October 3 in History

Gaecheonjeol (Korean: 개천절; Hanja: 開天節; lit. ''The day the heavens opened'') is a public holiday in South Korea on 3 October. Also known by the English name National Foundation Day, this holiday celebrates the legendary formation of the first Korean state of Gojoseon by legendary king Tan'gun in 2333 BC. This date has traditionally been regarded by Koreans as the date for the founding of the Korean nation. Gaecheonjeol is also recognized in North Korea, although not as a public holiday, with an annual ceremony at the Mausoleum of Tangun, the founder of Gojoseon.

The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Gaius Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, and Switzerland), Britain and Germania. Gallic, Germanic, and Brittonic tribes fought to defend their homelands against an aggressive Roman campaign. The wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul. Though the collective Gallic armies were as strong as the Roman forces, internal divisions among the Gallic tribes eased victory for Caesar. Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls under a single banner came too late. Caesar portrayed the invasion as being a preemptive and defensive action, but historians agree that he fought the wars primarily to boost his political career and to pay off his debts. Still, Gaul was of significant military importance to the Romans. Native tribes in the region, both Gallic and Germanic, had repeatedly attacked Roman territory. Conquering Gaul allowed Rome to secure the natural border of the Rhine river. The wars began with conflict over the migration of the Helvetii in 58 BC, which drew in neighboring tribes and the Germanic Suebi. By 57 BC, Caesar had resolved to conquer all of Gaul. He led campaigns in the east, where the Nervii almost defeated him. In 56 BC, Caesar defeated the Veneti in a naval battle and took most of northwest Gaul. In 55 BC, Caesar sought to boost his public image. He undertook first-of-their-kind expeditions across the Rhine and the English Channel. Rome hailed Caesar as a hero upon his return from Britain, though he had achieved little beyond landing because his army had been too small. The next year, he returned with a larger army and reached much further inland; he extracted tribute from the locals and returned to Gaul. Revolts broke out on the continent, and the Romans suffered a humiliating defeat. Following that, 53 BC saw a brutal pacification campaign. That failed, and Vercingetorix led a major revolt in 52 BC. Gallic forces won a notable victory at the Battle of Gergovia, but the Romans' indomitable siege works at the Battle of Alesia crushed the Gallic coalition. In 51 and 50 BC, there was limited resistance, and Caesar's troops mainly engaged in mop-up operations. Gaul was conquered, although it would not become a Roman province until 27 BC, and resistance would continue until as late as 70 AD. There is no precise end date to the war, but the imminent Roman Civil War led to the withdrawal of Caesar's troops in 50 BC. Caesar's wild successes in the war had made him wealthy and provided a legendary reputation. The Gallic Wars were a key factor in Caesar's ability to win the Civil War and make himself dictator, culminating in the end of the Roman Republic and the establishment of the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar described the Gallic Wars in his book Commentarii de Bello Gallico. It is the primary source for the conflict, but modern historians consider it propaganda and prone to exaggeration. Caesar makes implausible claims about the number of Gauls killed (over a million), while claiming almost zero Roman casualties. Modern historians believe that Gallic forces were far smaller than the Romans claimed, and that the Romans suffered significant casualties. Regardless of the accuracy of the Commentarii, the campaign was still exceptionally brutal. Untold numbers of Gauls were killed, enslaved, or mutilated, including large numbers of civilians.

The Liberators' civil war (43–42 BC) was started by the Second Triumvirate to avenge Julius Caesar's assassination. The war was fought by the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian (the Second Triumvirate members, or Triumvirs) against the forces of Caesar's assassins, led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, referred to as the Liberatores. The latter were defeated by the Triumvirs at the Battle of Philippi in October 42 BC, and committed suicide. Brutus committed suicide after the second part of the battle.

