October 26 in History

The Uprising of Asen and Peter (Bulgarian: Въстание на Асен и Петър) was a revolt of Bulgarians and Vlachs living in Moesia and the Balkan Mountains, then the theme of Paristrion of the Byzantine Empire, caused by a tax increase. It began on 26 October 1185, the feast day of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki, and ended with the restoration of Bulgaria and the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire, ruled by the Asen dynasty. Isaac II Angelus, in order to raise money for his wedding with the daughter of King Béla III of Hungary, levied a new tax which fell heavily on the population of the Haemus Mountains. They sent two leaders (Peter and Asen) to negotiate with the emperor at Kypsella (now İpsala) in Thrace. They asked to be added to the roll of the Byzantine army and to be granted land near Haemus to provide the monetary income needed to pay the tax. This was refused, and Peter and Asen were treated roughly. Their response was to threaten revolt. After their return, many of the protesters were unwilling to join the rebellion. The brothers Peter and Asen built the Church of St Demetrius of Thessaloniki in Tarnovo, dedicated to Saint Demetrius, who was traditionally considered a patron of the Byzantine city of Thessaloniki, and claimed that the Saint had ceased to favour the Byzantines: "God had decided to free the Bulgarians and the Vlach people and to lift the yoke that they had borne for so long". This persuaded their followers to attack Byzantine cities, seizing prisoners and cattle. Preslav, capital of the First Bulgarian Empire, was raided, and it was after this symbolic incident that Peter assumed the insignia of Tsar (or Emperor). In the spring of 1186, Isaac started a counter-offensive. It was successful at first. During the solar eclipse of 21 April 1186, the Byzantines successfully attacked the rebels, many of whom fled north of the Danube, making contact with the north-Danubian Vlachs and with the Cumans of the Pontic Steppe. In a symbolic gesture, Isaac II entered Peter's house and took the icon of Saint Demetrius, thus regaining the saint's favour. Still under threat of ambush from the hills, Isaac returned hastily to Constantinople to celebrate his victory. Thus, when the armies of Bulgarians and the Vlachs returned, reinforced by the northern Vlachs and their Cuman allies, they found the region undefended and regained not only their old territory but the whole of Moesia, a considerable step towards the establishment of a new Bulgarian state. The Emperor now entrusted the war to his uncle, John the sebastocrator, who gained several victories against the rebels but then himself rebelled. He was replaced with the emperor's brother-in-law, John Kantakouzenos, a good strategist but unfamiliar with the guerrilla tactics used by the mountaineers. His army was ambushed, suffering heavy losses, after unwisely pursuing the enemy into the mountains. The third general in charge of fighting the rebels was Alexius Branas, who, in turn, rebelled and turned on Constantinople. Isaac defeated him with the help of a second brother-in-law, Conrad of Montferrat, but this civil strife had diverted attention from the rebels and Isaac was able to send out a new army only in September 1187. The Byzantines obtained a few minor victories before winter, but the rebels, helped by the Cumans and employing their mountain tactics, still held the advantage. In the spring of 1187, Isaac attacked the fortress of Lovech, but failed to capture it after a three-month siege. The lands between the Haemus Mons and the Danube were now lost for the Byzantine Empire, leading to the signing of a truce, thus de facto recognising the rule of the Asen and Peter over the territory, leading to the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire. The Emperor's only consolation was to hold, as hostages, Asen's wife and a certain John (future Kaloyan of Bulgaria), brother of the two new leaders of the Bulgarian state.

The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347, sometimes referred to as the Second Palaiologan Civil War, was a conflict that broke out in the Byzantine Empire after the death of Andronikos III Palaiologos over the guardianship of his nine-year-old son and heir, John V Palaiologos. It pitted on the one hand Andronikos III's chief minister, John VI Kantakouzenos, and on the other a regency headed by the Empress-Dowager Anna of Savoy, the Patriarch of Constantinople John XIV Kalekas, and the megas doux Alexios Apokaukos. The war polarized Byzantine society along class lines, with the aristocracy backing Kantakouzenos and the lower and middle classes supporting the regency. To a lesser extent, the conflict acquired religious overtones; Byzantium was embroiled in the Hesychast controversy, and adherence to the mystical doctrine of Hesychasm was often equated with support for Kantakouzenos. As the chief aide and closest friend of Emperor Andronikos III, Kantakouzenos became regent for the underage John V upon Andronikos's death in June 1341. While Kantakouzenos was absent from Constantinople in September the same year, a coup d'état led by Alexios Apokaukos and the Patriarch John XIV secured the support of Empress Anna and established a new regency. In response, Kantakouzenos' army and supporters proclaimed him co-emperor in October, cementing the rift between himself and the new regency. The split immediately escalated into armed conflict. During the first years of the war, forces of the regency prevailed. In the wake of several anti-aristocratic uprisings, most notably that of the Zealots in Thessalonica, a majority of the cities in Thrace and Macedonia came under regency control. With assistance from Stefan Dušan of Serbia and Umur Beg of Aydin, Kantakouzenos successfully reversed these gains. By 1345, despite Dušan's defection to the opposition and the withdrawal of Umur, Kantakouzenos retained the upper hand through the assistance of Orhan, ruler of the Ottoman beylik. The June 1345 murder of megas doux Apokaukos, the regency's chief administrator, dealt the regency a severe blow. Formally crowned as emperor in Adrianople in 1346, Kantakouzenos entered Constantinople on 3 February 1347. By agreement, he was to rule for ten years as the senior emperor and regent for John V, until the boy came of age and ruled alongside him. Despite this apparent victory, subsequent resumption of the civil war forced John VI Kantakouzenos to abdicate and retire to become a monk in 1354. The consequences of the prolonged conflict proved disastrous for the Empire, which had regained a measure of stability under Andronikos III. Seven years of warfare, the presence of marauding armies, social turmoil, and the advent of the Black Death devastated Byzantium and reduced it to a rump state. The conflict also allowed Dušan to conquer Albania, Epirus and most of Macedonia, where he established the Serbian Empire. The Bulgarian Empire also acquired territory north of the Evros river.

