October 1

Events

Pre-1600

• 331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.
• 366 - Pope Damasus I is consecrated.
• 959 - Edgar the Peaceful becomes king of all England, in succession to Eadwig.
• 965 - Pope John XIII is consecrated.
• 1553 - The coronation of Queen Mary I of England is held at Westminster Abbey.
• 1588 - The coronation of Shah Abbas I of Persia occurs.

  1601–1900

• 1730 - Ahmed III is forced to abdicate as the Ottoman sultan.
• 1779 - The city of Tampere, Finland is founded by King Gustav III of Sweden.
• 1787 - Russians under Alexander Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn.
• 1791 - First session of the French Legislative Assembly.
• 1795 - More than a year after the Battle of Sprimont, the Austrian Netherlands are officially annexed by Revolutionary France.
• 1800 - Via the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain cedes Louisiana to France, which would sell the land to the United States thirty months later.
• 1814 - The Congress of Vienna opens with the intention of redrawing Europe's political map after the defeat of Napoleon in the previous spring.
• 1827 - Russo-Persian War: The Russian army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination of Armenia.
• 1829 - The South African College is founded in Cape Town, later separating 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.
• 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.
• 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, United States.
• 1898 - The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie.

  1901–present

• 1903 - Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series.
• 1908 - Ford Model T automobiles are offered for sale at a price of US$825.
• 1910 - A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building, killing 21.
• 1915 - The Metamorphosis written by Franz Kafka is published in the German journal Die Weißen Blätter
• 1918 - World War I: The Egyptian Expeditionary Force captures Damascus.
• 1918 - Sayid Abdullah becomes the last Khan of Khiva.
• 1923 - The 1923 Imperial Conference opened in London.
• 1923 - Georges Carpentier knocked out former British heavyweight champion Joe Beckett a mere twenty seconds into the first round of their boxing match at Olympia in London.
• 1928 - The Soviet Union introduces its first five-year plan.
• 1928 - Newark Liberty International Airport opens, becoming the first airport in the New York City metro area.
• 1931 - The George Washington Bridge in the United States is opened, linking New Jersey and New York.
• 1931 - Clara Campoamor persuades the Constituent Cortes to enfranchise women in Spain's new constitution.
• 1936 - Spanish Civil War: Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain.
• 1936 - Spanish Civil War: The Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia dissolves itself, handing control of Catalan defence militias over to the Generalitat.
• 1938 - Pursuant to the Munich Agreement signed the day before, Nazi Germany begins the military occupation and annexation of Czechoslovakia Sudetenland.
• 1939 - World War II: After a one-month siege, German troops occupy Warsaw.
• 1940 - The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.
• 1942 - World War II: torpedoes Lisbon Maru, not knowing that she is carrying British prisoners of war from Hong Kong.
• 1943 - World War II: After the Four Days of Naples, Allied troops enter the city.
• 1946 - Nazi leaders are sentenced at the Nuremberg trials.
• 1946 - The 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.
• 1953 - Andhra State is formed, consisting of a Telugu-speaking area carved out of India's Madras State.
• 1953 - A United States-South Korea mutual defense treaty is concluded in Washington, D.C.
• 1955 - The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is established.
• 1957 - The motto In God We Trust first appears on U.S. paper currency.
• 1958 - The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics is replaced by NASA.
• 1960 - Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1961 - The United States Defense Intelligence Agency is formed, becoming the country's first centralized military intelligence organization.
• 1961 - East and West Cameroon merge to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.
• 1961 - The CTV Television Network, Canada's first private television network, is launched.
• 1962 - James Meredith becomes the first African American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi.
• 1963 - On its third anniversary as an independent nation, Nigeria became a republic.
• 1964 - The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
• 1964 - Japanese Shinkansen begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.
• 1965 - At dawn, seven Indonesian Army officers and a police inspector were assassinated by the September 30 Movement at Lubang Buaya, East Jakarta. In addition, two more officers were killed in Yogyakarta. The Army pinned the murders to the Communist Party of Indonesia, resulting in mass killings of suspected leftists.
• 1966 - West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with no survivors in Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9.
• 1968 - Guyana nationalizes the British Guiana Broadcasting Service, which would eventually become part of the National Communications Network, Guyana.
• 1969 - Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time.
• 1971 - Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida.
• 1971 - The first practical CT scanner is used to diagnose a patient.
• 1975 - Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines.
• 1978 - Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1979 - Pope John Paul II begins his first pastoral visit to the United States.
• 1979 - The MTR, Hong Kong's rapid transit railway system, opens.
• 1982 - Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a constructive vote of no confidence.
• 1982 - EPCOT Center opens at Walt Disney World in Florida.
• 1982 - Sony and Phillips launch the compact disc in Japan; on the same day, Sony releases the model CDP-101 compact disc player, the first player of its kind.
• 1985 - Israel-Palestinian conflict: Israel attacks the Palestine Liberation Organization's Tunisia headquarters during Operation Wooden Leg.
• 1987 - The 5.9 Whittier Narrows earthquake shakes the San Gabriel Valley with a Mercalli intensity of VIII, killing eight and injuring 200.
• 1989 - Denmark introduces the world's first legal same-sex registered partnerships.
• 1991 - Croatian War of Independence: The Siege of Dubrovnik begins.
• 1994 - Palau enters a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
• 2000 - Israel-Palestinian conflict: Palestinians protest the killing of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah by Israeli police in northern Israel, beginning the "October 2000 events".
• 2001 - Militants attack the state legislature building in Kashmir, killing 38.
• 2001 - 3G wireless technology first becomes available when it is adopted by Japanese telecommunications company NTT Docomo.
• 2003 - The popular and controversial English-language imageboard 4chan is launched.
• 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 Bulgaria completely destroys the factory, killing 15 people.
• 2014 - A double bombing of an elementary school in Homs, Syria kills over 50 people.
• 2015 - A gunman kills nine people at a community college in Oregon.
• 2015 - Heavy rains trigger a major landslide in Guatemala, killing 280 people.
• 2015 - The American cargo vessel SS El Faro sinks with all of its 33 crew after steaming into the eyewall of Hurricane Joaquin.
• 2016 - The leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, Pedro Sánchez, resigns. He would return to the position a year later.
• 2017 - An independence referendum, later declared illegal by the Constitutional Court of Spain, takes place in Catalonia.
• 2017 - Sixty people are killed and 867 others injured in a mass shooting at a country music festival at the Las Vegas Strip in the United States; the gunman, Stephen Paddock, later commits suicide.
• 2018 - The International Court of Justice rules that Chile is not obliged to negotiate access to the Pacific Ocean with Bolivia.
• 2019 - Kuopio school stabbing: One dies and ten are injured when Joel Marin, armed with a sabre, attacks a school class at Savo Vocational College in Kuopio, Finland.
• 2021 - The 2020 World Expo in Dubai begins. Its opening was originally scheduled for 20 October 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 2022 - One hundred and thirty-five are killed in a human crush following a football match at Kanjuruhan Stadium in East Java, Indonesia.
• 2024 - Israel invaded Southern Lebanon, marking the fifth Israeli invasion of Lebanon since 1978.