October 2 in History

Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general, statesman, and author who was the dictator of the Roman Republic almost continuously from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. A member of the First Triumvirate, he led the Roman armies through the Gallic Wars and defeated his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil war. He consolidated power and was titled as dictator perpetuo in 44 BC, helping create the political conditions that led to the collapse of the Roman Republic and the emergence of the Roman Empire. For his role in these events, he is regarded as one of history's most influential figures. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed the First Triumvirate, an informal political alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass political power were opposed by many in the Senate, including Cato the Younger with the private support of Cicero. Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic through a string of military victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, which greatly expanded Roman territory. During this time, he invaded Britain and built a bridge across the Rhine. These achievements, along with the loyalty of his veteran army, threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey. The alliance between Caesar and Pompey slowly broke down and, by 50 BC, Pompey had realigned himself with the Senate. With his command expiring and the Gallic Wars largely concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to relinquish his military command and return to Rome. In early January 49 BC, Caesar openly defied the Senate by crossing the Rubicon and marching towards Rome at the head of an army. This act began Caesar's civil war, which he won, leaving him in a position of near-unchallenged power and influence in 45 BC. After assuming control of government and pardoning many of his enemies, Caesar carried out various reforms and public works. He created the Julian calendar to replace the republican lunisolar calendar, reduced the size of the grain dole, settled his veterans in new overseas colonies, greatly increased the size of the Senate, and extended citizenship to communities in Spain and what is now northern Italy. In early 44 BC, he was proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity". Fearful of his power, his domination of the state, and the possibility that he might make himself king, a group of senators led by Brutus and Cassius assassinated Caesar on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC. A new series of civil wars broke out and the constitutional government of the Republic was never fully restored. Caesar's great-nephew and adoptive heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to sole power after defeating his opponents thirteen years later. Octavian then set about consolidating his power, transforming the Republic into the Roman Empire as its first emperor. Caesar was an accomplished author and commentator; much of his life is known through his own accounts of his military campaigns. Other contemporary sources include the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. Later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also important sources. Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history. His cognomen subsequently became a synonym for emperor; the title Caesar was used throughout the Roman Empire, and gave rise to modern derivatives such as Kaiser and Tsar. He has frequently appeared in literary and artistic works.

Michael I Rangabe (also spelled Rhangabe; Greek: Μιχαὴλ Αʹ Ῥαγκαβές, romanized: Mikhaḗl 1 Rhangkabés; c. 770 – 11 January 844) was Byzantine emperor from 811 to 813. A courtier of Emperor Nikephoros I (r. 802–811), he survived the disastrous campaign against the Bulgars and was preferred as imperial successor over Staurakios (r. 811–811), who was severely injured. He was proclaimed emperor by Patriarch Nicephorus I of Constantinople on 2 October 811. Michael's policies were generally conciliatory, and he was overwhelmingly influenced by the iconodule clerics Nikephoros and Theodore the Stoudite. He improved relations with the Franks, even to the point of recognising Charlemagne as an emperor – although not "of the Romans" – and requesting papal arbitration in the Moechian controversy. His half-hearted leadership of the campaign against the Bulgars resulted in defeat in the Battle of Versinikia. The stratēgos of the Anatolic Theme, Leo the Armenian, a popular and successful general, abandoned Michael on the battlefield but was proclaimed emperor by the military, in what was the last military overthrow of an emperor in Byzantine history. Michael was pressured to abdicate, and he retired to a monastery. His sons were castrated to prevent the continuation of his dynasty.

Theophilos (Greek: Θεόφιλος, romanized: Theóphilos, sometimes Latinised as Theophilus; c. 812 – 20 January 842) was Byzantine Emperor from 829 until his death in 842. He was the second emperor of the Amorian dynasty and the last emperor to support iconoclasm. Theophilos was well-educated in the imperial household. Upon his accession to the throne he faced the dual threat of the Abbasid Caliphate in Asia Minor and the Aghlabids in Sicily, and personally led armies against both foes from 831 onwards. He won fleeting victories but the retaliation of Caliph al-Mu'tasim (r. 833–842) was devastating, as was most humiliating in the Sack of Amorion in 838, the ancestral home of Theophilos's Amorian dynasty. Internal strife within the Caliphate allowed the Byzantines to recover. Theophilos engaged in many construction and renovation projects. One of his closest allies was the learned and cosmopolitan John the Grammarian, and they both improved relations with the Caliph and appreciated Arabic culture. He also secured nominal overlordship over the Principality of Serbia, uniting against their common enemy, the First Bulgarian Empire. The military defeats to the Arabs inspired a more intensely iconoclastic policy than what Theophilos inherited from his father Michael II, and he persecuted many clerics for refusing to submit to the imperial will. After his death, his wife Theodora rescinded this policy but also defended his broader reputation. Accordingly the historical record preserves a picture of Theophilos as a just ruler and keen constructor and administrator, alongside rebukes of his iconoclasm.

Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. A Sunni Muslim ruler of Kurdish origin, Saladin was an important figure of the Third Crusade and spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.

The Battle of Largs (2 October 1263) was a battle between the kingdoms of Norway and Scotland, on the Firth of Clyde near Largs, Scotland. The conflict formed part of the Norwegian expedition against Scotland in 1263, in which Haakon Haakonsson, King of Norway attempted to reassert Norwegian sovereignty over the western seaboard of Scotland. Victory was achieved by the Scots with a crafty three-tiered strategy on the part of the young Scottish king, Alexander III: plodding diplomacy forced the campaign to bad weather months and a ferocious storm ravaged the Norwegian fleet, stripping it of many vessels and supplies and making the forces on the Scottish coast vulnerable to an attack that forced the Norwegians into a hasty retreat that was to end their 500-year history of invasion, and leaving Scotland to consolidate its resources into building the nation. Since the beginning of the 12th century, Largs in the north Ayrshire area of Scotland had lain at the periphery of the Norwegian realm, ruled by magnates who recognised the overlordship of the kings of Norway. In the mid-13th century, two Scottish kings, Alexander II and his son Alexander III, attempted to incorporate the region into their own realm. Following Alexander III's early, failed attempts to purchase the islands from the Norwegian king, the Scots launched military operations to end the issue altogether by asserting royal sovereignty over all of western Scotland. Haakon responded to the Scottish aggression by leading a massive Norwegian fleet, thought to number in the thousands of vessels, that reached the Hebrides in the summer of 1263. Realising that the Scots were tremendously outnumbered by an experienced and mobile enemy, Alexander III sought a protracted diplomatic intervention that would buy time to acquire more troops and possibly force the Norwegians into the stormy autumn and winter months where an invasion could be stalled due to weather. By late September, Haakon's fleet occupied the Firth of Clyde and the temperate days were almost at an end. When negotiations between the kingdoms broke down, Haakon brought the bulk of his fleet to anchor off the Cumbraes, poised to invade Scotland at a site of his choosing. On the night of 1 October, during a bout of stormy weather, several Norwegian vessels were driven aground on the Ayrshire coast, near present-day Largs. On 2 October, while the Norwegians were salvaging their vessels, the main Scottish army arrived on the scene. Composed of infantry and cavalry, the Scottish force was commanded by Alexander of Dundonald, Steward of Scotland. The Norwegians were gathered in two groups: the larger main force on the beach and a small contingent atop a nearby mound. The advance of the Scots threatened to divide the Norwegian forces, so the contingent on the mound ran to rejoin their comrades on the beach below. Seeing them running from the mound, the Norwegians on the beach believed they were retreating and fled back towards the ships. There was fierce fighting on the beach, and the Scots took up a position on the mound formerly held by the Norwegians. Late in the day, the Norwegians recaptured the mound after several hours of skirmishing. The Scots withdrew from the scene and the Norwegians reboarded their ships. They returned the next morning to collect their dead. With the weather deteriorating, Haakon's fleet sailed to Orkney to overwinter. The battle is commemorated in Largs by an early 20th-century monument, and festivities held there annually since the 1980s.

Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, 6th Earl of Salisbury, known as Warwick the Kingmaker, was an English nobleman, administrator, landowner of the House of Neville fortune and military commander. The eldest son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, he became Earl of Warwick through marriage, and was the wealthiest and most powerful English peer of his age, with political connections that went beyond the country's borders. One of the principal leaders in the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), originally on the Yorkist side but later switching to the Lancastrian side, he was instrumental in the rise of a king and the deposition of two, which led to his epithet of "Kingmaker".

The Siege of Kazan, also known as the Fall of Kazan, was the decisive military campaign of the Russo-Kazan Wars in 1552 that resulted in the capture of Kazan and the annexation of the Khanate of Kazan by the Tsardom of Russia. The siege began on 23 August 1552 and ended with the capture of the city on 2 October. Russian rule was followed by continued resistance in the former Khanate. Rebel governments emerged in Çalım and Mişätamaq, while a new khan was invited from the Nogai Horde. The resulting rebellion continued until 1556.

