October 19 - Events

Events

• 202 BC – Second Punic War: At the Battle of Zama, Roman legions under Scipio Africanus defeat Hannibal Barca, leader of the army defending Carthage.
• 439 – The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, take Carthage in North Africa.
• 1216 – King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.
• 1386 – The Universität Heidelberg held its first lecture, making it the oldest German university.
• 1466 – The Thirteen Years' War ends with the Second Treaty of Thorn.
• 1469 – Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
• 1512 – Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology (Doctor in Biblia).
• 1649 – New Ross town, Co. Wexford, Ireland, surrenders to Oliver Cromwell.
• 1781 – At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis' sword and formally surrendered to George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau.
• 1789 – Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.
• 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grand Army of Napoleon at the Battle of Ulm. 30,000 prisoners are captured and 10,000 casualties inflicted on the losers.
• 1812 – Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.
• 1813 – The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats.
• 1822 – In Parnaíba; Simplício Dias da Silva, João Cândido de Deus e Silva and Domingos Dias declare the independent state of Piauí.
• 1864 – Battle of Cedar Creek – Union Army under Philip Sheridan destroys a Confederate Army under Jubal Early.
• 1864 – St. Albans Raid – Confederate raiders launch an attack on Saint Albans, Vermont from Canada.
• 1866 – Venice - Annexion of Veneto and Mantua to Italy - At Hotel Europa, Austria hands over Veneto to France, which hands it immediately over to Italy.
• 1900 – Max Planck, in his house at Grunewald, on the outskirts of Berlin, discovers the law of black body emission (Planck's law).
• 1904 – Polytechnic University of the Philippines founded as Manila Business School through the superintendence of the American C.A. O'Reilley.
• 1912 – Italy takes possession of Tripoli, Libya from the Ottoman Empire.
• 1914 – The First Battle of Ypres begins.
• 1917 – The Love Field in Dallas, Texas is opened.
• 1921 – Portuguese Prime Minister António Granjo and other politicians are murdered in a Lisbon coup.
• 1922 – British Conservative MPs meeting at the Carlton Club vote to break off the Coalition Government with David Lloyd George of the Liberal Party.
• 1933 – Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
• 1935 – The League of Nations places economic sanctions on fascist Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia.
• 1943 – Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
• 1944 – United States forces land in the Philippines.
• 1950 – The People's Liberation Army takes control of the town of Qamdo; this is sometimes called the "Invasion of Tibet".
• 1950 – The People's Republic of China joins the Korean War by sending thousands of troops across the Yalu river to fight United Nations forces.
• 1950 – Iran becomes the first country to accept technical assistance from the United States under the Point Four Program.
• 1954 – First ascent of Cho Oyu.
• 1956 – The Soviet Union and Japan sign a Joint Declaration, officially ending the state of war between the two countries that had existed since August 1945.
• 1969 – The first Prime Minister of Tunisia in twelve years, Bahi Ladgham, is appointed by President Habib Bourguiba.
• 1973 – President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.
• 1974 – Niue becomes a self-governing colony of New Zealand.
• 1976 – Battle of Aishiya in Lebanon.
• 1986 – Samora Machel, President of Mozambique and a prominent leader of FRELIMO, and 33 others die when their Tupolev 134 plane crashes into the Lebombo Mountains.
• 1987 – The United States Navy conducts Operation Nimble Archer, an attack on two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf.
• 1987 – Black Monday - the Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%, 508 points.
• 1989 – The convictions of the Guildford Four are quashed by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, after they had spent 15 years in prison.
• 2001 – SIEV-X, an Indonesian fishing boat en-route to Christmas Island, carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sinks in international waters with the loss of 353 people.
• 2003 – Mother Teresa is beatified by Pope John Paul II.
• 2004 – Care International aid worker Margaret Hassan is kidnapped in Iraq.
• 2005 – Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
• 2005 – Hurricane Wilma becomes the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum pressure of 882 mb.
• 2007 – Philippines: A bomb explosion rocked Glorietta 2, a shopping mall in Makati. The blast killed 11 and injured more than 100 people.