54 – Nero ascends to the Roman throne.
1307 – Hundreds of Knights Templar in France are simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair, to be later tortured into a confession of heresy.
1399 - Henry IV (the first King from the House of Lancaster) was crowned king of England.
1773 –
The Whirlpool Galaxy is discovered by Charles Messier.
1792 – In Washington, D.C., the cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House since 1818) is laid.
1812 - During the War of 1812, British and Indian forces under Sir Isaac Brock defeated Americans under General Stephen Van Rensselaer at the Battle of Queenstown Heights, effectively ending further United States invasion of Canada.
1884 - Greenwich, London, was chosen as the universal time meridian of longitude from which standard times throughout the world are calculated.
1917 – The
Miracle of the Sun is witnessed by an estimated 70,000 people in the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal.
1943 – World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
Births:
1946 – Edwina Currie, British politician
1947 – Sammy Hagar, American singer (Van Halen)
1962 – Kelly Preston, American actress
1962 – Jerry Rice, American football player
1967 – Kate Walsh, American actress
1968 – Tisha Campbell-Martin, American actress and singer
1971 – Sacha Baron Cohen, English comedian
1973 – Matt Hughes, American mixed martial artist
1977 – Gareth Batty, English cricketer
1977 – Antonio Di Natale, Italian football player
1979 – Wes Brown, English footballer
1980 – Ashanti, American singer
1980 – David Haye, English boxer
1980 – Scott Parker, English footballer
1981 – Kele Okereke, English singer (Bloc Party)
1982 – Ian Thorpe, Australian swimmer
1986 – Gabriel Agbonlahor, English footballer
1066 - The Battle of Hastings was fought on the southern coast of England (on Senlac Hill, near Pevensey). An English army, commanded by King Harold II (the Anglo-Saxon king of England), was defeated by the invasion force of William of Normandy. King Harold was killed and William 'The Conqueror' was proclaimed King of England.
1929 - The world's largest airship, the R101, made its maiden voyage.
1947 - Air Force pilot Charles E. (Chuck) Yeager broke the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 rocket plane over Edwards Air Force Base in California at 670 mph.
1969 - Ahead of the complete changeover to decimalization, Britain scrapped the 10 shilling note and introduced the 50 pence coin.
1971 - U.S. spacecraft Mariner 9 transmitted the first close-up TV pictures of Mars to Earth.
1986 - An historic moment for Queen Elizabeth II as she became the first British monarch to walk along the Great Wall of China.
ON THIS DAY by date
1969: Millions march in US Vietnam Moratorium
Americans have taken part in peace initiatives across the United States to protest against the continuing war in Vietnam.
The Peace Moratorium is believed to have been the largest demonstration in US history with an estimated two million people involved.
In towns and cities throughout the US, students, working men and women, school children, the young and the old, took part in religious services, school seminars, street rallies and meetings.
Supporters of the Vietnam Moratorium wore black armbands to signify their dissent and paid tribute to American personnel killed in the war since 1961.
The focal point was the capital, Washington DC, where more than 40 different activities were planned and about 250,000 demonstrators gathered to make their voices heard.
I do believe this nation is in danger of committing itself to goals and personalities that guarantee the war's continuance.
Senator Edward Kennedy
Some peace demonstrators gathered on the Capitol steps last night singing songs and holding a candlelit vigil until rallies began in the morning.
Addressing a rally in Washington, Dr Benjamin Spock, the child care expert, said the war was a "total abomination" that was crippling America and must be stopped.
Outside the White House, there were scuffles and several arrests made when police clamped down on black activists.
In Portland, Oregon, 400 protesters clashed with police after an attempt to prevent conscripts entering an army induction centre.
Administration supporters have been critical of the moratorium. General Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called protesters "interminably vocal youngsters, strangers alike to soap and reason".
In a letter to President Richard Nixon, 15 Republican Congressmen have called for an intensification of the campaign.
Supporters of the war made their views known, too.
In New York, where the mayor, John Lindsay, had ordered the US flag to be flown at half-mast for the day, police officers and fire fighters drove with their headlights on in protest at the moratorium day as did many ordinary American citizens.
