October 29

October 29 is the 302nd day of the year (303rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 63 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

• 539 BC – Cyrus the Great enters the city of Babylon, detains Nabonidus and ends the Babylonian captivity. He gives the Jews permission to return to Yehud province and to rebuild the Temple; but most Jews choose to remain in Babylon.
• 312 – Constantine the Great enters Rome after his victory at the Milvian Bridge, stages a grand adventus in the city, and is met with popular jubilation. Maxentius' body is fished out of the Tiber and beheaded.
• 437 – Valentinian III, Western Roman Emperor, marries Licinia Eudoxia, daughter of his cousin Theodosius II, Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople unifying the two branches of the House of Theodosius.
• 969 – Byzantine troops occupy Antioch Syria.
• 1268 – Conradin, the last legitimate male heir of the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Kings of Germany and Holy Roman Emperors, is executed along with his companion Frederick I, Margrave of Baden by Charles I of Sicily, a political rival and ally to the hostile Roman Catholic church.
• 1390 – First trial for witchcraft in Paris leading to the death of three people.
• 1422 – Charles VII of France becomes king in succession to his father Charles VI of France.
• 1467 – Battle of Brustem: Charles the Bold defeats Liege.
• 1611 – Russian homage to the King of Poland, Sigismund III Vasa.
• 1618 – English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England.
• 1658 – Battle of the Sound.
• 1665 – Battle of Ambuila, in which Portuguese forces defeat the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king Antonio I of Kongo, also called Nvita a Nkanga.
• 1675 – Leibniz makes the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus.
• 1787 – Mozart's opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague.
• 1792 – Mount Hood (Oregon) is named after the British naval officer Alexander Arthur Hood by Lt. William E. Broughton who spotted the mountain near the mouth of the Willamette River.
• 1863 – Eighteen countries meet in Geneva and agree to form the International Red Cross.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Wauhatchie – Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant repel a Confederate attack led by General James Longstreet. Union forces thus open a supply line into Chattanooga, Tennessee.
• 1886 – The first ticker-tape parade takes place in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticker tape into the streets as the Statue of Liberty is dedicated.
• 1888 – The Convention of Constantinople is signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.
• 1901 – In Amherst, Massachusetts nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.
• 1901 – Capital punishment: Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of U.S. President William McKinley, is executed by electrocution.
• 1918 – The German High Seas Fleet is incapacitated when sailors mutiny on the night of the 29th-30th, an action which would trigger the German Revolution of 1918–1919.
• 1921 – The Link River Dam, a part of the Klamath Reclamation Project, is completed.
• 1921 – Second trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in the United States of America.
• 1921 – The Harvard University football team loses to Centre College, ending a 25 game winning streak. This is considered one of the biggest upsets in college football.
• 1922 – The King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, appoints Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister.
• 1923 – Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
• 1929 – The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of '29 or "Black Tuesday", ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.
• 1941 – The Holocaust: In the Kaunas Ghetto over 10,000 Jews are shot by German occupiers at the Ninth Fort, a massacre known as the "Great Action".
• 1942 – The Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.
• 1944 – The city of Breda in the Netherlands is liberated by 1st Polish Armoured Division.
• 1945 – Getulio Vargas, president of Brazil, resigns.
• 1948 – Safsaf massacre.
• 1953 – BCPA Flight 304 DC-6 crashes near San Francisco, California. Pianist William Kapell is among the 19 killed.
• 1955 – The Soviet battleship Novorossiisk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol.
• 1956 – Suez Crisis begins: Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.
• 1956 – The Tangier Protocol is signed: The international city Tangier is reintegrated into Morocco.
• 1957 – Israel's prime minister David Ben Gurion and five of his ministers are injured when a hand grenade is tossed into Israel's parliament, the Knesset.
• 1960 – In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
• 1961 – Syria exits from the United Arab Republic.
• 1964 – The United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar is renamed the United Republic of Tanzania.
• 1964 – A collection of irreplaceable gems, including the 565 carat (113 g) Star of India, is stolen by a group of thieves (among them is "Murph the surf") from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
• 1967 – London criminal Jack McVitie is murdered by the Kray twins, leading to their eventual imprisonment and downfall.
• 1967 – Montreal's World Fair, Expo 67, closes with over 50 million visitors.
• 1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
• 1971 – In Macon, Georgia, guitarist Duane Allman is killed in a motorcycle accident.
• 1980 – Demonstration flight of a secretly modified C-130 for an Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt ends in crash landing at Eglin Air Force Base's Duke Field, Florida leading to cancellation of Operation Credible Sport.
• 1980 – Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's murderer, leaves for New York from his home in Hawaii.
• 1983 – Over 500,000 people demonstrate against cruise missiles in The Hague, Netherlands.
• 1985 – Major General Samuel K. Doe is announced the winner of the first multi-party election in Liberia.
• 1986 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the last stretch of the M25 motorway.
• 1991 – The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid.
• 1994 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House (Duran is later convicted of trying to kill US President Bill Clinton).
• 1998 – Apartheid: In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities.
• 1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space.
• 1998 – ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the United States is inaugurated with the launch of STS-95 space shuttle mission.
• 1998 – While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of 6 and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacker into thinking that he is landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel.
• 1998 – Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, makes landfall in Honduras.
• 1998 – The Gothenburg nightclub fire in Sweden kills 63 and injures 200.
• 1999 – A large cyclone devastates Orissa, India.
• 2002 – Ho Chi Minh City ITC Inferno, a fire destroys a luxurious department store where 1500 people are shopping. Over 60 people die and over 100 are unaccounted for. It is the deadliest disaster in Vietnam during peacetime.
• 2004 – The Arabic news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a video of Osama bin Laden in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election.
• 2004 – In Rome, European heads of state sign the Treaty and Final Act establishing the first European Constitution which, however, failed to be ratified by all signatory countries and therefore never entered into force.
• 2005 – Bombings in Delhi kill more than 60.
• 2008 – Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to 5.

