October 10

415 The original Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) was dedicated in Constantinople in 342 but was burnt down and destroyed by rioters. A second church on the site was ordered by Theodosius II, who inaugurated it on October 10, 415. A fire started during the tumult of the Nika Revolt and burned the second Hagia Sophia to the ground in January 532.

732 In 732 an army of around 60,000 Muslims led by Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Governor-General of al-Andalus crossed the Pyrenees and invaded France. Their western advance was halted by Charles Martel, the King of the Francs at the Battle of Tours, near Poitiers on October 10, 732.  Charles's victory stopped the northward advance of the Islamic forces from the Iberian Peninsula and preserved Christianity in Europe during a period when Muslim rule was overrunning the remains of the Byzantine and Persian Empires.

Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours. Charles de Steuben 

1581 Bayinnaung Kyawhtin Nawrahta died on October 10, 1581. During his 31 year reign as king of Toungoo Dynasty of Burma (Myanmar), Bayinnaung assembled the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia, which included much of modern-day Burma, Chinese Shan states, Lan Na, Lan Xang, Manipur and Siam.

Statue of Bayinnaung in front of the National Museum. Author Phyo WP

1731 The English scientist Henry Cavendish was born on October 10, 1731 in Nice, where his family was living at the time. His mother was Lady Anne Grey and his father was Lord Charles Cavendish, third son of William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire. Henry Cavendish was the first to recognize hydrogen gas as a discrete substance, by naming the gas from a metal-acid reaction "flammable air". He is usually given credit for its discovery as an element.

1738 The artist Benjamin West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, on October 10, 1738. West painted famous historical scenes such as The Death of Nelson, and Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky. In 1770 he painted a revolutionary picture of General Wolfe's death at the siege of Québec, which broke a standard rule of historical portraiture with everyone dressed in military uniform rather than depicted in the clothing of the Ancient Greeks or Romans. 

The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West

1789 On October 10, 1789, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician, stood before the National Assembly and proposed an apparatus designed for carrying out executions by beheading be adopted as the official means of capital punishment. The device, a decapitation piece of equipment incorporating a vertically-descending blade was originally called a louisette. It was later named after Guillotin, however his family were unhappy at having their name attached to such a device.

1813 Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi was born on October 10, 1813, in Le Roncole, a village near Parma in northern Italy's Po River valley. The child of a poor inn-keeper, Giuseppe showed unusual musical talent at an early age. At age ten, he began attending school in the larger town of Busseto and boarding with a cobbler friend of his father’s. On Sundays and feast days, he would walk back to Le Roncole to play the organ for church services.

Verdi's childhood home at Le Roncole By Maxperot 

1821 On October 10, 1821 29-year-old law student Charles Finney (1792-1875) went into the woods near his home to settle the question of his soul's salvation. That night, he experienced a dramatic conversion, full of what seemed "waves of liquid love throughout his body." Finney became the leading American evangelist of the first half of the nineteenth century and one of the leaders of the second Great Awakening.

1845 The Naval School opened on October 10, 1845 in Annapolis, Maryland with 50 midshipman students and seven professors. The institution was established to provide a formal education and training for officers of the United States Navy. Over time, it evolved into the United States Naval Academy and has continued to be a prestigious institution for the education of future naval officers.

1846 Neptune has 14 known moons, which are named for minor water deities in Greek mythology. By far the largest of them is Triton, discovered by William Lassell on October 10, 1846, just 17 days after the discovery of Neptune itself. Over a century passed before the discovery of the second natural satellite, Nereid.

A Voyager 2 mosaic of Triton

1881 The Savoy Theatre was built in London's West End to showcase Gilbert and Sullivan's works, which became known as the Savoy operas as a result. When it opened on October 10, 1881, it was the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity.

1889 Kermit Roosevelt, the second son of President Theodore Roosevelt, was born on October 10, 1889. He fought a lifelong battle with depression ultimately leading to suicide while serving in the U.S. Army in Alaska during World War II.

1903 Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women's Social and Political Union to promote the cause of votes for women. She founded the organisation at her home on 62 Nelson Street, Manchester with her daughters Christabel and Sylvia on October 10, 1903. The Grade II Victoria Villa is now home to the Pankhurst Centre.

62 Nelson Street, Manchester. By Kurt Adkins Wikipedia

1911 The Wuchang Uprising was an armed rebellion against the ruling Qing dynasty  It began with the dissatisfaction of the handling of a railway crisis, which escalated to an uprising when the revolutionaries went up against Qing government officials. The New Army then joined the revolutionaries in a coup against their own authorities in the city of Wuchang, Hubei province on October 10, 1911. The Wuchang Uprising served as the catalyst to the Xinhai Revolution, which led to the downfall of the Qing dynasty, the last Imperial court in China, and the founding of the Republic of China.

