This Day In History October 31, 1992 On October 31, 1992, the Roman Catholic Church admitted it had been wrong to condemn Galileo Galilei for promoting the Copernican astronomical theory. After a 13 year investigation into the persecution of Galileo that led to his official condemnation in 1633, Pope John Paul II rectified a wrong that forced the Italian astronomer […]

This Day In History: October 30, 1534 The Act of Supremacy, passed by English Parliament on this day in history, 1534, declared King Henry VIII head of the newly minted Church of England, had a lot more to do with politics than it had to do with theology. It also was influenced by Henry’s complicated personal life, which was rendered […]

This Day In History: October 29, 539 B.C.E. On October 29, 539 B.C.E., Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, entered the city of Babylon and proclaimed himself “King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the four corners of the world.” He came bearing the Cyrus Cylinder, the first Charter of Human Rights, which he placed under the […]

This Day In History: October 28, 1466 “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” – Erasmus Born the illegitimate son of a priest and a physician’s daughter, Desiderius Erasmus entered the world on October 28, 1466 in Rotterdam. He was the most influential and well-known humanist of the […]

This Day In History: October 27, 2004 On October 27, 2004, the day that longtime Boston Red Sox fans always dreamed of finally dawned – their beloved team broke the Curse of the Bambino and won the World Series for the first time since 1918 by beating the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0 in a four game sweep. And what an […]

This Day In History: October 23, 1915 At least 50,000 people took to the streets of New York City on October 23, 1915 to march in the country’s largest women’s suffrage parade up to that time. Nearly 70 years after the founders of the women’s suffrage movement gathered in Seneca Falls, it seemed the tide was finally turning. (Interestingly, this […]

This Day In History: October 22, 1964 On October 22, 1964, existentialist author Jean Paul Sartre was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize for literature, which he chose to decline. His refusal was not an impulsive decision, but rather one based on longstanding personal and objective considerations. Sartre had also turned down the French Legion of Honor, as well as other […]

This Day In History: October 21, 1854 Lo! in that house of misery A lady with a lamp I see Pass through the glimmering gloom, And flit from room to room. –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow On October 21, 1854, Florence Nightingale departed for the Crimea accompanied by 38 other women at the request of Sidney Herbert, Britain’s secretary of state at […]

This Day In History: October 20, 1934 One year after Communist troops retreated to the hills to avoid the wrath of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Nationalist Party, only 4,000 out of the 86,000 had lived to tell the tale. Even though only five percent of Mao Tse-tung’s forces made it to the end of the Long March to northwest […]

Today in History: October 17, 1961 In the late evening hours of October 17, 1961, 30,000 Algerians were demonstrating throughout the city of Paris to protest a curfew imposed upon them earlier in the month by the city’s police chief. Before the night was over, at least 200 Algerians died at the hands of the Paris police. Violent exchanges had […]

This Day In History: October 16, 1854 The world became a more colorful and interesting place on October 16, 1854 when Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland. (Later in life he dropped “Fingal O’Flahertie Wills”, explaining his name was far too long for a person who would be as famous as he.) During his childhood, Oscar […]

This Day In History: October 15, 1888 During the autumn of 1888, a murderer was creeping through the streets and alleyways of London’s East End. His victims were invariably alcoholic prostitutes. He slit their throats prior to mutilating their bodies, and in at least three cases removed several of their internal organs. As the murders stacked up, the similarities between […]

This Day In History: October 14, 1975 Nearly a year after the murder of his parents and four siblings, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr.’s trial began on October 14, 1975. The family home reportedly became haunted after the tragedy and was the inspiration for the book The Amityville Horror and the movie of the same name. It all began on the […]

This Day In History: October 13, 1792 Way back on October 13, 1792, when George Washington was serving his first term as president, the first issue of what is today known as The Old Farmer’s Almanac went on sale for the asking price of six pence (nine cents). It was a big hit, tripling its circulation from 3,000 to 9,000 […]

This Day In History: October 10, 732 C.E. The Battles of Tours was not a war of nations, but rather a battle of civilizations between Islam and Christian Europe. The Muslims had been conquering the remains of the Roman and Persian empires and were heading toward modern day France to continue their expansion. The Frankish King Charles (“The Hammer”) Martel […]

This Day In History: October 9, 1635 On October 9, 1635, a Puritan minister named Roger Williams, who had fled England in 1630 with the hope of escaping religious persecution, was banished from Massachusetts because of the same sort of intolerance he had faced back home. His crime? Advocating complete religious tolerance and speaking out against the confiscation of Native […]

This Day In History: October 8, 1971 John Lennon’s second solo album Imagine, the follow-up to John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, was released on October 8, 1971 in the U.K. (It had been released the previous month in the U.S.) Imagine was an artistic and commercial triumph, and proved to be the high water mark of Lennon’s career until his final […]

This Day In History: October 7, 1943 On Wake Atoll in the South Pacific, there is a gravel path edged by white coral leading away from the road and toward the water. On the shore of the turquoise lagoon, the highest coral boulder bears a chiseled inscription. It reads: “98 US PW, 5-10-43.” This is a self-written epitaph of a […]