HistoryPod
The 'on this day in history' podcast, with a new episode every single day. Featuring historical events that range from the Roman Empire to the World Wide Web, HistoryPod proves that there is always something to be remembered 'on this day'. Written and presented by Scott Allsop, creator of the award-winning www.mrallsophistory.com
24th October 1901: Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to deliberately go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive
Taylor had a specially constructed barrel built of oak, reinforced with iron bands, and fitted with internal padding. She survived the plunge with just some bruising and a small cut to her ...
23rd October 1739: The War of Jenkinsâ Ear begins when England declare war on Spain
The writer Thomas Carlyle is credited with giving the conflict its name in his 1858 biography of the Prussian King Friedrich ...
22nd October 1895: Granville-Paris Express train crashes through a wall at the Gare Montparnasse railway station
The GranvilleâParis Express train ran across the station platform in Paris, crashed through a 60cm wall, and fell 10 metres to the street below after it overran the buffer stop at the Gare Montparnasse ...
21st October 1879: Thomas Edison makes a breakthrough in his attempt to develop an incandescent electric light
The breakthrough came when the team used carbonised cotton thread as a filament. A lamp that was initially illuminated on 21st October stayed lit for more than thirteen hours, providing evidence that a practical incandescent lamp was ...
20th October 1740: Maria Theresa inherits the Austrian throne, prompting the War of the Austrian Succession
Maria Theresa inherited the Austrian throne, prompting the War of the Austrian ...
19th October 202 BCE: Roman Republic defeats Carthage at the Battle of Zama
After seventeen years, the Second Punic War was finally brought to an end with the decisive victory of the Roman general and consul Scipio Africanus over Hannibal at the Battle of ...
18th October 1967: Soviet spacecraft Venera 4 becomes the first to enter the atmosphere of Venus and transmit scientific data back to Earth
Instruments on board Venera 4 measured temperature, pressure, and the composition of the surrounding gases, with the results transmitted by radio to receiving stations on ...
17th October 1814: London Beer Flood kills eight people when nearly one and a half million litres of beer sweep out of the Horse Shoe Brewery
Once the beer began to pour into the street, it quickly began to fill the cellars of nearby houses in which families lived, killing eight ...
16th October 1939: First German air raid on Britain during WW2 took place when bombers attacked Rosyth naval base in Scotland
The light cruiser HMS Southampton and the destroyer Mohawk were damaged, while sixteen Royal Navy sailors died and 44 were ...
15th October 1815: Napoleon Bonaparte arrives at his exile on the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic
Napoleon was exiled to the island of St Helena, situated roughly halfway between Africa and South America, where he lived for six years before his ...
14th October 1962: U-2 spy plane captures images of Cuban missile sites
A U-2 spy plane captured images of the construction of a missile site on Cuba, triggering the Cuban Missile ...
13th October 1908: Suffragette Margaret Travers Symons becomes the first woman to speak in the House of Commons when she burst into the main chamber
As she was accompanied through the Membersâ Lobby, Travers Symons broke away from her escort and burst into the chamber where MPs were debating a bill regarding issues related to ...
12th October 539 BCE: Babylon falls to the Persian king Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Greatâs Persian forces defeated the Babylonians at the Battle of Opis before entering Babylon on 12 October, bringing the Neo-Babylonian Empire to an end. He subsequently incorporated Mesopotamia into the Persian Empire while preserving Babylonâs importance as a major ...
11th October 1521: King Henry VIII of England given the title Defender of the Faith by Pope Leo X
The Pope granted the Latin title Fidei defensor to Henry after he published a book in which he defended Catholic doctrine against the criticisms levelled at it by Martin Luther in his Ninety-five Theses during the early stages of the Protestant ...
10th October 1780: The Great Hurricane of 1780 kills an estimated 22,000 people, making it the deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record
At around 6am on 10 October the hurricane made landfall at Barbados in the Lesser Antilles, where it unleashed its full fury as it moved through the ...
9th October 1665: King Charles II moves Parliament to the University of Oxford to escape the Great Plague
Charles opened the fifth session of the Cavalier Parliament in the Great Hall at Christ Church College in Oxford, having left London to escape the Great ...
8th October 1480: The Great Stand on the Ugra River by Ivan III
The Great Stand on the Ugra River marked the start of the decline of the Great ...
7th October 1879: Germany and Austria Hungary form the Dual Alliance
Keen to consolidate the newly-united Germany, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck turned to diplomacy in an attempt to ensure the status quo in ...
6th October 1927: The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson, the first major âtalkieâ movie, premieres in New York City
The Jazz Singer demonstrated to a large audience that recorded dialogue could be incorporated successfully into a commercial feature film. It used the Vitaphone system that played large phonograph discs in synchronisation with the film ...