Theodosius I (Latin: Theodosius, Ancient Greek: Θεοδόσιος Theodósios; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He won two civil wars and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Nicene Christianity. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule the entire Roman Empire. After his death, his sons Arcadius and Honorius ruled from separate courts in the east and the west, continuing the late Roman practice of rule by multiple emperors. He ended the Gothic War (376–382), but did so on terms disadvantageous to the empire, with the Goths remaining politically autonomous within Roman territory, albeit as nominal allies. Born in Hispania, Theodosius was the son of a high-ranking general of the same name, Theodosius the Elder, under whose guidance he rose through the ranks of the Roman army. Theodosius held independent command in Moesia in 374, where he had some success against the invading Sarmatians. Not long afterwards, he was forced into retirement, and his father was executed under obscure circumstances. Theodosius soon regained his position following a series of intrigues and executions at Emperor Gratian's court. In 379, after the eastern Roman emperor Valens was killed at the Battle of Adrianople against the Goths, Gratian appointed Theodosius as a successor with orders to take charge of the military emergency. The new emperor's resources and depleted armies were not sufficient to drive the invaders out; in 382 the Goths were allowed to settle south of the Danube as autonomous allies of the empire. In 386, Theodosius signed a treaty with the Sasanian Empire which partitioned the long-disputed Kingdom of Armenia and secured a durable peace between the two powers. Theodosius was a strong adherent of the Christian doctrine of consubstantiality and an opponent of Arianism. He convened a council of bishops at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, which confirmed the former as orthodoxy and the latter as a heresy. Although Theodosius interfered little in the functioning of traditional pagan cults and appointed non-Christians to high offices, he did not prevent or punish Christians for the demolition of several pagan temples of classical antiquity such as the Serapeum of Alexandria. During the earlier part of his reign, Theodosius ruled the eastern provinces, while the west was overseen by the emperor Gratian (nominally co-ruling with his young brother Valentinian II). In 386 an arranged marriage with Valentinian's sister Galla served to consolidate Theodosius's political and military power. Theodosius sponsored several measures to improve Constantinople, his capital and main place of residence—notably his expansion of the Forum Tauri, which became the biggest public square known in antiquity. Theodosius invaded the western empire twice, in 388 against the usurper Magnus Maximus, who had killed Gratian, and in 394 against Eugenius, who had been named emperor after Valentinian died in suspicious circumstances. Theodosius's final military victory in September 394 made him ruler of the entire empire, but he died a few months later. His two young sons, previously made his co-emperors, jointly succeeded him: Arcadius in the eastern half of the empire and Honorius in the west. Theodosius was said to have been a diligent administrator, austere in his habits, merciful, and a devout Christian. In the centuries after his death, Theodosius was regarded as a champion of Christian orthodoxy who decisively stamped out paganism; however, modern scholars tend to see this as an interpretation of history by Christian writers more than as an accurate representation of actual history. He is fairly credited with presiding over a revival in classical art that some historians have termed a "Theodosian renaissance". Although his pacification of the Goths secured peace for the Empire during his lifetime, their status as an autonomous entity within Roman borders caused problems for succeeding emperors. Theodosius has also received criticism for defending his own dynastic interests at the cost of two civil wars. His two sons proved weak and incapable rulers, and they presided over a period marked by foreign invasions and court intrigues, seriously weakening the empire(s). However, the descendants of Theodosius did rule the Roman world for the next six decades, and the east–west division endured until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century.

The Exarch of Africa Heraclius the Elder and his namesake son Heraclius the Younger began a rebellion against the Byzantine emperor Phocas in 608. In October 610, Heraclius the Younger reached Constantinople, executed Phocas, and was proclaimed as emperor, establishing the Heraclian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire.

The siege of Leiden occurred during the Eighty Years' War in 1573 and 1574, when the Spanish under Francisco de Valdez attempted to capture the rebellious city of Leiden, South Holland, the Netherlands. The siege failed when the city was successfully relieved in October 1574.

The Qing dynasty, officially the Great Qing, also known as the Qing Empire or Qing China, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia which existed from 1636/1644 to 1912. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. At the height of its power, the empire stretched from the Sea of Japan in the east to the Pamir Mountains in the west, and from the Mongolian Plateau in the north to the South China Sea in the south. Originally emerging from the Later Jin dynasty founded in 1616 and proclaimed in Shenyang in 1636, the dynasty seized control of the Ming capital Beijing and North China in 1644, traditionally considered the start of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty lasted until the Xinhai Revolution of October 1911 led to the abdication of the last emperor in February 1912. The multi-ethnic Qing dynasty assembled the territorial base for modern China. The Qing controlled the most territory of any dynasty in Chinese history, and in 1790 was the fourth-largest empire in world history to that point. It was also the most populous state at the time, with over 426 million citizens in 1907.