The Nottingham cheese riot, also known as the Great Cheese Riot, started on 2 October 1766 at the city's annual Goose Fair. Coming at a time of food shortages and rising foodstuff prices in England, violence broke out when city residents attempted to prevent Lincolnshire merchants from taking away Nottinghamshire cheeses they had bought at the fair. A warehouse, shops and a cargo boat were looted and hundreds of cheese wheels were rolled through the streets by angry rioters. Government troops were deployed when the mayor of Nottingham, Robie Swann, was unable to restore control. One man was killed and several wounded as the soldiers opened fire on the rioters. Order was eventually restored after several days of unrest.

The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence or simply the American Revolution, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and, commanded by George Washington, defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation. In 1763, after the British Empire gained dominance in North America following its victory over the French in the Seven Years' War, tensions and disputes began escalating between the British and the Thirteen Colonies, especially following passage of the Stamp and Townshend Acts. The British Army responded by seeking to occupy Boston militarily, leading to the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. In mid-1774, with tensions escalating even further between the British Army and the colonies, the British Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts, an attempt to disarm Americans, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War. In June 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted to incorporate colonial-based Patriot militias into a central military, the Continental Army, and unanimously appointed Washington its commander-in-chief. Two months later, in August 1775, George III declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. In July 1776, the Second Continental Congress formalized the war, passing the Lee Resolution on July 2, and, two days later, unanimously adopting the Declaration of Independence, on July 4. In March 1776, in an early win for the newly-formed Continental Army under Washington's command, following a successful siege of Boston, the Continental Army successfully drove the British Army out of Boston. British commander in chief William Howe responded by launching the New York and New Jersey campaign, which resulted in Howe's capture of New York City in November. Washington responded by clandestinely crossing the Delaware River and winning small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton. In the summer of 1777, as Howe was poised to capture Philadelphia, the Continental Congress fled to Baltimore. In October 1777, a separate northern British force under the command of John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga in an American victory that proved crucial in convincing France and Spain that an independent United States was a viable possibility. France signed a commercial agreement with the revolutionaries, followed by a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition undertook a scorched earth campaign against British-allied factions of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also Iroquois). Native American raids on the American frontier, however, continued to be a problem. Also, in 1779, Spain allied with France against Great Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez, though Spain did not formally ally with the Americans. Howe's replacement Henry Clinton intended to take the war against the Americans into the Southern Colonies. Despite some initial success, British General Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American army in Yorktown, Virginia, in September and October 1781. The French navy cut off Cornwallis's escape and he was forced to surrender in October. The British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, but fighting largely ceased in North America. In the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States, bringing the American Revolutionary War to an end. The Treaties of Versailles resolved Great Britain's conflicts with France and Spain, and forced Great Britain to cede Tobago, Senegal, and small territories in India to France, and Menorca, West Florida, and East Florida to Spain.

The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. It was proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 debate over the ratification of the Constitution and written to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists. The amendments of the Bill of Rights add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms, such as freedom of speech, the right to publish, practice religion, possess firearms, to assemble, and other natural and legal rights. Its clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings include explicit declarations that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people. The concepts codified in these amendments are built upon those in earlier documents, especially the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), as well as the Northwest Ordinance (1787), the English Bill of Rights (1689), and Magna Carta (1215).

