Today in History

1066		William of Normandy defeats King Harold in the Battle of Hastings.
1651		Laws are passed in Massachusetts forbidding the poor to adopt excessive styles of dress.
1705		The English Navy captures Barcelona in Spain.
1773		Britain's East India Company tea ships' cargo is burned at Annapolis, Md.
1806		Napoleon Bonaparte crushes the Prussian army at Jena, Germany.
1832		Blackfeet Indians attack American Fur Company trappers near Montana's Jefferson River, killing one.
1884		Transparent paper-strip photographic film is patented by George Eastman.
1912		Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is shot and wounded in assassination attempt in Milwaukee. He was saved by the papers in his breast pocket and, though wounded, insisted on finishing his speech.
1917		Mata Hari, a Paris dancer, is executed by the French after being convicted of passing military secrets to the Germans.
1930		Singer Ethel Merman stuns the audience when she holds a high C for sixteen bars while singing "I Got Rhythm" during her Broadway debut in Gershwin's Girl Crazy.
1933		The Geneva disarmament conference breaks up as Germany proclaims withdrawal from the disarmament initiative, as well as from the League of Nations, effective October 23. This begins German policy of independent action in foreign affairs.
1944		German Field Marshal Rommel, suspected of complicity in the July 20th plot against Hitler, is visited at home by two of Hitler's staff and given the choice of public trial or suicide by poison. He chooses suicide and it is announced that he died of wounds.
1947		Test pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier aboard a Bell X-1 rocket plane.
1950		Chinese Communist Forces begin to infiltrate the North Korean Army.
1962		Cuban Missile Crisis begins; USAF U-2 reconnaissance pilot photographs Cubans installing Soviet-made missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
1964		Rev. Martin Luther King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating a policy of non-violence.
1966		Montreal, Quebec, Canada, opens its underground Montreal Metro rapid-transit system.
1968		US Defense Department announces 24,000 soldiers and Marines will be sent back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours of duty.
1968		Jim Hines, USA, breaks the "ten-second barrier" in the 100-meter sprint at the Olympics in Mexico City; his time was 9.95.
1969		The British 50-pence coin enters the UK's currency, the first step toward covering to a decimal system, which was planned for 1971.
1983		Prime Minister of Grenada Maurice Bishop overthrown and later executed by a military coup.
1994		Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for establishing the Oslo Accords and preparing for Palestinian Self Government.
1998		Eric Robert Rudolph charged with the 1996 bombing during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia; It was one of several bombing incidents Rudolph carried out to protest legalized abortion in the US.
2012		Felix Baumgartner breaks the world record for highest manned balloon flight, highest parachute jump, and greatest free-fall velocity, parachuting from an altitude of approximately 24 miles (39km).