James Graham, 1st Duke of Montrose was a Scottish politician.

The Treaty of Niš was a peace treaty signed on 3 October 1739 in Niš (nowadays in Serbia), by the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, to end the Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739). It was preceded by the preliminary Russo-Turkish peace treaty, signed through French mediation on 18 September 1739 in Belgrade, while the peace arrangements were finalized by the treaty of Niš on 3 October.

George Washington (February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731] – December 14, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War against the British Empire, bringing about American independence. Born in the Colony of Virginia, Washington became the commander of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1763. He was later elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, and opposed the oppression of the American colonists by the British Crown. When the American Revolutionary War against the British began in 1775, Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. He directed a poorly organized and equipped force against disciplined British troops. Washington and his army achieved an early victory at the Siege of Boston in March 1776 but were forced to retreat from New York City in November. Washington crossed the Delaware River and won the battles of Trenton in late 1776 and of Princeton in early 1777, then lost the battles of Brandywine and Germantown later that year. He faced criticism of his command, low troop morale, and a lack of provisions for his forces as the war continued. Ultimately Washington led a combined French and American force to a decisive victory over the British at Yorktown in 1781. In the resulting Treaty of Paris in 1783, the British acknowledged the sovereign independence of the United States. Washington then served as president of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which drafted the current Constitution of the United States. Washington was unanimously elected the first U.S. president by the Electoral College in 1789 and 1792. He established a strong, well-financed national government while remaining impartial in the fierce rivalry that emerged within his cabinet between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. During the French Revolution, he adopted a policy of neutrality while supporting the Jay Treaty with Britain. Washington set enduring precedents for the office of president, including republicanism, a peaceful transfer of power, the use of the title "Mr. President", and the two-term tradition. His 1796 farewell address became a preeminent statement on republicanism: Washington wrote about the importance of national unity and the dangers that regionalism, partisanship, and foreign influence pose to it. As a planter of tobacco and wheat at Mount Vernon, Washington owned many slaves. He began opposing slavery near the end of his life, and provided in his will for the eventual manumission of his slaves. Washington's image is an icon of American culture and he has been extensively memorialized. His namesakes include the national capital and the State of Washington. In both popular and scholarly polls, he is consistently considered one of the greatest presidents in American history.

The Fort System of Valdivia is a series of Spanish colonial fortifications at Corral Bay, Valdivia and Cruces River established to protect the city of Valdivia, in southern Chile. During the period of Spanish rule (1645–1820), it was one of the biggest systems of fortification in the Americas. It was also a major supply source for Spanish ships that crossed the Strait of Magellan.

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.

Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. The earliest Thanksgiving can occur is November 22; the latest is November 28. Outside the United States, it is called American Thanksgiving to distinguish it from the Canadian holiday of the same name and related celebrations in other regions. As the name implies, the holiday generally revolves around giving thanks and the centerpiece of most celebrations is a Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.

Kintpuash (c. 1837 – October 3, 1873), also known as Kientpoos, Keintpoos, or by his English name Captain Jack, was a Modoc leader from present-day northern California and southern Oregon. His name in the Modoc language translates to "strikes the water brashly." Kintpuash is best known for leading his people in resisting forced relocation during the Modoc War of 1872–1873. Using the rugged terrain of the Lava Beds in California, his small band of warriors held off vastly superior US Army forces for several months. He remains the only Native American leader to be charged with war crimes. Kintpuash was executed by hanging, along with three others, for their role in the deaths of General Edward Canby and Reverend Eleazar Thomas during peace negotiations.

The Battle of Coyotepe Hill was a significant engagement during the United States occupation of Nicaragua from August through November 1912 during the insurrection staged by Minister of War General Luis Mena against the government of President Adolfo Díaz. Coyotepe is an old fortress located on a 500-foot hill overlooking the strategic railroad line near Masaya roughly halfway between Managua and Granada, Nicaragua.

