1066 – Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England, but is never crowned. He reigns until 10 December 1066.
1211 – Battle of the Rhyndacus: The Latin emperor Henry of Flanders defeats the Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris.
1529 – The Siege of Vienna ends as the Austrians rout the invading Turks, turning the tide against almost a century of unchecked conquest throughout eastern and central Europe by the Ottoman Empire.
1582 – Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
1764 – Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
1783 – The Montgolfier brothers’ hot air balloon (tethered) makes the first human ascent, piloted by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier.
1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried and convicted in a swift, pre-determined trial in the Palais de Justice, Paris, and condemned to death the following day.
1815 – Napoleon I of France begins his exile on Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
1863 – American Civil War: The H. L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship, sinks during a test, killing its inventor, Horace L. Hunley.
1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Glasgow is fought, resulting in the surrender of Glasgow, Missouri and its Union garrison, to the Confederacy.
1878 – The Edison Electric Light Company begins operation.
1888 – The “From Hell” letter allegedly sent by Jack the Ripper is received by investigators.
1894 – The Dreyfus affair: Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying.
1904 – The Russian Baltic Fleet leaves Reval, Estonia for Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War.
1910 – Airship America is launched from New Jersey in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft.
1917 – World War I: At Vincennes outside Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for the German Empire.
1923 – The German Rentenmark is introduced in Germany to counter hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic.
1928 – The airship, Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States.
1932 – Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight.
1934 – The Soviet Republic of China collapses when Chiang Kai-shek’s National Revolutionary Army successfully encircles Ruijin, forcing the fleeing Communists to begin the Long March.
1939 – The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed LaGuardia Airport) is dedicated.
1940 – The President of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, is executed by the Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco, making him the only European president to have been executed.
1944 – The Arrow Cross Party (very similar to Hitler’s NSDAP (Nazi party)) takes power in Hungary.
1945 – World War II: The former premier of Vichy France Pierre Laval is shot by a firing squad for treason.
1946 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 9 relating to ICJ is adopted.
1951 – Mexican chemist Luis E. Miramontes conducts the very last step of the first synthesis of norethisterone, the progestin that would later be used in one of the first three oral contraceptives.
1953 – British nuclear test Totem 1 is detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.
1965 – Vietnam War: The Catholic Worker Movement stages an anti-war rally in Manhattan including a public burning of a draft card; the first such act to result in arrest under a new amendment to the Selective Service Act.
1969 – Vietnam War; The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam is held in Washington D.C. and across the US. Over two million demonstrate nationally; about 250,000 in Washington D.C..
1971 – The start of the 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire in Iran.
1990 – Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.
1997 – The first supersonic land speed record is set by Andy Green in ThrustSSC (United Kingdom), 50 years and one day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Earth’s atmosphere.
1997 – The Cassini probe launches from Cape Canaveral on its way to Saturn.
2001 – NASA’s Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter’s moon Io.
2003 – China launches Shenzhou 5, its first manned space mission.
2005 – A riot in Toledo, Ohio breaks out during a National Socialist/Neo-Nazi protest; over 100 are arrested.
2007 – Seventeen activists in New Zealand are arrested in the country’s first post-9/11 anti-terrorism raids.