October 3 - Events

Events

• 52 BC – Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Caesar, ending the siege and Battle of Alesia.
• 42 BC – First Battle of Philippi: Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight a decisive battle with Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius.
• 382 – Emperor Theodosius I concludes a peace treaty with the Goths and settles them in the Balkans in exchange for military service.
• 1283 – Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, becomes the first nobleman executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered.
• 1574 – The Siege of Leiden is lifted by the Watergeuzen.
• 1683 – The Qing Dynasty naval commander Shi Lang reaches Taiwan (under the Kingdom of Tungning) to receive the formal surrender of Zheng Keshuang and Liu Guoxuan after the Battle of Penghu.
• 1712 – The Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor.
• 1739 – The Treaty of Nissa is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia at the finish of the Russian-Turkish War, 1736–1739.
• 1778 – British Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska.
• 1789 – George Washington makes the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America.
• 1795 – General Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence being named to defend the French National Convention against armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the three year old revolutionary government.
• 1835 – The Staedtler Company is founded in Nuremberg, Germany.
• 1849 – American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death.
• 1863 – The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by President Abraham Lincoln as are Thursdays, November 30, 1865 and November 29, 1866.
• 1872 – Bloomingdale brothers opened their first store at 938 Third Avenue, New York City.
• 1873 – Captain Jack and companions are hanged for their part in the Modoc War.
• 1912 – U.S. forces defeat Nicaraguan rebels under the command of Benjamín Zeledón at the Battle of Coyotepe Hill.
• 1918 – King Boris III of Bulgaria accedes to the throne.
• 1919 – Cincinnati Reds pitcher Adolfo Luque becomes the 1st Latin player to appear in a World Series.
• 1929 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia, "Land of the South Slavs".
• 1932 – Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1935 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy invades Ethiopia under General de Bono.
• 1942 – Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space.
• 1949 – WERD, the 1st black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1950 – Korean War: The First Battle of Maryang San, primarily pitting Australian and British forces against communist China, begins.
• 1951 – The "Shot Heard 'Round the World", one of the greatest moments in Major League Baseball history, occurs when the New York Giants' Bobby Thomson hits a game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning off of the Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, to win the National League pennant after being down 14 games.
• 1952 – The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon to become the world's third nuclear power.
• 1955 – The Mickey Mouse Club debuts on ABC.
• 1957 – Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems is ruled not obscene.
• 1961 – The Dick Van Dyke Show premieres on CBS-TV in the United States.
• 1962 – Project Mercury: Sigma 7 is launched from Cape Canaveral, with Astronaut Wally Schirra aboard, for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight.
• 1964 – First Buffalo Wings are made at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York.
• 1981 – The Hunger Strike by Provisional Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland ends after seven months and ten deaths.
• 1985 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight. (Mission STS-51-J).
• 1986 – TASCC, a superconducting cyclotron at the Chalk River Laboratories, is officially opened.
• 1990 – Re-unification of Germany. The German Democratic Republic ceases to exist and its territory becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany. East German citizens became part of the European Community, which later became the European Union. Now celebrated as German Unity Day.
• 1993 – Battle of Mogadishu: In an attempt to capture officials of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's organisation in Mogadishu, Somalia, 18 US soldiers and about 1,000 Somalis are killed in heavy fighting.
• 1995 – O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
• 2003 – Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy is attacked by one of the show's tigers, canceling the show until 2009, when they rejoined the tiger that mauled Roy just six years earlier.
• 2008 – The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 for the US financial system is signed by President Bush.