Boris III (Boris Klemens Robert Maria Pius Ludwig Stanislaus Xaver; 30 January [O.S. 18 January] 1894 – 28 August 1943) was Tsar of Bulgaria from 1918 until his death in 1943. The eldest son of Ferdinand I, Boris assumed the throne upon the abdication of his father in the wake of Bulgaria's defeat in World War I. Under the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly, Bulgaria was forced to cede various territories, pay crippling war reparations, and greatly reduce the size of its military. That same year, Aleksandar Stamboliyski of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union became prime minister. After Stamboliyski was overthrown in a coup in 1923, Boris recognized the new government of Aleksandar Tsankov, who harshly suppressed the Bulgarian Communist Party and led the nation through a brief border war with Greece. Tsankov was removed from power in 1926, and a series of prime ministers followed until 1934, when the corporatist Zveno (Bulgarian: Звено) movement staged a coup and outlawed all political parties. Boris opposed the Zveno government and overthrew them in 1935, eventually installing Georgi Kyoseivanov as prime minister. For the remainder of his reign, Boris would rule as a de facto absolute monarch, with his prime ministers largely submitting to his will. Following the outbreak of World War II, Bulgaria initially remained neutral. In 1940, Nazi sympathizer Bogdan Filov replaced Kyoseivanov as prime minister, becoming the last prime minister to serve under Boris. In September 1940, with the support of Nazi Germany, Bulgaria received the region of Southern Dobrudja from Romania as part of the Treaty of Craiova. In January 1941, Boris approved the antisemitic Law for Protection of the Nation, which denied citizenship to Bulgarian Jews and placed numerous restrictions upon them. In March 1941, Bulgaria joined the Axis and allowed German troops to use Bulgaria as a base from which to invade Yugoslavia and Greece. Bulgaria then received large portions of Yugoslav Macedonia, Pirot County in eastern Serbia and Greek Thrace, which were key targets of Bulgarian irredentism. Bulgaria opted out of participation in the German invasion of the Soviet Union, as allowed by the provisions of the Axis alliance. As part of the Holocaust, Bulgarian authorities deported most Jews from occupied Greek and Yugoslav territories and transferred them to the German extermination camp of Treblinka. Under public pressure, Boris cancelled the deportation of Bulgarian Jews while expelling almost 20,000 Jews to the Bulgarian countryside to be deployed in forced labour camps. In 1942, Zveno, the Agrarian National Union, the Bulgarian Communist Party, and other far-left groups united to form a resistance movement known as the Fatherland Front, which went on to overthrow the government in 1944. In August 1943, shortly after returning from a visit to Germany, Boris died at the age of 49. Following his death, he was succeeded as Tsar by his six-year-old son, Simeon Borisov Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Bulgarian: Симеон Борисов Сакскобургготски), who ascended the throne as Simeon II.

The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The Reds compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central Division. They were a charter member of the American Association in 1882 before joining the NL in 1890.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and was colloquially known as Yugoslavia (lit. 'Land of the South Slavs') due to its origins. The preliminary kingdom was formed in late 1918 by the unification of the Kingdom of Serbia, which was previously independent, with the Kingdom of Montenegro, and the territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, mainly the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (encompassing what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina and most of what are now the states of Croatia and Slovenia) as well as Banat, Bačka and Baranja. The regions of Kosovo and what is today North Macedonia had become parts of Serbia prior to the unification. The state was ruled by the Serbian dynasty of Karađorđević, which previously ruled the Kingdom of Serbia under Peter I, who became the first king of Yugoslavia, reigning until his death in 1921. He was succeeded by his son Alexander I, who had been regent for his father. In 1929, he established the 6 January Dictatorship, and soon renamed the kingdom Yugoslavia. In 1934, the king was assassinated in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), during his visit to France. The crown passed to his 11-year-old son, Peter. Alexander's cousin Paul ruled as Prince regent until 1941, when Peter II came of age following a coup d'etat that reversed Yugoslavia's accession to the Tripartite Pact. The royal family flew to London the same year, prior to the country being invaded by the Axis powers. In April 1941, the country was occupied and partitioned by the Axis powers. A royal government-in-exile, recognized by the United Kingdom and, later, by all the Allies, was established in London. In 1944, after pressure from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the King recognized the government of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia as the legitimate government. This was established on 2 November following the signing of the Treaty of Vis by Ivan Šubašić (on behalf of the Kingdom) and Josip Broz Tito (on behalf of the Yugoslav Partisans).