5th October 1962: James Bond and The Beatles each make their debut with Dr. No and Love Me Do
Two cultural icons made their first appearance when Dr No, the first of the James Bond series of films, hit cinema screens on the same day as the Beatles released their debut single âLove Me ...
4th October 1582: Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar
By the 16th Century a sizable drift had developed between the Julian calendar, the lunar calendar, and the real moon which the new calendar sought to ...
3rd October 1952: Britain conducts Operation Hurricane, its first test of an atomic bomb
The bomb was successfully detonated at 8 a.m., making Britain the third country to successfully develop and detonate a nuclear weapon, after the United States and Soviet ...
2nd October 1919: US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke while in office
United States President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on his left-hand ...
1st October 1949: Mao Zedong declares the establishment of the Peopleâs Republic of China
The Chinese Communists in the Peopleâs Liberation Army had been fighting the second stage of a long and costly civil war against the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, known as the Kuomintang, since shortly after the end of the Second World ...
30th September 1960: The Flintstones broadcast for the first time as the worldâs first animated sitcom
The Flintstones attracted strong ratings, demonstrating that an animated series could compete with live-action programmes in an evening schedule and establishing Hanna-Barbera as a major television animation ...
29th September 1789: Congress formally establishes the United States Army on the final day of its first session
President George Washington wrote to Congress, stating that the military was something on which the âhonor, safety and well being of our Country so evidently and essentially ...
28th September 1928: Alexander Fleming accidentally discovers penicillin, laying the foundation for a revolution in modern medicine
Fleming found that a petri dish containing staphylococci bacteria had been contaminated with an unidentified fungus. The bacteria around the fungus had been destroyed, whereas bacteria that were further away ...
27th September 1825: Stockton and Darlington Railway opens as the first public railway to make regular use of steam locomotives
The railway was developed by to improve the transport of coal from inland collieries to Darlington and the port at ...
26th September 1960: Kennedy and Nixon take part in their first televised debate
The first United States presidential debate took place between John F. Kennedy and Richard ...
25th September 1066: Battle of Stamford Bridge fought between King Harold Godwinson of England and the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada
The Battle of Stamford Bridge saw both sides suffer heavy casualties but, with Harald Hardrada slain in battle, the English emerged ...
24th September 1954: Iconic AEC Routemaster London bus revealed at the Commercial Motor Show at Earlâs Court
The vehicle, designated RM1, was conceived by London Transport to replace its extensive trolleybus network with motor buses and was developed in conjunction with the Associated Equipment Company (AEC), with Park Royal involved in the construction of the ...
23rd September 1974: BBC launches Ceefax, the worldâs first teletext service
Teletext was the dominant medium for accessing breaking news until the arrival of the World Wide ...
22nd September 1776: Nathan Hale hanged by the British for spying for the Continental Army during the American Revolution
Hale volunteered to gather intelligence on British troop movements and strategies but was captured, swiftly subjected to a trial by British authorities, found guilty of spying, and condemned to death as an illegal ...
21st September 1792: French First Republic begins when the National Convention formally abolish the monarchy
The Convention unanimously decreed that âroyalty is abolished in Franceâ and subsequently ordered that official documents should be dated from âthe first year of the French Republicâ, establishing the Republican ...
20th September 1835: The start of the Ragamuffin War in Brazil
The Ragamuffin War began when Brazilian rebels in the southern province of Rio Grande do Sul captured Porto ...
19th September 1870: The Siege of Paris began during the Franco-Prussian War when the city was encircled by forces of the North German Confederation
The German forces reached the outskirts of the French capital on 15 September and General Helmuth von Moltke, the commander of the Prussian army, gave the order to begin surrounding the ...
18th September 1870: The Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition to the Yellowstone region sees a large geyser they named Old Faithful.
Lake, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and several geyser basins where they encountered numerous geothermal features, including the geyser that they named Old Faithful due to its regular ...
17th September 1978: Camp David Accords signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
The talks concluded with the signing of two separate agreements â âA Framework for Peace in the Middle Eastâ and âA Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and ...
16th September 1978: Filming begins on Monty Pythonâs Life of Brian after George Harrison steps in to provide funding
Claimed by its fans to be the greatest comedy film of all time, Life of Brian has courted controversy since its release due to its satirical portrayal of religion that is interpreted by some as ...
15th September 1959: Nikita Khrushchev became the first Soviet leader to visit the United States
At the end of the visit Khrushchev and Eisenhower agreed to continue discussions, signalling a temporary improvement in relations that became known as the âSpirit of Camp ...