1933 On October 10, 1933, a Boeing 247 aircraft operated by United Airlines crashed near Chesterton, Indiana. The transcontinental flight, carrying three crew and four passengers, had originated in Newark, New Jersey, with its final destination in Oakland, California. All aboard died in the crash, which was proven to have been deliberately caused by an on-board explosive device, the first such proven case in the history of commercial aviation.

1935 A coup d'état by the royalist leadership of the Greek Armed Forces took place in Athens, Greece on October 10, 1935. It overthrew the government of Panagis Tsaldaris and established a regency under Georgios Kondylis, effectively ending the Second Hellenic Republic. Kondylis staged a plebiscite the following month for the return of the monarchy. The official tally showed that 98 percent of the voters supported the return of King George II—an implausibly high total that could have only been obtained through fraud.

1935 George Gershwin's life work culminated in the three act opera Porgy and Bess, which was based on the 1926 novel Porgy by DuBose Heyward. A jazzy fusion of classical opera and Broadway musical, the work was set in the fictional all-black slum dwelling of Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina. It opened on October 10, 1935.

1945 The German Workers' Party, which would become the Nazi Party, was founded in January 1919. During the Great Depression, millions of jobless voters joined the Nazi party, and in 1932 it became the largest bloc in the Reichstag. All German political parties — except the Nazi Party — were outlawed the following year. The defeat of Germany in World War II marked the end of the Nazi Germany era and the party was formally abolished on October 10, 1945 by the Allied Control Council.

1957 On October 10 1957, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was forced to apologize to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, after he was refused service at a Howard Johnson's restaurant in Dover, Delaware. The refusal of service to Gbedemah was one of many incidents in which African diplomats and other visitors of color were discriminated against in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. 

1957 The Windscale fire in Cumbria, England, the world's first major nuclear accident, took place on October 10, 1957. The incident would have been much more severe, were it not for "Cockroft's Folly" - chimney filters installed at great expense, and labelled as a waste of time and money.

1967 The United Nations Outer Space Treaty precludes any country from claiming sovereignty over anywhere in space. The treaty also bans the nations that signed it from putting weapons of mass destruction into space. The treaty entered into force on October 10, 1967.

1970 Fiji was a British Crown colony until October 10, 1970, when it gained independence as a Commonwealth realm. The coat of arms of Fiji was retained after independence from the United Kingdom in 1970, partly because of its links to the last Fijian king, who ceded his country to Britain.

1971 The original London Bridge in London, England, was sold to the United States and shipped stone-by-stone to Lake Havasu City, Arizona. The bridge was reconstructed in Lake Havasu City and reopened to the public on October 10, 1971. The bridge has become a popular tourist attraction in Lake Havasu City.

"New" London Bridge rebuilt, Lake Havasu City, 2003.By Aran Johnson

1975 Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton married for the second time on October 10, 1975, at a Botswana game park. Their second marriage, however, was short-lived, as they divorced less than a year later in July 1976.

1979 Pink Floyd was inducted into the National Association of Brick Distributors' Hall of Fame on October 10, 1991 for their services to the brick industry through their 1979 album, The Wall. The album's cover features a giant brick wall, and the song "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" contains the iconic lyric "All in all, it's just another brick in the wall."

1980 The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta consists of several buildings including Martin Luther King's boyhood home and the original Ebenezer Baptist Church. These places were included in the National Historic Site when it was established on October 10, 1980.

1980 Margaret Thatcher famously declared in a speech at the Conservative Party conference on October 10, 1980: "To those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catchphrase, the u-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning." The phrase made reference to Thatcher's refusal to perform a "U-turn" in response to opposition to her liberalization of the economy,

1992 World Mental Health Day is observed on October 10 every year,  It is an international day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy against social stigma. The day was celebrated for the first time on October 10, 1992 at the initiative of World Federation for Mental Health Deputy Secretary General Richard Hunter. 

2002 The NASDAQ Composite, which is known for its association with the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s, peaked at a high of 5,132.52 on March 10, 2000, during the height of the dot-com boom. However, following the burst of the dot-com bubble and the subsequent market correction, it did fell significantly. On October 10, 2002, the NASDAQ Composite Index reached a low point of 1,108.49, representing a substantial decline from its peak.

2006 Since 2006, October 10 has been recognized as Tom Cruise Day in Japan, honoring the fact that he's visited the country more than any other Western actor. Cruise is one of the most popular and recognizable actors in Japan. He has starred in many blockbuster films that have been released in the country, including the Mission: Impossible franchise, Top Gun, and Jerry Maguire.

2020 On October 10, 2020, the SSC Tuatara, driven by Oliver Webb, claimed to have set a new production-car land-speed record on State Route 160 between Las Vegas and Pahrump, Nevada. The SSC Tuatara achieved an average speed of 316.11 mph (508.73 km/h) over two runs. The car's two runs in opposite directions allegedly recorded speeds of 301.07 mph and 331.15 mph.