The Battle of Gonzales was the first military engagement of the Texas Revolution. It was fought near Gonzales, Texas, on October 2, 1835, between rebellious Texian settlers and a detachment of Mexican Army soldiers. In 1831, Green DeWitt asked the Mexican authorities to lend the Gonzales colonists a cannon to help protect them from frequent Comanche raids. One was supplied, on the condition that the cannon would be returned to the Mexicans on request. Over the next four years, the political situation in Mexico deteriorated, and in 1835 several states revolted. As the unrest spread, Colonel Domingo de Ugartechea, the commander of all Mexican troops in Texas, felt it unwise to leave the residents of Gonzales with a weapon and requested the return of the cannon. When the initial request was refused, Ugartechea sent 100 dragoons to retrieve the cannon. The soldiers neared Gonzales on September 29, but the colonists used a variety of excuses to keep them from the town, while secretly sending messengers to request assistance from nearby communities. Within two days, up to 140 Texians gathered in Gonzales, all determined not to give up the cannon. On October 1, settlers voted to initiate a fight. Mexican soldiers opened fire as Texians approached their camp in the early hours of October 2. After several hours of desultory firing, the Mexican soldiers withdrew. Although the skirmish had little military significance, it marked a clear break between the colonists and the Mexican government and is considered to have been the start of the Texas Revolution. News of the skirmish spread throughout the United States, where it was often referred to as the "Lexington of Texas". Two cannons were used by the Texians in the fighting, the bronze six-pounder under dispute and a smaller Spanish esmeril made of iron, its caliber being a one pounder or less. The cannon's fate is disputed. It may have been buried and rediscovered in 1936, or it may have been seized by Mexican troops after the Battle of the Alamo. A bronze six-pounder was noted as one of twenty-one large guns captured and buried by the Mexicans at the Alamo, dug up in 1852 and sent to New York in 1874 to be cast into a bell that hangs in St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Antonio; while a smaller iron gun was abandoned in a creek and uncovered by a flood in 1936, on show in the Gonzales Memorial Museum as of 2020.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.

A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either binding, resulting in the adoption of a new policy, or consultive, functioning like a large opinion poll.

A stroke, also referred to as a cerebrovascular accident, is a medical condition in which blood flow to a part of the brain is reduced or blocked causing cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functioning properly.

The Ukrainian War of Independence, also referred to as the Ukrainian–Soviet War in Ukraine, lasted from March 1917 to November 1921 and was part of the wider Russian Civil War. It saw the establishment and development of an independent Ukrainian republic, most of which was absorbed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic between 1919 and 1920. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1991. The war was fought between different governmental, political and military forces. Belligerents included Ukrainian nationalists, Ukrainian anarchists, the forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary, the White Russian Volunteer Army, and Second Polish Republic forces. They struggled for control of Ukraine after the February Revolution of 1917. The war ensued soon after the October Revolution, when the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin dispatched the Antonov's expeditionary group to Ukraine and Southern Russia. The war resulted in the absorption of Ukrainian populations into the newly created Soviet Union and the Second Polish Republic. Soviet historical tradition viewed the Bolshevik victory as the liberation of Ukraine from occupation by the armies of Western and Central Europe, including that of Poland. Modern Ukrainian historians consider it a failed war of independence by the Ukrainian People's Republic against the Bolsheviks. The conflict can be viewed within the framework of the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, as well as the closing stage of the Eastern Front of World War I.

Opus Dei (Latin for 'Work of God') is a personal prelature of the Catholic Church founded in Spain on 2 October 1928 by Josemaría Escrivá. The prelature states that it helps lay and clerical members pursue holiness through everyday occupations and social responsibilities. The Holy See granted final approval in 1950 under Pope Pius XII. In 1982 Pope John Paul II affirmed its status as a personal prelature through the apostolic constitution Ut sit. While the organization remains controversial, Catholic Church leaders have voiced support. Laypeople constitute most members of Opus Dei, and the rest are secular priests governed by a prelate elected by specific members and appointed by the Pope. Because Opus Dei is Latin for 'Work of God', members and supporters often refer to the prelature as "the Work". Beyond personal charity and social services, the prelature organizes training in Catholic spirituality applied to daily life. Opus Dei members are located in more than 90 countries. About 70% of members live in their own homes and maintain secular careers while taking part in prelature activities, while the remaining are celibate, of whom the majority live in Opus Dei centers.

Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( troo-HEE-yoh; Spanish: [rafaˈel tɾuˈxiʝo]; 24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), nicknamed "El Jefe" (Spanish: [el ˈxefe]; lit. 'The Boss'), was a Dominican military officer and dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from August 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He was the country's 36th and 39th president, from 1930 to 1938 and from 1942 to 1952 respectively. He was also the country's first generalissimo, its de facto most powerful position at the time, from 1930 until his assassination. In that position, Trujillo ruled the country under figurehead presidents. Trujillo's 31-year rule, known as the Age of Trujillo (Spanish: El Trujillato or La Era de Trujillo), was one of the longest for a non-royal leader in the world, and centered around a personality cult of the ruling family. It was also one of the most brutal; Trujillo's security forces, including the infamous SIM, were responsible for many murders. Estimates for the number of deaths in the Dominican Republic under Trujillo's regime range from 25,000 deaths and disappearances to over 50,000 deaths. In 1937, 17,000 to 35,000 Haitians were killed by the Dominican Army under Trujillo's orders in the infamous Parsley massacre, which continues to affect Dominican-Haitian relations. During his long rule, the Trujillo government's extensive use of state terrorism was prolific even beyond national borders, including the attempted assassination of Venezuelan president Rómulo Betancourt in 1960, the abduction and disappearance in New York City of the Basque exile Jesús Galíndez in 1956, and the murder of Spanish writer José Almoina in Mexico, also in 1960. These acts, particularly the presumed murder of Galíndez, a naturalized US citizen, the attempted murder of Betancourt, a staunch critic of Trujillo, and the murder of the Mirabal sisters, who were among his most notable opponents, in 1960, eroded relations between the Dominican Republic and the international community and ushered in OAS sanctions and economic and military assistance to Dominican opposition forces. After this momentous year, large segments of the Dominican establishment, including the military, turned against him. On 30 May 1961, Trujillo was assassinated by a group of conspirators led by general Antonio Imbert Barrera. In the immediate aftermath, Trujillo's son Ramfis took temporary control of the country, executing most of the conspirators. By November 1961, the Trujillo family was pressured into exile by the titular president Joaquín Balaguer, who introduced reforms to open up the regime. The murder ushered in civil strife which concluded with the Dominican Civil War and a US-OAS intervention. The Dominican Republic eventually stabilised under a multi-party system in 1966. The Trujillo era unfolded in the Dominican Republic when the Caribbean was particularly susceptible to dictators. In the countries of the Caribbean Basin alone, his dictatorship overlapped with those in Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela and Haiti. In perspective, the Trujillo dictatorship has been judged more prominent and more brutal than its contemporaries. Trujillo remains a polarizing figure in the Dominican Republic, as the sheer longevity of his rule makes a detached evaluation difficult. While his supporters credit him for bringing long-term stability, economic growth and prosperity, doubling life expectancy of average Dominicans and multiplying the GDP, critics denounce the heavy-handed and violent nature of his regime, including the murder of tens of thousands, and xenophobia towards Haitians, as well as the Trujillo family's nepotism, widespread corruption and looting of the country's natural and economic resources.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The Warsaw Uprising (Polish: powstanie warszawskie; German: Warschauer Aufstand), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (Polish: powstanie sierpniowe), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa). The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II. The defeat of the uprising and suppression of the Home Army enabled the pro-Soviet Polish administration, instead of the Polish government-in-exile based in London, to take control of Poland afterwards. Poland remained part of the Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc throughout the Cold War until 1989. The Uprising began on 1 August 1944 as part of a nationwide Operation Tempest, launched at the time of the Soviet Lublin–Brest Offensive. The main Polish objectives were to drive the Germans out of Warsaw while helping the Allies defeat Germany. An additional, political goal of the Polish Underground State was to liberate Poland's capital and assert Polish sovereignty before the Soviet Union and Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation, which already controlled eastern Poland, could assume control. Other immediate causes included a threat of mass German round-ups of able-bodied Poles for "evacuation"; calls by Radio Moscow's Polish Service for uprising; and an emotional Polish desire for justice and revenge against the enemy after five years of German occupation. Despite the early gains by the Home Army, the Germans successfully counterattacked on 25 August, in an attack that killed as many as 40,000 civilians. The uprising was now in a siege phase which favored the better-equipped Germans and eventually the Home Army surrendered on 2 October when their supplies ran out. The Germans then deported the remaining civilians and razed the city itself. While the Germans lost around 16,000 men during the Warsaw Uprising, Polish casualties were catastrophic. Although the exact number of casualties is unknown, it is estimated that about 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and about 6,000 badly wounded. In addition, between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions. Jews being harboured by Poles were exposed by German house-to-house clearances and mass evictions of entire neighbourhoods. Historians and the public have debated and interpreted the impact of the Uprising in a wide range of ways, including as a deeply heroic effort and as a terrible loss with little gain. Polish and Western historians agree that Joseph Stalin tactically halted his forces from advancing on Warsaw in order to exhaust the Polish Home Army and to aid his political desires of turning Poland into a Soviet-aligned state. Some scholars argue that the two-month period of the Warsaw Uprising was a step in the direction of the Cold War.

Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country located in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Ivory Coast to the southeast, and Sierra Leone and Liberia to the south. It is sometimes referred to as Guinea-Conakry, after its capital Conakry, to distinguish it from other territories in the eponymous region, such as Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea. At the census held on 1 July 2025, Guinea had a population of over 17.5 million and an area of 245,857 square kilometres (94,926 sq mi).