Some offiicials wore badges that read: "USA - Unity and Service for America".
But Senator Edward Kennedy, a vocal anti-war campaigner, called for combat troops to be withdrawn from Vietnam by October next year and all forces by the end of 1972.
Speaking in Boston, Senator Kennedy was careful not to accuse the president of perpetuating the war.
"I do not believe that President Nixon is committed to continuing the war in Vietnam, but I do believe this nation is in danger of committing itself to goals and personalities that guarantee the war's continuance."
President Nixon continued to work from the White House without comment, as thousands marched around him.
Peace activists congregated outside US embassies across Europe. In London a crowd of some 300 people demonstrated opposite the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
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Millions marched against the Vietnam War outside the White House
In Context
American combat troops had been fighting the Communist Viet Cong in Vietnam since 1965.
Some 45,000 Americans had already been killed by the end of 1969. Almost half a million US men and women were deployed in the conflict, and opposition to the war was growing.
The Moratorium for the first time brought out America's middle class and middle-aged voters, in large numbers. Other demonstrations followed in its wake.
Nixon had already established a gradual programme of withdrawal of US forces, but the war continued, supported by his "silent majority" of voters.
After an established ceasefire in 1973, US deployment in Vietnam ended. Saigon eventually capitulated to the Communist forces on 30 April 1975.
Stories From 15 Oct
1969: Millions march in US Vietnam Moratorium
1964: Khrushchev 'retires' as head of USSR
1999: Police award Silcott damages
1976: UDR men jailed for Showband killings
1987: Fiji one step closer to a republic
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.
1666 - Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that Charles II had started wearing the first known waistcoat. The King was so overweight that he left the bottom button undone, a fashion custom followed to this day.
1815 - Napoleon began his exile on the island of St. Helena, after suffering a final defeat against a force under the Duke of Wellington.
1888 – The "From Hell" letter sent by Jack the Ripper is received by investigators.
1946 - Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo, poisoned himself hours before he was to have been executed.
1956 – Fortran, the first modern computer language, is shared with the coding community for the first time.
1961 - The human rights organization Amnesty International was established in London.
1973 - Britain and Iceland ended the 'Cod War' with agreement on fishing rights.
1993 - Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
1997 - British driver Andy Green, driving the 13.7 m long (45 ft) jet car Thrust SSC, set a new land speed record and broke the sound barrier at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, with a two-way average of 763.035 mph (Mach 1.020).
2001 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter's moon Io.
2007 – Seventeen activists in New Zealand are arrested in the country's first post 9/11 anti-terrorism raids.
1793 – Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.
1834 - The original Houses of Parliament were almost completely destroyed by fire.
1846 - Ether was first used in an operation, at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
1853 - The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia, starting the Crimean War.
1916 - Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic, in New York City.
1923 – The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.
1946 - At Nuremberg, Germany, ten high-ranking Nazi officials were hung for their war crimes during World War II.
1958 - Britain's most popular children's television programme 'Blue Peter' was first broadcast on BBC TV.
1964 - China detonated its first atomic bomb, at Lop Nor.
1974 - Three prison staff were taken to hospital and dozens of prisoners were injured after rioting and fires at the Long Kesh Maze prison, Belfast.
1978 – Pope John Paul II is elected after the October 1978 Papal conclave.
1984 - Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize as a unifying figure in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.
1984 – The Bill debuted on ITV, eventually becoming the longest-running police procedural in British television history.
1998 – Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a warrant from Spain requesting his extradition on murder charges.
2002 – Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.
2006 – Hawaii Earthquake: A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport.
1968: Black athletes make silent protest
Two black American athletes have made history at the Mexico Olympics by staging a silent protest against racial discrimination.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze medallists in the 200m, stood with their heads bowed and a black-gloved hand raised as the American National Anthem played during the victory ceremony.
The pair both wore black socks and no shoes and Smith wore a black scarf around his neck. They were demonstrating against continuing racial discrimination of black people in the United States.
As they left the podium at the end of the ceremony they were booed by many in the crowd.
'Black America will understand'
At a press conference after the event Tommie Smith, who holds seven world records, said: "If I win I am an American, not a black American. But if I did something bad then they would say 'a Negro'. We are black and we are proud of being black.
