and no survivors 5.5 miles south of Wemme, Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9.
• 1968: The Guyanese government takes over the British Guiana Broadcasting Service (BGBS).
• 1969: Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time.
• 1971: Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida, United States.
• 1971: The first brain-scan using x-ray computed tomography (CT or CAT scan) is performed at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London.
• 1975: The Seychelles gain internal self-government. The Ellice Islands split from Gilbert Islands and take the name Tuvalu.
• 1975: Thrilla in [Manila](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila): Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines.
• 1975: Al Jackson, Jr. (Booker T. & the M.G.'s), is fatally shot five times in the back in his own home.
• 1978: Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1978: The Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party is founded.
• 1979: Pope John Paul II begins his first pastoral visit to the United States.
• 1979: The MTR, the rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong, opens.
• 1979: The United States returns sovereignty of the [Panama](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama) Canal to Panama.
• 1982: Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a constructive vote of no confidence.
• 1982: Epcot opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
• 1982: Sony launches the first consumer compact disc player (model CDP-101).
• 1985: The Israeli Air Force bombs Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headquarters in Tunis.
• 1987: The 5.9 Mw Whittier Narrows earthquake shakes the San Gabriel Valley with a Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing eight and injuring 200.
• 1989: Denmark introduces the world's first legal modern same-sex civil union called "registered partnership".
• 1991: The Siege of Dubrovnik begins.
• 1992: Cartoon Network is launched.
• 1994: Palau gains independence from the United Nations (trusteeship administered by the United States of America).
• 2001: Militants attack the state legislature building in Srinagar, Kashmir, killing 38.
• 2009: The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over the judicial functions of the House of Lords.
• 2012: A ferry collision off the coast of Hong Kong kills 38 people and injures 102 others.
• 2014: A series of explosions at a gunpowder plant in the village of Gorni Lom in Northwestern Bulgaria completely destroys the factory, killing 15 people.
• 2015: Umpqua Community College shooting: A gunman kills nine people at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon.
• 2015: Heavy rains trigger a major landslide in the village of El Cambray Dos within Santa Catarina Pinula, killing 280 people.
• 2017: An independence referendum, declared illegal by the Constitutional Court of [Spain](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain), takes place in Catalonia, Spain.
• 2017: Fifty-eight people are killed and 546 others injured in a mass shooting on a country music festival at the Las Vegas Strip; the gunman, Stephen Paddock, later commits suicide.