Stephen Tvrtko I (Serbo-Croatian: Stjepan/Stefan Tvrtko / Стјепан/Стефан Твртко; c. 1338 – 10 March 1391) was the first king of Bosnia. A member of the House of Kotromanić, he succeeded his uncle Stephen II as the ban of Bosnia in 1353. As he was a minor at the time, Tvrtko's father, Vladislav, briefly ruled as regent, followed by Tvrtko's mother, Jelena. Early in his personal rule, Tvrtko quarrelled with his country's Roman Catholic clergy but later enjoyed cordial relations with all the religious communities in his realm. After initial difficulties—the loss of large parts of Bosnia to his overlord, King Louis I of Hungary, and being briefly deposed by his magnates—Tvrtko's power grew considerably. He conquered some remnants of the neighbouring Serbian Empire in 1373, after the death of its last ruler and his distant relative, Uroš the Weak. In 1377, he had himself crowned king of Bosnia and Serbia, claiming to be the heir of Serbia's extinct Nemanjić dynasty. As the Kingdom of Bosnia continued to expand, Tvrtko's attention shifted to the Adriatic coast. He gained control of the entire Primorje region and the major maritime cities of the area, established new settlements and started building a navy, but never succeeded in subjugating the lords of the independent Serbian territories. The death of King Louis and the accession of Queen Mary in 1382 allowed Tvrtko to take advantage of the ensuing succession crisis in Hungary and Croatia. After bitter fighting, from 1385 to 1390, Tvrtko succeeded in conquering large parts of Dalmatia, and Croatia proper. Following the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, his tenuous claim to Serbia became a mere fiction, as the Serbian rulers he sought to subdue became vassals of the victorious Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks also launched their first attacks on Bosnia during Tvrtko's reign, but his army was able to repel them. Tvrtko's sudden death in 1391 prevented him from solidifying the Kotromanić hold on Croatian lands. Tvrtko is widely considered one of Bosnia's greatest medieval rulers, having enlarged the country's borders to their greatest extent, left a strong economy, and improved the living standards of his subjects. He was survived by at least one son, Tvrtko II, but was succeeded by Dabiša, under whom Tvrtko's burgeoning realm began to decay.

Charles V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain (as Charles I) from 1516 to 1556, King of Sicily and Naples from 1516 to 1554, and also Lord of the Netherlands and titular Duke of Burgundy (as Charles II) from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Sicily, Naples, and Sardinia. In the Americas, he oversaw the continuation of Spanish colonisation and a short-lived German colonisation. The personal union of the European and American territories he ruled was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the sun never sets". Charles was born in Flanders to Habsburg Archduke Philip the Handsome, son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Mary of Burgundy, and Joanna of Castile, third child of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. Heir of his grandparents, Charles inherited his family's dominions at a young age. After his father's death in 1506, he inherited the Habsburg Netherlands in the Low Countries. In 1516, he became King of Spain as co-monarch of Castile and Aragon with his mother. Spain's possessions included the Castilian colonies of the Spanish West Indies and the Spanish Main, as well as Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. At the death of his paternal grandfather Maximilian in 1519, he inherited the Austrian hereditary lands and was elected as Holy Roman Emperor. He adopted the Imperial name of Charles V as his main title, and styled himself as a new Charlemagne. Charles revitalised the medieval concept of universal monarchy. With no fixed capital, he made 40 journeys through the different entities he ruled and spent a quarter of his reign travelling within his realms. Although his empire came to him peacefully, he spent most of his life waging war, exhausting his revenues and leaving debts in his attempt to defend the integrity of the Holy Roman Empire from the Protestant Reformation, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and in wars with France. Charles borrowed money from German and Italian bankers and, to repay them, relied on the wealth of the Low Countries and the flow of silver from New Spain and Peru, brought under his rule following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires, which caused widespread inflation. He supported the Magellan expedition, which resulted in the first circumnavigation of the world. Crowned King of Germany in Aachen, Charles sided with Pope Leo X and declared Martin Luther an outlaw at the Diet of Worms in 1521. The same year, Francis I of France, surrounded by the Habsburg possessions, started a war in Italy that led to his capture in the Battle of Pavia (1525). In 1527, Rome was sacked by an army of Charles's mutinous soldiers. Charles then defended Vienna from the Ottoman Turks and obtained coronations as King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from Pope Clement VII. In 1535, he took possession of Milan and captured Tunis. However, the loss of Buda during the struggle for Hungary and the Algiers expedition in the early 1540s frustrated his anti-Ottoman policies. After years of negotiations, Charles came to an agreement with Pope Paul III for the organisation of the Council of Trent (1545). The refusal of the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League to recognise the council's validity led to a war, won by Charles. However, Henry II of France offered new support to the Lutheran cause and strengthened the Franco-Ottoman alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent. Ultimately, Charles conceded the Peace of Augsburg and abandoned his multi-national project with abdications in 1556 that divided his hereditary and imperial domains between the Spanish Habsburgs, headed by his son Philip II of Spain, and the Austrian Habsburgs, headed by his brother Ferdinand. In 1557, Charles retired to the Monastery of Yuste in Extremadura and died there a year later.