"Black America will understand what we did tonight."
Smith said he had raised his right fist to represent black power in America, while Carlos raised his left fist to represent black unity. Together they formed an arch of unity and power.
He said the black scarf represented black pride and the black socks with no shoes stood for black poverty in racist America.
Within a couple of hours the actions of the two Americans were being condemned by the International Olympic Committee.
A spokesperson for the organisation said it was "a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit."
It is widely expected the two will be expelled from the Olympic village and sent back to the US.
In September last year Tommie Smith, a student at San Jose State university in California, told reporters that black members of the American Olympic team were considering a total boycott of the 1968 games.
'Dirty negro'
He said: "It is very discouraging to be in a team with white athletes. On the track you are Tommie Smith, the fastest man in the world, but once you are in the dressing rooms you are nothing more than a dirty Negro."
The boycott had been the idea of professor of sociology at San Jose State university, and friend of Tommie Smith, Harry Edwards.
Professor Edwards set up the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) and appealed to all black American athletes to boycott the games to demonstrate to the world that the civil rights movement in the US had not gone far enough.
He told black Americans they should refuse "to be utilised as 'performing animals' in the games."
Although the boycott never materialised the OPHR gained much support from black athletes around the world.
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Tommie Smith, centre, and John Carlos, right, make their protest
In Context
That evening, the silver medallist in the 200m event, Peter Norman of Australia, who was white, wore an OPHR badge in support of Smith and Carlos' protest.
But two days later the two athletes were suspended from their national team, expelled from the Olympic village and sent home to America.
Many felt they had violated the Olympic spirit by drawing politics into the games.
On their return both men were welcomed as heroes by the African-American community but others regarded them as trouble-makers. Both received death threats.
Thirty years after their protest, the two men, who went on to become high school athletics coaches, were honoured for their part in furthering the civil rights movement in America.
Stories From 17 Oct
1989: Earthquake hits San Francisco
2000: Four dead in Hatfield rail crash
1980: Pope welcomes Queen to the Vatican
1968: Black athletes make silent protest
1978: Grey seal cull dramatically reduced
1860 - The world's first professional golf tournament was held, at Prestwick in Scotland.
1931 - Mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
1933 – Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.
1956 - The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.
1973 - The start of a major world oil crisis when
OPEC increased prices by 70 per cent and cut production, it was in protest at US support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War.
1979 - Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1989 - An earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck northern California, killing 67 people and causing $7 billion worth of damage. It was witnessed on live television by millions of people who were watching the third game of the World Series of baseball, being played in San Francisco.
2003 – The pinnacle is fitted on the roof of
Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the
Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur by 56 metres (184 ft) and become the World's tallest highrise.
1469 - Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile, making Spain a world power.
1851 – Herman elton's Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.
1867 - The U.S. took formal possession of Alaska from Russia. It had cost $7.2 million.
1910 - The trial of English murderer Dr Crippen began at the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London.
1922 - The British Broadcasting Corporation was officially formed, to operate from Marconi House in London, under the management of John Reith.
1968 – The U.S. Olympic Committee suspends Tommie Smith and John Carlos for giving a "black power" salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games.
1781 - The American War of Independence came to an end when British commander Lord Cornwallis surrendered his 8,000 troops to George Washington at Yorktown, in Virginia, after a three week siege.
1873 – Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.
1954 - Egypt and Britain signed a pact on the Suez Canal, ending 72 years of British military occupation. Britain agreed to withdraw its force within 20 months and Egypt agreed to maintain freedom of canal navigation.
1959 – The first discothèque opens, at the Scotch-Club in Aachen, Germany.
1970 - British Petroleum announced the first major discovery of oil under the British sector of the North Sea.
1977 - The supersonic Concorde jet landed in New York City for the first time.
1987 - Black Monday. Millions of pounds were wiped off the value of shares and other financial markets around the world. Wall Street ended the day down 22%, a greater fall than the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
1989 - The 'Guildford Four' had their convictions quashed after wrongly serving 14 years in prison for the IRA bombings at Guildford and Woolwich.
2005 – Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.