The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was the Iraqi state located in the Middle East from 1932 to 1958. It was founded on 23 August 1921 as the Kingdom of Iraq, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the Mesopotamian campaign of the World War I. Although a League of Nations mandate was awarded to the United Kingdom in 1920, the 1920 Iraqi revolt resulted in the scrapping of the original mandate plan in favour of a formally sovereign Iraqi kingdom, but one that was under effective British administration. The plan was formally established by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty. The population of the Kingdom was 2.8 million at the founding in 1928, and by the end of the Kingdom in 1958 it was 6.5 million. The role of the United Kingdom in the formal administration of the Kingdom of Iraq was ended in 1932, following the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930. Then officially a fully independent kingdom, it underwent a period of turbulence under its Hashemite rulers throughout its entire existence. Establishment of Sunni Islam in Iraq was followed by Assyrian, Yazidi and Shi'a unrests, which were all brutally suppressed. In 1936, the first military coup took place in the kingdom, as Bakr Sidqi succeeded in replacing the acting Prime Minister with his associate. Multiple coups followed in a period of political instability, peaking in 1941. During the World War II, the Iraqi government of the Prince-Regent, Abd al-Ilah, was overthrown in 1941 by the Golden Square officers, headed by Rashid Ali. The short-lived pro-Nazi government of Iraq was defeated in May 1941 by the Allied forces in the Anglo-Iraqi War. Iraq was later used as a base for Allied attacks on the Vichy French-held Mandate of Syria and support for the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. At the same time, the Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani led a rebellion against the central government in Baghdad. After the failure of the uprising, Barzani and his followers fled to the Soviet Union. In 1945, during the final stages of World War II, Iraq joined the United Nations and became a founding member of the Arab League. In 1948, massive violent protests, known as the Al-Wathbah uprising, broke out across Baghdad as a popular demand against the government treaty with the British, and with support from the communists. More protests continued in the spring, but were interrupted in May, when martial law was imposed after Iraq entered the 1948 Arab–Israeli War with other members of the Arab League. In February 1958, King Hussein of Jordan and Prince Abd al-Ilah proposed a union of Hashemite monarchies to counter the recently formed Egyptian–Syrian union. The resulting Arab Federation, formed on 14 February 1958, was short-lived and ended the same year with a military coup led by Abdul-Karim Qasim deposing the monarchy.

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Italy against Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to May 1936. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion (Amharic: ጣልያን ወረራ, romanized: Ṭalyan warära), and in Italy as the Ethiopian War (Italian: Guerra d'Etiopia). The war is regarded as the largest colonial campaign in history. On 3 October 1935, two hundred thousand soldiers of the Regio Esercito (Royal Army) commanded by Marshal Emilio De Bono attacked from Italian Eritrea without prior declaration of war. At the same time a smaller force under General Rodolfo Graziani attacked from Italian Somalia. On 6 October, Adwa was conquered, a symbolic place for the Italian army as it was the site of their defeat at the Battle of Adwa during the First Italo-Ethiopian War. On 15 October, Italian troops seized the town of Aksum, and its famous obelisk was torn from its site and sent to Rome to be placed symbolically in front of the building of the Ministry of Colonies. Exasperated by De Bono's slow and cautious progress, Benito Mussolini replaced him with General Pietro Badoglio. Ethiopian forces launched a counterattack in December 1935 that achieved some gains and temporarily halted the Italian advance. Frustrated, Mussolini authorized the use of mustard gas, with the Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force) dropping 330 tons over the next four months, violating the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The Italians resumed the offensive in early February, decisively defeating the Ethiopian army at Amba Aradam, Tembien, and Shire. On 31 March 1936, the Italians won a decisive victory at the Battle of Maychew, which nullified any possible organized Ethiopian resistance. Emperor Haile Selassie was forced to flee into exile on 2 May, and Badoglio's forces arrived in the capital Addis Ababa on 5 May. Mussolini then announced the annexation of Ethiopia on 9 May and the colony of Italian East Africa was formed. Hostilities did not cease with the end of conventional war operations and Ethiopian resistance to Italian rule would continue until the country was liberated in 1941. Overall, the war in Ethiopia was a major military success for the fascist regime in Italy, achieved relatively quickly and with considerable propaganda value. However, it also placed a significant strain on an already seriously unbalanced budget, weakening Italy's long-term economic position. The Italian aggression against Ethiopia had significant diplomatic consequences, leading to the end of the Stresa Front and Italy's rapprochement with Nazi Germany. Simultaneously, the inability of the League of Nations to prevent the invasion discredited it internationally on the eve of the Second World War. Italian troops used mustard gas in aerial bombardments (in violation of the Geneva Protocol and Geneva Conventions) against combatants and civilians in an attempt to suppress Ethiopian resistance. Deliberate Italian attacks against ambulances and hospitals of the Red Cross were reported. By all estimates, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian civilians died as a result of the Italian invasion, which have been described by some historians as constituting genocide. Crimes by Ethiopian troops included the use of dumdum bullets (in violation of the Hague Conventions), the killing of civilian workmen (including during the Gondrand massacre) and the mutilation of captured Eritrean Ascari and Italians (often with castration).