Thoroughgood "Thurgood" Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American lawyer who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-American justice. Before his judicial service, he was an attorney who fought for civil rights, leading the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Marshall was a prominent figure in the movement to end racial segregation in American public schools. He won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court, culminating in the Court's landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which rejected the separate but equal doctrine and held segregation in public education to be unconstitutional. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court in 1967. A staunch liberal, he frequently dissented as the Court became increasingly conservative. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Marshall attended Lincoln University and the Howard University School of Law. At Howard, he was mentored by Charles Hamilton Houston, who taught his students to be "social engineers" willing to use the law to fight for civil rights. Marshall opened a law practice in Baltimore but soon joined Houston at the NAACP in New York. They worked together on the segregation case of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada; after Houston returned to Washington, Marshall took his place as special counsel of the NAACP, and he became director-counsel of the newly formed NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He participated in numerous landmark Supreme Court cases involving civil rights, including Smith v. Allwright, Morgan v. Virginia, Shelley v. Kraemer, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, Sweatt v. Painter, Brown, and Cooper v. Aaron. His approach to desegregation cases emphasized the use of sociological data to show that segregation was inherently unequal. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where he favored a broad interpretation of constitutional protections. Four years later, Johnson appointed him as the U.S. Solicitor General. In 1967, Johnson nominated Marshall to replace Justice Tom C. Clark on the Supreme Court; despite opposition from Southern senators, he was confirmed by a 69–11 vote. He was often in the majority during the consistently liberal Warren Court period, but after appointments by President Richard Nixon made the Court more conservative, Marshall frequently found himself in dissent. His closest ally on the Court was Justice William J. Brennan Jr., and the two voted the same way in most cases. One of Marshall's contributions to constitutional doctrine, the "sliding-scale" approach to the Equal Protection Clause, called on courts to apply a flexible balancing test instead of a more rigid tier-based analysis. He fervently opposed the death penalty, which in his view constituted cruel and unusual punishment; he and Brennan dissented in more than 1,400 cases in which the majority refused to review a death sentence. He favored a robust interpretation of the First Amendment in decisions such as Stanley v. Georgia, and he supported abortion rights in Roe v. Wade and other cases. Marshall retired from the Supreme Court in 1991 and was replaced by Clarence Thomas. He died in 1993.

Gustavo Díaz Ordaz Bolaños (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡusˈtaβo ˈði.as oɾˈðas]; 12 March 1911 – 15 July 1979) was a Mexican politician and member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He served as the President of Mexico from 1964 to 1970. Previously, he served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies for Puebla's 1st district, a senator of the Congress of the Union for Puebla, and Secretary of the Interior. Díaz Ordaz was born in San Andrés Chalchicomula, and obtained a law degree from the University of Puebla in 1937 where he later became its vice-rector. He represented Puebla's 1st district in the Chamber of Deputies from 1943 to 1946. Subsequently, he represented the same state in the Chamber of Senators from 1946 to 1952 becoming closely acquainted with then-senator Adolfo López Mateos. Díaz Ordaz was a CIA asset, known by the cryptonym, LITEMPO-2. Díaz Ordaz joined the campaign of Adolfo Ruiz Cortines for the 1952 election and subsequently worked for the Secretariat of the Interior under Ángel Carvajal Bernal. He became the secretary following López Mateos' victory in the 1958 election, and exercised de facto executive power during the absences of the president, particularly during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1963, the PRI announced him as the presidential candidate for the 1964 election, he received 88.81% of the popular vote. His administration is mostly remembered for the student protests that took place in 1968, and their subsequent repression by the Army and State forces during the Tlatelolco massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed protesters were killed. His presidency also took place during a period of high economic growth known as the Mexican Miracle, as well as hosting both the 1968 Summer Olympics and 1970 FIFA World Cup, the first country to have organized both showpiece events two years apart. After passing on the presidency to his own Secretary of the Interior Luis Echeverría, Díaz Ordaz retired from public life. He was briefly the Ambassador to Spain in 1977, a position he resigned from after strong protests and criticism by the media. He died of colorectal cancer on 15 July 1979 at the age of 68. Despite high economic growth during his presidency, Díaz Ordaz is considered one of the most unpopular and controversial modern Mexican presidents, largely for the Tlatelolco massacre and other repressive acts, which would continue into the presidencies of his successors.

Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States, governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. WSU offers more than 60 undergraduate programs across nine colleges, with over 200 areas of study. As of fall 2026, the main campus enrolled 18,003 students, the second-highest in university history. The graduate school provides more than 50 master's degrees, a specialist degree in education, and 13 doctoral programs. WSU holds an R2 classification for high research activity doctoral universities.

Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (Vietnamese: [ŋwiən˦ˀ˥ van˧˧ tʰiəw˧˨ˀ] ; 5 April 1923 – 29 September 2001) was a South Vietnamese military officer and politician who was the president of South Vietnam from 1967 to 1975. He was a general in the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF), became head of a military junta in 1965, and then president after winning a rigged election in 1967. He headed the government of South Vietnam until he resigned and left the nation and relocated to Taipei a few days before the fall of Saigon and the ultimate North Vietnamese victory. Born in Phan Rang in the south central coast of Vietnam, Thiệu joined the communist-dominated Việt Minh of Hồ Chí Minh in 1945 but quit after a year and joined the Vietnamese National Army (VNA) of the French-backed State of Vietnam. He gradually rose up the ranks and, in 1954, led a battalion in expelling the communists from his native village. Following the withdrawal of France, the VNA became the ARVN and Thiệu was the head of the Vietnamese National Military Academy for four years before becoming a division commander and colonel. In November 1960, he helped put down a coup attempt against President Ngô Đình Diệm. During this time, he also converted to Catholicism and joined the regime's Cần Lao Party, which was accused of being a vehicle for political advancement. Despite this, Thiệu agreed to join the coup against Ngô Đình Diệm in November 1963 in the midst of the Buddhist crisis, leading the siege on Gia Long Palace. Diệm was captured and executed and Thiệu made a general. Following Diệm's death, there were several short-lived juntas as coups occurred frequently. Thiệu gradually moved up the ranks of the junta by adopting a cautious approach while other officers around him defeated and sidelined one another. In 1965, stability came to South Vietnam when he became the nominal head of state and Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ became prime minister, although the men were rivals. In 1967, a transition to elected government was scheduled; and, after a power struggle within the military, Thiệu ran for the presidency with Kỳ as his running mate—both men had wanted the top job. To allow the two to work together, their fellow officers had agreed to have a military body controlled by Kỳ shape policy behind the scenes. Leadership tensions became evident, and Thiệu prevailed, sidelining Kỳ supporters from key military and cabinet posts. Thiệu then passed legislation to restrict candidacy eligibility for the 1971 election, banning almost all would-be opponents, while the rest withdrew as it was obvious that the poll would be a sham; Thiệu won 100% of the vote and the election was uncontested, while Kỳ retired from politics. While Thiệu has been occasionally described as a dictator in press, in literature his regime is described as military-dominated and marked by a complex relation with pluralistic society and evolving towards authoritarianism from constitutional rule as Thiệu consolidated power, but not as a dictatorship. The government under Thiệu's presidency, at times, championed liberal ideas and oversaw a vibrant civil society and a lively press. The press accused him of turning a blind eye to and indulging in corruption. During the 1971 Operation Lam Sơn 719 and the communists' Easter Offensive, the I Corps in the north of the country was under the command of his confidant, Hoàng Xuân Lãm, whose incompetence led to heavy defeats until Thiệu finally replaced him with Ngô Quang Trưởng. After the signing of the Paris Peace Accords—which Thiệu opposed—and the US withdrawal, South Vietnam resisted the communists for another two years until the communists' final push for victory, which saw the South openly invaded by the entire North Vietnamese army. Thiệu gave contradictory orders to Trưởng to stand and fight or withdraw and consolidate, leading to mass panic and collapse in the south of the country. This allowed the communists to generate much momentum and within a month they were close to Saigon, prompting Thiệu to resign and leave the country. He eventually settled near Boston, Massachusetts, preferring not to talk to the media. He died in 2001.

British European Airways Flight 706 (BE706/BEA706) was a scheduled international passenger flight from London, England to Salzburg, Austria. On 2 October 1971, whilst en route at 19,000 feet (5,791 m), the pressure bulkhead of the Vickers Vanguard at the rear of the cabin failed. The resulting depressurisation of the tail section caused the surfaces of the tailplanes to separate. The aircraft entered an uncontrollable dive and crashed near Aarsele, Belgium, killing all 63 passengers and crew on impact. A piece of debris from the aircraft struck a passing car, causing minor injuries to one of its occupants. The British AAIB concluded that the failure of the rear pressure bulkhead had been caused by undetected corrosion located at the rear of the aircraft. The corrosion could not be noticed by crew due to the inspection technique that had been applied by BEA. Numerous pressurization cycles caused the crack to grow, weakening the rear pressure bulkhead until the structure was unable to withstand further repeated stress.