The Imjin War (Korean: 임진왜란; Hanja: 壬辰倭亂) was a series of two Japanese invasions of Korea: an initial invasion in 1592 also individually called the "Imjin War", a brief truce in 1596 between the conflicts, followed by a second invasion in 1597 called the Chŏngyu War (정유재란; 丁酉再亂). The conflict ended in 1598 with the withdrawal of Japanese forces from the Korean Peninsula after a military stalemate in Korea's southern provinces. The invasions were launched by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to conquer Korea, and Japan quickly occupied large portions of the country. However, reinforcements from Ming China and disruption of Japanese supply fleets by the Joseon Navy forced the Japanese forces to withdraw from the northern provinces. Thereafter, Joseon civilian militias engaged in guerrilla warfare against the occupying Japanese forces, and supply difficulties hampered both sides. At that point, the conflict ground to a stalemate. The first phase of the conflict ended in 1596. Japan invaded Korea again in 1597, and gained initial successes on land; similar to the previous campaign, the invading forces were later halted and withdrew to the peninsula's southern coastal regions. Ming and Joseon forces were unable to dislodge the Japanese from these positions. Both sides again became locked in a ten-month-long military stalemate. However, Toyotomi Hideyoshi later died and the Japanese were defeated at the Battle of Noryang, effectively ending the war. The invading forces were ordered to withdraw to Japan by the new governing Council of Five Elders soon thereafter. Peace negotiations between the parties followed, and continued for several years, ultimately resulting in the normalization of relations.

The Treaty of Ripon was a truce between Charles I, King of England, and the Covenanters, a Scottish political movement, which brought a cessation of hostilities to the Second Bishops' War.

The American Revolution (1765–1789) was a political movement in the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain. It began as a colonial rebellion and evolved into a revolution, the result of which was the creation of the United States following the colonies' victory in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and British recognition of their independence in the Treaty of Paris. The Second Continental Congress, as the provisional government, established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief in 1775. The following year, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution on July 2nd and unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. Throughout most of the war, the outcome appeared uncertain, but a 1781 victory by Washington and the Continental Army in the Siege of Yorktown led King George III and the Fox–North coalition in government to negotiate the cessation of British colonial rule and the acknowledgment of American sovereignty, which was formalized in the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783. The second U.S. Constitution took effect in 1789 and the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Discontent with British colonial rule began shortly right after the end of the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763. Although the Thirteen Colonies had fought and supported the war directly, the British Parliament imposed new taxes onto the British-American colonists, ostensibly to compensate for wartime costs, and transferred control of the colonies' western lands to British officials in Montreal. Representatives from several of the Thirteen Colonies convened in New York City for the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. Its declaration argued that taxation without representation and other British policies had violated their rights as Englishmen. In 1767, though the Stamp Act was repealed, tensions increased again following Parliament's passing of the Townshend Acts. In an effort to quell the mounting rebellion, King George III deployed British troops to the colony of Massachusetts, where there was a conflict in the 1770 Boston Massacre. In December 1773, the local faction of the Sons of Liberty, made up of British-American colonists disguised as American Indians, orchestrated the Boston Tea Party, during which they dumped chests of taxed tea owned by the British East India Company into the Boston Harbor. Parliament responded by enacting a series of punitive laws, called the Intolerable Acts. These were intended to end self-government in Massachusetts but instead increased American support for revolution. In 1774, 12 of the Thirteen Colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress (the Province of Georgia joined in 1775). The First Continental Congress began coordinating Patriot resistance through underground networks of committees largely built on the foundations of the Sons of Liberty network. In August 1775, King George III proclaimed Massachusetts to be in rebellion. The British attempted to disarm the colonists, resulting in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, starting the Revolutionary War. The Second Continental Congress convened in May of 1775 and created the Continental Army, which then surrounded Boston, forcing the British to withdraw by sea in March 1776 and leaving Patriots in control in every colony. In May 1776, Congress had voted to prevent all forms of British Crown authority, to be replaced by a locally created authority, and each colony created a state constitution. On July 2, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution, affirming their support for joint independence. On July 4, 1776, they unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, basing the new nation on the revolutionary principle of protecting and guaranteeing Certain inalienable rights, proclaiming that "all men are created equal". After that, Congress had begun drafting the first U.S. Constitution, known as the Articles of Confederation, an effort to establish a multi-state self-governing coordinating body capable of negotiating international treaties and prosecuting the war. The Revolutionary War continued for another seven years, during in which France and Spain eventually entered. On September 28, 1781, Washington commanded the Continental Army's capture of a British army under General Cornwallis at the Siege of Yorktown, leading to the collapse of King George's control of Parliament. Consensus in Parliament soon shifted to the war ending on American terms. On September 3, 1783, the British signed the Treaty of Paris, recognizing the sovereign independence of the United States, and ceding to the new nation nearly all the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes. The United States became the first nation to establish a federal republic with a written constitution based on the principles of universal natural rights, consent of the governed, and equality under the law, although with significant democratic limitations compared to later evolution of the concept.

The War of 1812 was a conflict initiated by the United States against the United Kingdom and its allies fought mainly in North America and at sea during the wider Napoleonic Wars. The United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on 17 February 1815.

