October 29 in History

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw 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.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

Republic Day is a public holiday in Turkey commemorating the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey, on 29 October 1923. The annual celebrations start at 1:00 pm on 28 October and continue for 35 hours.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs.

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often referred by its shortened name as the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army was renamed the "Soviet Army". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was split between the post-Soviet states, with its bulk becoming the Russian Ground Forces, commonly considered to be the successor of the Soviet Army.

BCPA Flight 304/44 was a scheduled flight operated by British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines from Sydney, Australia, to Vancouver, Canada, with scheduled stops at Fiji, Canton Island, Honolulu and San Francisco. On 29 October 1953, the flight was conducted by a Douglas DC-6 named Resolution and registered in Australia as VH-BPE. The propliner crashed during its initial approach towards San Francisco International Airport, killing all 19 people on board, including the American pianist William Kapell.

The Suez Crisis, also known as the second Arab–Israeli war, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade further prevented Israeli passage. After issuing a joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 31 October, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal, which Nasser had nationalised earlier in the year.

On October 29, 1960, a Curtiss C-46 passenger aircraft crashed shortly after take-off near Toledo, Ohio, U.S. The World War II-era aircraft was carrying the Cal Poly Mustangs college football team home from a game against the Bowling Green Falcons. Of the 48 people on board, 22 were killed, including both pilots, 16 players, a student manager, and a Cal Poly football booster.

A gemstone is a piece of mineral crystal which, when cut or polished, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. Certain rocks and occasionally organic materials that are not minerals may also be used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some softer minerals such as brazilianite may be used in jewelry because of their color, luster, or other physical properties that have aesthetic value. However, generally speaking, soft minerals are not typically used as gemstones by virtue of their brittleness and lack of durability.

A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs, which enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. The term computer system may refer to a nominally complete computer that includes the hardware, operating system, software, and peripheral equipment needed and used for full operation, or to a group of computers that are linked and function together, such as a computer network or computer cluster.

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed. Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was designed as a troop, medevac, and cargo transport aircraft. The versatile airframe has found uses in other roles, including as a gunship (AC-130), for airborne assault, search and rescue, scientific research support, weather reconnaissance, aerial refueling, maritime patrol, and aerial firefighting. It is the main tactical airlifter for many military forces worldwide. More than 40 variants of the Hercules, including civilian versions marketed as the Lockheed L-100, operate in more than 60 nations.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the office. As prime minister, she implemented policies that came to be known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

Francisco Martin Duran is an American convicted criminal and attempted assassin who, on October 29, 1994, fired 29 rounds from a semi-automatic rifle at the White House in an attempt to kill United States President Bill Clinton. Duran was convicted of attempted assassination and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Space Shuttle Discovery is a retired American Space Shuttle orbiter. The spaceplane was one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, aggregating more spaceflights than any other spacecraft as of December 2024. The Space Shuttle launch vehicle had three main components: the Space Shuttle orbiter, a single-use central fuel tank, and two reusable solid rocket boosters. Nearly 25,000 heat-resistant tiles cover the orbiter to protect it from high temperatures on re-entry.

Hurricane Mitch was an extremely powerful, deadly and catastrophic tropical cyclone in 1998 that caused 11,374 fatalities in Central America, becoming the second-deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record. It was the deadliest hurricane in Central American history, surpassing Hurricane Fifi–Orlene, which killed slightly fewer people in the same area in 1974. Mitch was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in the satellite era, and the second-deadliest on record in the Atlantic, only behind the Great Hurricane of 1780, which killed at least 22,000 people.

The 1999 Odisha cyclone was the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the North Indian Ocean and among the most destructive in the region. The cyclone organized into a tropical depression in the Andaman Sea on 25 October, though its origins could be traced back to an area of convection in the Sulu Sea four days prior. The disturbance gradually strengthened as it took a west-northwesterly path, reaching cyclonic storm strength the next day. Aided by highly favorable conditions, the storm rapidly intensified, attaining super cyclonic storm intensity on 28 October, before peaking on the next day with winds of 260 km/h (160 mph) and a record-low pressure of 912 hPa mbar 26.93 inHg). The storm maintained this intensity as it made landfall on Odisha on 29 October. The cyclone steadily weakened due to persistent land interaction and dry air, remaining quasi-stationary for two days before slowly drifting offshore as a much weaker system; the storm dissipated on 4 November over the Bay of Bengal.

Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN) is a Qatari news media organization headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha. It is a statutory private foundation for public benefit, and is primarily funded by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which cover regional and international news, alongside the digital platform AJ+. Al Jazeera is available in more than 150 countries and territories and has a global audience of over 430 million people.

ADC Airlines Flight 053 (ADK053) was a scheduled passenger flight operated by ADC Airlines from Nigeria's capital of Abuja to Sokoto. On 29 October 2006, the Boeing 737-2B7 crashed onto a corn field shortly after take-off from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, killing 96 out of 105 people on board.

The 2008 Ziarat earthquakes hit the Pakistani province of Balochistan on October 29 with a moment magnitude of 6.4. The US Geological Survey reported that the first earthquake occurred 60 km (37 mi) north of Quetta and 185 km (115 mi) southeast of the Afghanistan city of Kandahar at 04:09 local time at a depth of 15 km (9.3 mi), at 30.653°N, 67.323°E. It was followed by another shallower magnitude 6.4 earthquake at a depth of 14 km (8.7 mi) approximately 12 hours after the initial shock, at 30.546°N, 67.447°E. 215 people were confirmed dead. More than 200 were injured, and 120,000 were rendered homeless. Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, director general of Pakistan Meteorological Department, stated the quake epicenter was 70 miles (110 km) north of Quetta, and about 600 km (370 mi) southwest of Islamabad.

At 7:30 am on 29 October 2014, a landslide struck the Sri Lanka district of Badulla, killing at least 16 people and leaving an estimated 200 missing. The landslide was triggered by monsoon rains, and occurred at about 7:30 AM local time.

The Boeing 737 MAX is a series of narrow-body aircraft developed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes as the fourth generation of the Boeing 737. It succeeds the Boeing 737 Next Generation and incorporates more efficient CFM International LEAP engines, aerodynamic improvements such as split-tip winglets, and structural modifications. The program was announced in August 2011, the first flight took place in January 2016, and the aircraft was certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in March 2017. The first delivery, a MAX 8, was made to Malindo Air in May 2017.

On 29 October 2022, 121 people were killed and over 300 were injured by a double car bombing in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud accused Sunni jihadist group al-Shabaab of carrying out the attacks, which they admitted. The bombing marks the deadliest attack in Somalia since the 14 October 2017 Mogadishu bombings at the same junction.