Michael Joseph "Ozzie" Myers (born May 4, 1943) is an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1976 to 1980. A member of the Democratic Party, Myers became involved in the Abscam scandal during his tenure in Congress and was expelled from the House after being caught taking bribes in a sting operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He spent three years in federal prison.

On 2 October 1990, a hijacked Boeing 737-200, operating Xiamen Airlines Flight 8301, collided with two other aircraft at the old Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport while attempting to land. The hijacked aircraft struck parked China Southwest Airlines Flight 4305 first, a Boeing 707, inflicting only minor damage, but then collided with CAAC Flight 3523, a Boeing 757 waiting to take off, flipping onto its back. A total of 128 people were killed, including seven of nine crew members and 75 of 93 passengers on Flight 8301 and 46 of 110 passengers on Flight 3523, making this incident the deadliest aircraft hijacking prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The Carandiru massacre (Portuguese: Massacre do Carandiru, pronounced [maˈsakɾi du kaɾɐ̃dʒiˈɾu]) occurred on 2 October 1992, in Carandiru Penitentiary in São Paulo, Brazil, when São Paulo's military police stormed the penitentiary following a prison riot. The massacre, which left 111 prisoners dead, is considered by many people to be a major human rights violation.

Aeroperú Flight 603 was a scheduled passenger flight from Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, United States, to Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in Santiago, Chile, with stopovers in Quito, Ecuador, and Lima, Peru. On October 2, 1996, the Boeing 757 aircraft flying the final leg of the flight crashed into the Pacific Ocean. All 70 people onboard were killed. Flying over water, at night, with no visual references, the pilots were unaware of their true altitude, and struggled to control and navigate the aircraft. The investigation determined that the air data computers were unable to show correct airspeed and altitude on cockpit displays because a maintenance worker had failed to remove tape covering the pitot–static system ports on the aircraft exterior prior to departure.

The D.C. sniper attacks were a series of coordinated shootings that occurred over three weeks in October 2002 throughout the Washington metropolitan area, consisting of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. These were preceded by a series of murders and robberies in several states starting in February 2002. Five people were killed, and five others were injured in the preliminary shootings, and ten people were killed and three others were critically wounded in the October shootings.

Parkrun is a collection of 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) events for runners, walkers and volunteers that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 23 countries across five continents.

Roh Moo-hyun was a South Korean politician and lawyer who served as the ninth president of South Korea from 2003 to 2008.

The 2014–2016 Oromo protests were a series of protests and resistance in Oromia which first sparked on 25 April 2014. The initial actions were taken in opposition to the Addis Ababa Master Plan, and resumed on 12 November 2015 by university students and farmers in the town of Ginchi, located 80 km southwest of Addis Ababa, encircled by Oromia. The plan was to expand the capital into the Oromia special zone, leading to fears that native Oromo farmers would lose their land and be displaced. The plan was later dropped but protests continued, highlighting issues such as marginalization and human rights. Mulatu Gemechu, deputy chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, expressed to Reuters: "so far, we have compiled a list of 33 protesters killed by armed security forces that included police and soldiers but I am very sure the list will grow". Protesters demanded social and political reforms, including an end to human rights abuses like government killings of civilians, mass arrests, government land seizures, and political marginalization of opposition groups. The government responded by restricting access to the internet and attacking as well as arresting protesters.

The Washington Post is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area and is considered a newspaper of record in the United States. In 2023, the Post had 130,000 print subscribers and 2.5 million digital subscribers, both ranking third among American newspapers after The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. In 2025, the number of print subscribers sank below 100,000 for the first time in 55 years.

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engined heavy bomber aircraft that was developed in the mid-1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). A fast and high-flying bomber used primarily in the European Theater of Operations, the B-17 dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during World War II. It is the third-most produced bomber in history, behind the American four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the German multirole, twin-engined Junkers Ju 88. The B-17 was also employed in transport, anti-submarine warfare, and search and rescue roles.

On 2 October 2025, during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, a man drove a black Kia Picanto into pedestrians before stabbing worshippers at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, a synagogue in Higher Crumpsall, a northern suburb of the city of Manchester in North West England.