The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the upper Great Lakes above Niagara Falls, vastly reducing the costs of transporting people and goods across the Appalachians. The Erie Canal accelerated the settlement of the Great Lakes region, the westward expansion of the United States, and the economic ascendancy of New York state. A canal from the Hudson River to the Great Lakes was first proposed in the 1780s, but a formal survey was not conducted until 1808. The New York State Legislature authorized construction in 1817. Political opponents of the canal, referring to its lead supporter New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, denigrated the project as "Clinton's Folly" and "Clinton's Big Ditch". The canal saw quick success upon opening on October 26, 1825, with toll revenue covering the state's construction debt within the first year of operation. The westward connection gave New York City a strong advantage over all other US ports and brought major growth to canal cities such as Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo. The construction of the Erie Canal was a landmark civil engineering achievement in the early history of the United States. When built, the 363-mile (584 km) canal was the second-longest in the world after the Grand Canal in China. Initially 40 feet (12 m) wide and 4 feet (1.2 m) deep, the canal was expanded several times, most notably from 1905 to 1918 when the "Barge Canal" was built and over half the original route was abandoned. The modern canal measures 351 miles (565 km) long, 120 feet (37 m) wide, and 12 feet (3.7 m) deep. It has 35 locks, including the Waterford Flight, the steepest locks in the United States. When leaving the canal, boats must also traverse the Black Rock Lock to reach Lake Erie or the Troy Federal Lock to reach the tidal Hudson. The overall elevation difference is about 565 feet (172 m). The Erie's peak year was 1855, when 33,000 commercial shipments took place. It continued to be competitive with railroads until about 1902, when tolls were abolished. Commercial traffic declined heavily in the latter half of the 20th century due to competition from trucking via the newly developed Interstate Highway System and the 1959 opening of the larger St. Lawrence Seaway. The canal's last regularly scheduled hauler, the Day Peckinpaugh, ended service in 1994. Today, the Erie Canal is mainly used by recreational watercraft. It connects the three other canals in the New York State Canal System: the Champlain, Oswego, and Cayuga–Seneca. Some long-distance boaters take the Erie as part of the Great Loop. The canal has also become a tourist attraction in its own right—numerous parks and museums are dedicated to its history. The New York State Canalway Trail is a popular cycling path that follows the canal across the state. In 2000, Congress designated the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor to protect and promote the system.

The Royal Charter Storm (also known as the Great storm of 1859) of 25‍–‍26 October 1859 was considered to be the most severe storm to hit the Irish Sea in the 19th century, with an estimated death toll of over 800. It takes its name from the Royal Charter ship, which was driven by the storm onto the east coast of Anglesey, Wales, with the loss of over 450 lives. The storm followed several days of unsettled weather. The first indications were seen in the English Channel at about 3 p.m. on 25 October, when there was a sudden increase in the wind speed and a shift in its direction. There was extensive structural damage along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall. The storm drifted northwards, hitting Anglesey at about 8 p.m. and reaching maximum force at the River Mersey around midday on 26 October, before continuing northwards to affect Scotland. The winds reached force 12 on the Beaufort scale and were well over 100 mph (160 km/h). At the Mersey, a wind pressure of 28 pounds per square foot (1,300 Pa) was measured—higher than ever previously recorded.

The unification of Italy, also known as the Risorgimento, was the 19th-century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian Peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of Sardinia, resulting in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. Inspired by the rebellions in the 1820s and 1830s against the outcome of the Congress of Vienna, the unification process was precipitated by the Revolutions of 1848, and reached completion in 1871 with the official designation of Rome as capital of Italy, following the capture of Rome in 1870.

The Football Association (the FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the amateur and professional game in its territory. The FA facilitates all competitive football matches within its remit at national level, and indirectly at local level through the county football associations. It runs numerous competitions, the most famous of which is the FA Cup. It is also responsible for appointing the management of the men's, women's, and youth national football teams. The FA is a member of both UEFA and FIFA and holds a permanent seat on the International Football Association Board (IFAB) which is responsible for the Laws of the Game. As the first football association, it does not use the national name "English" in its title. The FA is based at Wembley Stadium in London. The FA is a member of the British Olympic Association, meaning that the FA has control over the men's and women's Great Britain Olympic football team. All of England's professional football teams are members of the Football Association. Although it does not run the day-to-day operations of the Premier League, it has veto power over the appointment of the league chairman and chief executive and over any changes to league rules. The English Football League, made up of the three fully professional divisions below the Premier League, is self-governing, subject to the FA's sanctions.

Edward James Roye (February 3, 1815 – c. February 11, 1872) was an Americo-Liberian merchant and politician who served as the fifth president of Liberia from 1870 until his overthrow in the 1871 Liberian coup d'état and subsequent death. He had previously served as the fourth Chief Justice of Liberia from 1865 until 1868. He was the first member of Liberia's True Whig Party to serve as president.

