1947
Test pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier aboard a Bell X-1 rocket plane.
| 1066 | William of Normandy defeats King Harold in the Battle of Hastings. | |
| 1651 | Laws are passed in Massachusetts forbidding the poor to adopt excessive styles of dress. | |
| 1705 | The English Navy captures Barcelona in Spain. | |
| 1773 | Britain’s East India Company tea ships’ cargo is burned at Annapolis, Md. | |
| 1806 | Napoleon Bonaparte crushes the Prussian army at Jena, Germany. | |
| 1832 | Blackfeet Indians attack American Fur Company trappers near Montana’s Jefferson River, killing one. | |
| 1912 | Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is shot and wounded in an assassination attempt in Milwaukee. He is saved by the papers in his breast pocket and, though wounded, insists on finishing his speech. | |
| 1933 | The Geneva disarmament conference breaks up as Germany proclaims its withdrawal from the disarmament initiative, as well as from the League of Nations, effective October 23. This begins the German policy of independent action in foreign affairs. | |
| 1943 | Prisoners at Nazi Germany’s Sobibór extermination camp in Poland revolt against the Germans, killing 11 SS guards, and wounding many more. About 300 of the Sobibor Camp’s 600 prisoners escape, and about 50 of these will survive the end of the war. [From MHQ—The Quarterly Journal of Military History] | |
| 1944 | German Field Marshal Rommel, suspected of complicity in the July 20th plot against Adolf Hitler, is visited at home by two of Hitler’s staff and given the choice of public trial or suicide by poison. He chooses suicide and it is announced that he died of wounds. | |
| 1947 | Test pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier aboard a Bell X-1 rocket plane. | |
| 1950 | Chinese Communist Forces begin to infiltrate the North Korean Army. | |
| 1962 | The Cuban Missile Crisis begins; a USAF U-2 reconnaissance pilot photographs Cubans installing Soviet-made missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. | |
| 1964 | Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating a policy of non-violence. | |
| 1966 | Montreal, Quebec, Canada, opens its underground Montreal Metro rapid-transit system. | |
| 1968 | US Defense Department announces 24,000 soldiers and Marines will be sent back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours of duty. | |
| 1968 | Jim Hines, USA, breaks the “ten-second barrier” in the 100-meter sprint at the Olympics in Mexico City; his time was 9.95. | |
| 1969 | The British 50-pence coin enters the UK’s currency, the first step toward converting to a decimal system, which was planned for 1971. | |
| 1983 | Prime Minister of Grenada Maurice Bishop is overthrown and later executed by a military coup. | |
| 1994 | The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for establishing the Oslo Accords and preparing for Palestinian Self Government. | |
| 1998 | Eric Robert Rudolph is charged with the 1996 bombing during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia; It was one of several bombing incidents Rudolph carried out to protest legalized abortion in the US. | |
| 2012 | Felix Baumgartner breaks the world record for highest manned balloon flight, highest parachute jump, and greatest free-fall velocity, parachuting from an altitude of approximately 24 miles (39km). | |
| Born on October 14 | ||
| 1644 | William Penn, English Quaker leader and founder of Pennsylvania. | |
| 1888 | Katherine Mansfield, short story writer. | |
| 1890 | Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th U.S. President (1953-1961). | |
| 1894 | e.e. cummings, American poet. | |
| 1896 | Lilian Gish, film actress, “The First Lady of the Silent Screen.” | |
| 1905 | Eugene Fodor, Hungarian-born travel writer. | |
| 1916 | C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General. | |
| 1926 | Son Thomas, blues guitarist and singer. | |
| 1927 | Sir Roger Moore, actor; played James Bond in 7 films (1973-85) and starred as Simon Templar in The Saint TV series (1962-69). | |
| 1930 | Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Congo / Zaire (1965-97); rose to power in a coup that overthrew the first democratically elected president of the republic of the Congo; the country was renamed Zaire in 1971. | |
| 1939 | Ralph Lauren, noted fashion designer. | |
| 1940 | Christopher Timothy, actor, director, writer; best known for portraying James Herriot in the British TV series All Creatures Great and Small (1978-80) and Brendan “Mac” McGuire in the BBC soap opera Doctors (2000-06). | |
| 1954 | Mordechai Vanunu, Israeli nuclear technician who provided details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction. | |
| 1974 | Natalie Maines, singer, songwriter, activist; lead vocalist of the Dixie Chicks, the top-selling all-female band and country group since Nielsen SoundScan tracking began in 1991; Maines’ comments against the coming US invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to radio boycotts that virtually ended the group’s career for several years. | |
| 1978 | Usher (Usher Raymond IV), singer; among the top-selling artists in music history and a multiple Grammy winner (“Nice & Slow,” “OMG”). | |
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