The V-2 rocket, with the development name Aggregat-4 (A4), was the world's first practical, modern ballistic missile and suborbital launch vehicle. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a "vengeance weapon" and assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings of German cities. After an altitude of 100 km was selected to define the edge of space, the V-2 rocket also became retroactively the first artificial object to travel into space with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944.

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.

American Overseas Airlines (AOA) was an airline that operated between the United States and Europe between 1945 and 1950. It was headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.

The First Battle of Maryang-san (3–8 October 1951), also known as the Defensive Battle of Maliangshan (Chinese: 馬良山防衛戰; pinyin: Mǎliáng Shān Fángyù Zhàn), was fought during the Korean War between United Nations Command (UN) forces—primarily Australian, British and Canadian—and the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA). The fighting occurred during a limited UN offensive by US I Corps, codenamed Operation Commando. This offensive ultimately pushed the PVA back from the Imjin River to the Jamestown Line and destroyed elements of four PVA armies following heavy fighting. The much smaller battle at Maryang-san took place over a five-day period, and saw the 1st Commonwealth Division dislodge a numerically superior PVA force from the tactically important Kowang-san (Hill 355), Hill 187, and Maryang-san (Hill 317, a.k.a. Hill 315) features. Using tactics first developed against the Japanese in New Guinea during the Second World War, the Australians gained the advantage of the high ground and assaulted the PVA positions from unexpected directions. They then repelled repeated PVA counterattacks aimed at re-capturing Maryang San and Kowang-san (the latter on 12 October), with both sides suffering heavy casualties before the Australians were finally relieved by a British battalion. However, with the peace-talks ongoing, these operations proved to be the last actions in the war of manoeuvre, which had lasted the previous sixteen months. It was replaced by a static war characterised by fixed defences reminiscent of the Western Front in 1915–17. A month later, the PVA re-captured Maryang San during fierce fighting, and it was never re-gained. Today, the battle is widely regarded as one of the Australian Army's greatest accomplishments during the war.

Operation Hurricane was the first test of a British atomic device. A plutonium implosion device was detonated on 3 October 1952 in Main Bay, Trimouille Island, in the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. With the success of Operation Hurricane, the United Kingdom became the third nuclear power, after the United States and the Soviet Union. During the Second World War, Britain commenced a nuclear weapons project, code-named Tube Alloys, but the 1943 Quebec Agreement merged it with the American Manhattan Project. Several key British scientists worked on the Manhattan Project, but after the war the American government ended cooperation on nuclear weapons. In January 1947, a cabinet sub-committee decided to resume British efforts to build nuclear weapons, in response to an apprehension of American isolationism and fears of Britain losing its great power status. The project was called High Explosive Research, and was directed by Lord Portal, with William Penney in charge of bomb design. Implicit in the decision to develop atomic bombs was the need to test them. The preferred site was the Pacific Proving Grounds in the US-controlled Marshall Islands. As a fallback, sites in Canada and Australia were considered. The Admiralty suggested that the Montebello Islands might be suitable, so the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Attlee, sent a request to the prime minister of Australia, Robert Menzies. The Australian government formally agreed to the islands being used as a nuclear test site in May 1951. In February 1952, Attlee's successor, Winston Churchill, announced in the House of Commons that the first British atomic bomb test would occur in Australia before the end of the year. A small fleet was assembled for Operation Hurricane under the command of Rear Admiral A. D. Torlesse; it included the escort carrier HMS Campania, which served as the flagship, and the LSTs Narvik, Zeebrugge and Tracker. Leonard Tyte from the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston was appointed the technical director. The bomb for Operation Hurricane was assembled (without its radioactive components) at Foulness and taken to the frigate HMS Plym for transport to Australia. On reaching the Montebello Islands, the five Royal Navy ships were joined by eleven Royal Australian Navy ships, including the aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney. To test the effects of a ship-smuggled atomic bomb on a port (a threat of great concern to the British at the time), the bomb was exploded inside the hull of Plym, anchored 350 metres (1,150 ft) off Trimouille Island. The explosion occurred 2.7 metres (8 ft 10 in) below the water line and left a saucer-shaped crater on the seabed 6 metres (20 ft) deep and 300 metres (980 ft) across.