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman and an assistant marshal to his brother, Virgil Earp. Earp was involved in the 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which he and other lawmen killed three outlaws. While Earp is usually depicted as the key figure in the shootout, his brother Virgil was both the U.S. Marshal and the Tombstone city marshal and had decided to enforce a city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in public in an attempt to neutralize the loosely organized group of outlaws known as the Cochise County Cowboys. In 1874, Earp arrived in the boomtown of Wichita, Kansas, where his alleged wife opened a brothel. At this brothel, Earp was arrested more than once; he may have been a pimp. He was appointed to the Wichita police force and developed a good reputation as a lawman but was "not rehired as a police officer" after a physical altercation with a political opponent of his boss. Earp left Wichita, following his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas, where his brother's wife Bessie and Earp's common-law wife Sally operated a brothel. In this city, he became an assistant city marshal. In 1878, he went to Texas to track down an outlaw, Dave Rudabaugh, and met John "Doc" Holliday, whom Wyatt credited with saving his life. Earp moved between boom towns. He left Dodge in 1879 and moved with brothers James and Virgil, later joined by his younger brother Morgan, to Tombstone, Arizona, where a silver boom was underway. The Earps held law enforcement positions that put them in conflict with an outlaw group known as the "Cowboys", who threatened to kill the Earps on several occasions. The conflict escalated, culminating in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in 1881, where the Earps and Doc Holliday killed three Cowboys. During the next five months, Virgil was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan was murdered. Earp, Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, and others formed a federal posse that killed three more Cowboys whom they thought responsible. Earp was never wounded in any of the gunfights, unlike his brothers Virgil and Morgan or Doc Holliday, which added to his mystique after his death. After leaving Tombstone, Earp went to San Francisco, where he reunited with Josephine Marcus, and they later joined a gold rush to Eagle City, Idaho. In San Francisco, Earp raced horses, but his reputation suffered when he refereed the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey boxing match and called a foul, leading many to believe he had fixed the fight. When Earp appeared in the ring to act as referee, Police Captain Wittman disarmed him of a large pistol before the bout began. That night, Earp was arrested on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon and released on bail. Earp and Marcus joined the Nome Gold Rush in 1899. He and Charlie Hoxie opened the Dexter saloon, and made an estimated $80,000 (equivalent to $3,096,000 in 2025). At the time, Josephine had a gambling habit, and the money did not last. Around 1911, Earp began working mining claims in Vidal, California, retiring in the summers with Josephine to one of several cottages they rented in Los Angeles. He made friends among Western actors in Hollywood to try to get his story told but was portrayed during his lifetime only briefly in one film, Wild Bill Hickok (1923). Earp died in 1929, notorious for his handling of the Fitzsimmons–Sharkey fight and role in the O.K. Corral gunfight. This changed only after his death when the flattering biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart N. Lake was published in 1931, becoming a bestseller and creating his reputation as a fearless lawman. Since then, Earp's fame and notoriety have been increased by films, television shows, biographies, and works of fiction. Long after his death, he has many devoted detractors and admirers.

The Malleco Viaduct (Spanish: Viaducto del Malleco) is a railway bridge located in central Chile, passing over the Malleco River valley, south of Collipulli in the Araucania Region. It was opened by President José Manuel Balmaceda on October 26, 1890. At that time, it was the highest such bridge in the world. The Panamerican Highway passes right next to the viaduct. A popular myth claims that the bridge was designed by Gustave Eiffel. Eiffel made a bridge proposal, but it was rejected by the Chilean authorities. It was designed by Victorino Aurelio Lastarria and the construction of the bridge was awarded to Schneider et Cie. O Le Creusot, another French company. The bridge was declared a national monument in 1990. The viaduct has often been referred to as a symbol of progress, among others by former President Ricardo Lagos.

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist, sociologist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Wells dedicated her career to combating prejudice and violence, and advocating for African-American equality—especially for women.

Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik; 21 January 1829 – 8 December 1907) was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death in 1907 and King of Norway from 1872 to 1905. Oscar was the son of King Oscar I and Queen Josephine. He inherited the Swedish and Norwegian thrones when his brother died in 1872. Oscar II ruled during a time when both countries were undergoing a period of industrialization and rapid technological progress. His reign also saw the gradual decline of the Union of Sweden and Norway, which culminated in its dissolution in 1905. In 1905, the throne of Norway was transferred to his grandnephew Prince Carl of Denmark under the regnal name Haakon VII. When Oscar died in 1907, he was succeeded in Sweden by his eldest son, Gustaf V.

From 1910 to 1945, Korea was ruled by the Empire of Japan as a colony under the name Chōsen (朝鮮), the Japanese reading of "Joseon".

The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.

World War I, or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I caused 15 to 22 million deaths, including those resulting from war crimes and genocides. The war also contributed to the spread of the Spanish flu pandemic. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks. The causes of World War I included the rise of the German Empire, which disturbed the long-standing balance of power in Europe, and the exacerbation of imperial rivalries, as reflected in new alliances and an arms race between the great powers. Tensions in the Balkans reached a breaking point on 28 June 1914 when Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, assassinated Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and declared war on 28 July, upon which the Russian Empire mobilised in Serbia's defence. In early August, Germany declared war on Russia and France; the United Kingdom entered the war after Germany invaded Belgium. Germany's strategy in 1914 was to quickly defeat France, but its advance was halted in September, and the Western Front solidified into a near-continuous line of fortified trenches. The Eastern Front was more dynamic, but neither side gained a decisive advantage, despite costly offensives. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in November, which was followed by a failed Allied campaign at Gallipoli. Japan and Italy also joined the Allies. Major battles, including those at Verdun, the Somme, and Passchendaele, failed to break the stalemate on the Western Front. In April 1917, the United States joined the Allies after Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare against Atlantic shipping. Later that year, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in the October Revolution; Soviet Russia signed an armistice with the Central Powers in December, followed by a separate peace in March 1918. That month, Germany launched a spring offensive in the west, which despite initial successes left the German Army exhausted and demoralised. The Allied Hundred Days Offensive, beginning in August 1918, caused a collapse of the German front line. By early November, the Allies had signed armistices with the Ottomans and with Austria-Hungary, leaving Germany isolated. Facing a revolution at home, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on 9 November, and the war ended with the Armistice of 11 November 1918. The Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 imposed settlements on the defeated powers. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost significant territories, was disarmed, and was required to pay large war reparations to the Allies. The collapse of the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires resulted in new national boundaries and the creation of new independent states including Poland, Finland, the Baltic states, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. The League of Nations was established to maintain world peace, but its failure to manage the instability during the interwar period contributed to the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

In electricity generation, a generator, also called an electric generator, electrical generator, and electromagnetic generator is an electromechanical device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy for use in an external circuit. In most generators which are rotating machines, a source of kinetic power rotates the generator's shaft, and the generator produces an electric current at its output terminals which flows through an external circuit, powering electrical loads. Sources of mechanical energy used to drive generators include steam turbines, gas turbines, water turbines, internal combustion engines, wind turbines and even hand cranks. Generators produce nearly all of the electric power for worldwide electric power grids. The first electromagnetic generator, the Faraday disk, was invented in 1831 by British scientist Michael Faraday.

Nazi Germany, officially the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", was the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918); the Nazis called it the Thousand-Year Reich, but it ended just 12 years later in May 1945, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered Berlin, ending World War II in Europe.

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 Battle of Leyte Gulf (23–26 October 1944) was the largest naval battle of World War II and by some criteria the largest naval battle in history, with over 200,000 naval personnel involved. By late 1944, the Japanese fleet had become much weaker than that of the Allied forces; it contained fewer capital ships (aircraft carriers and battleships) than the Allies had aircraft carriers in the Pacific. After the catastrophic Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, senior Japanese military leaders understood that their remaining naval forces were incapable of achieving a strategic victory against the Allies. However, the Japanese general staff believed that continuing to contest Allied offensives at sea was necessary to deter an invasion of mainland Japan and to give the Japanese navy an opportunity to use its remaining strength. As a result, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) mobilized nearly all of its remaining major naval vessels in an attempt to repel the Allied invasion of the Philippines, but it was defeated by the U.S. Navy's Third and Seventh Fleets. The battle consisted of four main engagements (the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, the Battle of Surigao Strait, the Battle off Cape Engaño, and the Battle off Samar) and several lesser actions. Allied forces announced the end of organized Japanese resistance on the island of Leyte at the end of December. It was the first battle in which Japanese aircraft carried out organized kamikaze attacks, and it was the last-ever battle between battleships. The Japanese navy suffered crippling losses and did not sail in comparable force for the remainder of the war, as most of its vessels were stranded in port for lack of fuel.

The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and the Punjab, based on district-wide non-Muslim (mostly Hindu and Sikh) or Muslim majorities. It also involved the division of the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury, between the two new dominions. The partition was set forth in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the end of the British Raj, or Crown rule in India. The two self-governing countries of India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on 14–15 August 1947. With the partition of British India and withdrawal of the British from the Indian subcontinent, the Indian Independence Act provided that the princely states were released from their subsidiary alliances and other obligations to the British, while the British withdrew from their obligations to the states, leaving the rulers to decide whether to accede to India or Pakistan or to remain independent outside both. Sardar Patel said in a speech in January 1948, "On the lapse of Paramountcy, every Indian State became a separate independent entity." The political integration of the princely states into the two new dominions was begun by many accessions in August 1947, but mostly it followed on later. Critically, the rulers of the states of Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, and others, chose independence. The partition displaced between 12 and 20 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises associated with the mass migration and population transfer that occurred across the newly constituted dominions; there was large-scale violence, with disputed estimates of the loss of life before, at the time of, or following the partition. As of 2009, the estimates still varied between two hundred thousand and two million. The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues Indo-Pakistani relations to the present. The term partition of India does not cover the earlier separations of Burma (now Myanmar) and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from the administration of British India. It does not cover the incorporation of the enclaves of French India into India during the period 1947–1954, or the annexation of Goa and other districts of Portuguese India by India in 1961. Other contemporaneous political entities in the region in 1947, such as Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and the Maldives, were unaffected by the partition. The secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 was a later partition of Pakistan, and not of India.

The Austrian State Treaty (German: Österreichischer Staatsvertrag [ˈøːstɐraɪçɪʃɐ ˈʃtaːtsfɐˌtraːɡ] ) or Austrian Independence Treaty established Austria as a sovereign state. It was signed on 15 May 1955 in Vienna, at the Schloss Belvedere among the Allied occupying powers (France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union) and the Austrian government. The neighbouring Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia acceded to the treaty subsequently. It officially came into force on 27 July 1955. Its full title is "Treaty for the re-establishment of an independent and democratic Austria, signed in Vienna on 15 May 1955" (German: Staatsvertrag betreffend die Wiederherstellung eines unabhängigen und demokratischen Österreichs, unterzeichnet in Wien am 15. Mai).