The superior courts of California are the state trial court system of the U.S. state of California. They have general jurisdiction to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a governmental agency. As mandated by the California Constitution, there is a superior court in each of the 58 counties in California. The superior courts also have appellate divisions (superior court judges sitting as appellate judges) which hear appeals from decisions in infraction and misdemeanor cases. Prior to June 1998, California's trial court system was divided into superior courts and municipal courts, each operating under separate jurisdictions with the number of judges set by the California State Legislature. That structure changed in June 1998, when voters passed Proposition 220 of 1998, a constitutional amendment allowing judges within each county to consolidate the two court types into a single, unified superior court. By February 2001, every one of California's 58 counties had approved unification of their trial courts.

Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted 20 uncrewed developmental flights, and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $2.83 billion. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot.

A five-year protest during the Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland culminated in a hunger strike in 1981. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976 when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners.

Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle which belongs to NASA, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Atlantis was manufactured by the Rockwell International company in Southern California and was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Eastern Florida in April 1985. Atlantis is the fourth operational and the second-to-last Space Shuttle built. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J made from October 3 to 7, 1985. It was, along with Challenger, one of only two orbiters equipped to carry the Shuttle-Centaur booster.

Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great benefit to humanity".

The Battle of Mogadishu, also known as the Black Hawk Down Incident, was part of Operation Gothic Serpent. It was fought on 3–4 October 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia, between forces of the United States—supported by UNOSOM II—against Somali National Alliance (SNA) fighters and other insurgents in south Mogadishu.

The People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson was a criminal trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court, in which former NFL player and actor O. J. Simpson was tried and acquitted for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, who were stabbed to death outside Brown's home in Los Angeles on June 12, 1994. The trial spanned eight months, from January 24 to October 3, 1995.

Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a landlocked country at the boundary of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia's republic of Dagestan to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Turkey and Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. Baku is the capital and largest city.

On 3 October 2015, a United States Air Force AC-130U gunship attacked the Kunduz Trauma Centre operated by Médecins Sans Frontières in the city of Kunduz, in the eponymous province in northern Afghanistan. 42 people were killed and over 30 were injured. MSF condemned the incident, calling it a deliberate breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime. It further stated that all warring parties had been notified about the hospital and its operations well in advance.

On 3 October 2021, a Romanian private plane crashed into a building in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. All eight occupants of the aircraft were killed, including the Romanian businessman and billionaire Dan Petrescu, who owned and piloted the plane.

Svante Pääbo is a Swedish geneticist and Nobel Laureate who specialises in the field of evolutionary genetics. As one of the founders of paleogenetics, he has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome. In 1997, he became founding director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Since 1999, he has been an honorary professor at Leipzig University; he currently teaches molecular evolutionary biology at the university. He is also an adjunct professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan.

Wabanakwut "Wab" Kinew is a Canadian politician who has served as the 25th premier of Manitoba since 2023 and the leader of the Manitoba New Democratic Party (NDP) since 2017. Kinew represents Fort Rouge in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and was the leader of the Opposition from 2017 until his party's victory in the 2023 provincial election.

Bengali, also known by its endonym Bangla, is an Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken by the Bengali people, native to the Bengal region as well as in Barak Valley in Assam and Tripura in South Asia. With over 242 million native speakers and another 43 million as second language speakers as of 2025, Bengali is the sixth most spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world.