Ngô Đình Diệm ( dyem, YEE-əm or zeem; Vietnamese: [ŋō ɗìn jîəmˀ] ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955), and later the first president of South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) from 1955 until his capture and assassination during the CIA-backed 1963 coup d'état. Diệm was born into a prominent Catholic family with his father, Ngô Đình Khả, being a high-ranking mandarin for Emperor Thành Thái during the French colonial era. Diệm was educated at French-speaking schools and considered following his brother Ngô Đình Thục into the priesthood, but eventually chose to pursue a career in the civil service. He progressed rapidly in the court of Emperor Bảo Đại, becoming governor of Bình Thuận Province in 1929 and interior minister in 1933. However, he resigned from the latter position after three months and publicly denounced the emperor as a tool of France. Diệm came to support Vietnamese nationalism, promoting both anti-communism, in opposition to Ho Chi Minh, and decolonization, in opposition to Bảo Đại. He established the Cần Lao Party to support his political doctrine of Person Dignity Theory, which was a blend of the philosophies of Personalism, especially as understood by French philosopher Emmanuel Mounier, and of Confucianism, which Diệm and his father had greatly admired. Diệm supported the Confucian concept of "Mandate of Heaven", and wished to make it the basis of political theory that would emerge in Vietnam. After several years in exile in Japan, the United States, and Europe, Diệm returned home in July 1954 and was appointed prime minister by Bảo Đại. The 1954 Geneva Conference took place soon after he took office, formally partitioning Vietnam along the 17th parallel. Diệm, with the aid of his younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, soon consolidated power in South Vietnam. After the 1955 State of Vietnam referendum, he proclaimed the creation of the Republic of Vietnam, with himself as president. His government was supported by other anti-communist countries, most notably the United States. Diệm pursued a series of nation-building projects, promoting industrial and rural development. From 1957 onward, as part of the Vietnam War, he faced several assassination and coup attempts, and a communist insurgency backed by North Vietnam. This insurgency eventually formally organized under the banner of the Viet Cong. In 1962, Diệm established the Strategic Hamlet Program as the cornerstone of his counterinsurgency effort. In 1963, Diệm's favoritism towards Catholics and persecution of practitioners of Buddhism in Vietnam led to the Buddhist crisis. The event damaged relations with the United States and other previously sympathetic countries, and his organization lost favor with the leadership of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. On 1 November 1963, the country's leading generals launched a coup d'état with assistance from the Central Intelligence Agency. Diệm and his brother, Nhu, initially escaped, but were recaptured the following day and assassinated on the orders of Dương Văn Minh, who succeeded him as president. Diệm has been a controversial historical figure. Some have considered him a tool of the United States, while others have portrayed him as an anti-capitalist and traditionalist. At the time of his assassination, Western media widely considered him a dictator, though South Vietnamese offered a variety of views, generally acknowledging that he strongly opposed American interference.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by the government's subordination to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The uprising lasted 15 days before being crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on 7 November 1956 (outside of Budapest, firefights lasted until at least 12 November 1956). Thousands were killed or wounded, and nearly a quarter of a million Hungarians fled the country. The Hungarian Revolution began on 23 October 1956 in Budapest when university students appealed to the civil populace to join them at the Hungarian Parliament Building to protest the USSR's geopolitical domination of Hungary through the communist government of Mátyás Rákosi. A delegation of students entered the building of Magyar Rádió to broadcast their sixteen demands for political and economic reforms to civil society, but were detained by security guards. When the student protesters outside the radio building demanded the release of their delegation, a group of police from the ÁVH (State Protection Authority) fatally shot several of the students. The siege of the Radio building began shortly after midnight and ended around 8 a.m. At that point, the revolutionaries broke into the building and treated the soldiers, officer cadets, and members of the ÁVH (State Protection Authority) found there as prisoners. ÁVH officer Major Fehér was executed with a shot to the back of the head. Consequently, Hungarians organized into revolutionary militias to fight the ÁVH; local Hungarian communist leaders and ÁVH policemen were captured and summarily executed, and political prisoners were released and armed. To realize their political, economic, and social demands, local soviets (councils of workers) assumed control of municipal government from the Hungarian Working People's Party (Magyar Dolgozók Pártja). The new government of Imre Nagy disbanded the ÁVH (on 28 October), declared Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact (on 1 November), and pledged to reestablish free elections. By the end of October, the intense fighting had subsided. Although initially showing willingness to negotiate the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Hungary (having negotiations on 3 November), the USSR repressed the Hungarian Revolution on 4 November, and fought the Hungarian revolutionaries until Soviet victory on 10 November; repression of the Hungarian Uprising killed 2,000 Hungarians and 700 Soviet Army soldiers, and compelled 200,000 Hungarians to seek political refuge abroad, mostly in Austria.

Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and more commonly known as Pan Am, was a major airline in the United States that was the largest international air carrier for much of the 20th century. The first airline to fly worldwide, it pioneered innovations such as jumbo jets and computerized reservation systems, and introduced the first American jetliner, the Boeing 707, in 1958. Until its dissolution on December 4, 1991, - 2026 Pan Am remains a cultural icon of the 20th century, identified by its blue globe logo ("The Blue Meatball"), the use of the word "Clipper" in its aircraft names and call signs, and the white uniform caps of its pilots. Founded in 1927 by two U.S. Army Air Corps majors, Pan Am began as a scheduled airmail and passenger service flying between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba. In the 1930s, under the leadership of American entrepreneur Juan Trippe, the airline purchased a fleet of flying boats and focused its route network on Central and South America, gradually adding transatlantic and transpacific destinations. By the mid-20th century, Pan Am enjoyed a near monopoly on international routes. It led the aircraft industry into the Jet Age by acquiring new jetliners such as the Boeing 707 and Boeing 747. Pan Am's modern fleet allowed it to fly larger numbers of passengers, at a longer range, and with fewer stops than rivals. Its primary hub and flagship terminal was the Worldport at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. During its peak between the late 1950s and early 1970s, Pan Am had an advanced fleet, highly trained staff, and amenities. In 1970, it flew 11 million passengers to 86 countries, with destinations in every continent except Antarctica. In an era dominated by flag carriers that were wholly or majority-owned by governments, Pan Am became the unofficial national carrier of the United States. It was a founding member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the global airline industry association. In the mid-1970s, Pan Am began facing a series of challenges both internal and external, along with rising competition from the deregulation of the American airline industry in 1978. After several attempts at financial restructuring and rebranding throughout the 1980s, Pan Am gradually sold off its assets before declaring bankruptcy in 1991. When it ceased operations, the airline's trademark was the second-most-recognized worldwide. To travelers and many Americans, its closure signified the end of the golden age of air travel. Its brand, iconography, and contributions to the industry remain well known in the 21st century. The airline's name and imagery were purchased in 1998 by railroad holding company Guilford Transportation Industries, which changed its name to Pan Am Systems and adopted Pan Am's logo.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the last Shah of Iran, reigning from 1941 to 1979 as the second monarch of the Pahlavi dynasty. He succeeded his father, Reza Shah, and ruled the Imperial State of Iran until his overthrow in the Islamic Revolution, which abolished the nearly 2,500-year-old Iranian monarchy. During his reign, he assumed the title Shahanshah, and held several other titles, including Aryamehr and Bozorg Arteshtaran.

The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that followed World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security, particularly in regard to intercontinental ballistic missile and satellite reconnaissance capability, but also became part of the cultural symbolism and ideology of the time. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic landers to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon.

Ali Maow Maalin was a Somali hospital cook and health worker from Merca who is the last person known to have been infected with naturally occurring Variola minor smallpox. The disease was diagnosed in October 1977 and Maalin made a full recovery. Although he had many contacts, none of them developed the disease, and an aggressive containment campaign was successful in preventing an outbreak. Smallpox was declared to have been eradicated globally by the World Health Organization (WHO) two years later. Maalin was subsequently involved in the successful poliomyelitis eradication campaign in Somalia, and he died of malaria while carrying out polio vaccinations after the re-emergence of the poliovirus in 2013.

Park Chung Hee was a South Korean politician and army officer who seized power in the May 16 coup of 1961, and served as the third President of South Korea from 1962 until his assassination in 1979. His regime oversaw a period of intense economic growth and transformation, making Park one of the most consequential leaders in Korean history, although his legacy as a military dictator remains a bitter subject.

Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock and officially gazetted as Uluru / Ayers Rock, is a large sandstone monolith. It crops out near the centre of Australia in the southern part of the Northern Territory, 335 km (208 mi) south-west of Alice Springs.

China Airlines Flight 204 (CI204/CAL204) was a Boeing 737-200 that crashed into a mountain after takeoff from Hualien Airport, Taiwan, on 26 October 1989. The crash killed all 54 passengers and crew on board the aircraft.

The Ten-Day War, or the Slovenian War of Independence, was a brief armed conflict that followed Slovenia's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. It was fought between the Slovenian Territorial Defence and the Slovenian National Police Force on one side, and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) on the other. It lasted from 27 June 1991 until 7 July 1991, when the Brioni Accords were signed.

Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and both Israel and Palestine to the west. The Jordan River, flowing into the Dead Sea, is located along the country's western border within the Jordan Rift Valley. Jordan has a small coastline along the Red Sea in its southwest, separated by the Gulf of Aqaba from Egypt. Amman is the country's capital and largest city, as well as the most populous city in the Levant.

The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, popularly known as Mossad, is the national intelligence agency of the State of Israel. It is one of the main organizations in the Israeli intelligence community, along with Aman and Shin Bet.

Flateyri is a village situated in Iceland's Westfjords. It is part of the municipality of Ísafjarðarbær and has a population of approximately 200, making it the largest settlement in Önundarfjörður.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a population of over 69 million in 2025. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering 94,354 square miles (244,376 km2). It shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea, while maintaining sovereignty over the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. The capital and largest city of England and the UK is London; Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, respectively.

Robert Guéï was an Ivorian politician who served as the third president of the Ivory Coast from 24 December 1999 to 26 October 2000. He succeeded President Henri Konan Bédié after the 1999 Ivorian coup d'état and lost to Laurent Gbagbo in the ensuing 2000 Ivorian presidential election. Guéï, his wife Rose Doudou Guéï, and his children were killed on 19 September 2002 on the first day of the First Ivorian Civil War.

The USA PATRIOT Act is a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, and the commonly used short name is a backronym that is embedded in the name set forth in the statute.

The Moscow theater hostage crisis, also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege, was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater in Moscow by Chechen terrorists on 23 October 2002, resulting in the taking of 912 hostages. The attackers, led by Movsar Barayev, claimed allegiance to the rebel breakaway movement in Chechnya. They demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. The crisis ended when Russian security services released sleeping gas into the building, and subsequently stormed it, killing all 40 hostage takers. 132 hostages died, largely due to the effects of the gas.

The Cedar Fire was a massive, highly-destructive wildfire, which burned 273,246 acres (1,106 km2) of land in San Diego County, California, during October and November 2003. The fire's rapid growth was driven by the Santa Ana winds, causing the fire to spread at a rate of 3,600 acres (15 km2) per hour. By the time the fire was fully contained on November 4, it had destroyed 2,820 buildings and killed 15 people, including one firefighter. Hotspots continued to burn within the Cedar Fire's perimeter until December 5, 2003, when the fire was fully brought under control.

Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, using the assets Take-Two had previously acquired from BMG Interactive. Founding members of the company were Terry Donovan, Gary Foreman, Dan and Sam Houser, and Jamie King, who worked for Take-Two at the time, and of which the Houser brothers were previously executives at BMG Interactive. Sam Houser heads the studio as president.

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. The company became influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows and has since expanded into areas such as Internet services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and video gaming among others. A Big Tech company, Microsoft is the largest software company by revenue, one of the most valuable public companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally.

The October 2015 Hindu Kush earthquake was a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that struck South Asia on 26 October 2015, at 13:39 AFT with the epicenter 45 km north of Kuran wa Munjan, Afghanistan, at a depth of 231.0 km.