Births

• 1017 – Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1056)
• 1682 – Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, French historian (d. 1761)
• 1690 – Martin Folkes, English antiquarian (d. 1754)
• 1704 – John Byng, British admiral (d. 1757)
• 1740 – James Boswell, Scottish biographer of Samuel Johnson (d. 1795)
• 1815 – Daniel Emmett, American composer (d. 1904)
• 1815 – Ľudovít Štúr, Slovak politician, author of Slovak language (d. 1856)
• 1822 – Mieczysław Halka Ledóchowski, Polish Catholic Cardinal (d. 1902)
• 1827 – Marcellin Berthelot, French chemist (d. 1907)
• 1832 – Narcisa de Jesús Martillo, Ecuadorian saint (d. 1869)
• 1855 – Paul Bruchési, archbishop of Montreal (d. 1939)
• 1861 – Andrei Ryabushkin, Russian painter (d. 1904)
• 1866 – Antonio Luna, Filipino revolutionary general (d. 1899)
• 1875 – Queen Marie of Romania (d. 1938)
• 1877 – Wilfred Rhodes, English cricketer (d. 1973)
• 1877 – Narcisa de Leon, Filipino film mogul (d. 1966)
• 1879 – Alva B. Adams, American politician (d. 1941)
• 1879 – Franz von Papen, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1969)
• 1880 – Abram Ioffe, Soviet physicist (d. 1960)
• 1882 – Jean Giraudoux, French writer (d. 1944)
• 1891 – Fanny Brice, American singer (d. 1951)
• 1897 – Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda (d. 1945)
• 1899 – Akim Tamiroff, Russian actor (d. 1972)
• 1906 – Fredric Brown, American science fiction and mystery writer (d. 1972)
• 1907 – Edwige Feuillère, French film actress (d. 1998)
• 1910 – Alfred Ayer, British philosopher (d. 1989)
• 1915 – William Berenberg, American physician (d. 2005)
• 1917 – Eddie Constantine, American actor/singer (d. 1993)
• 1918 – Bernard Gordon, American writer and producer (d. 2007)
• 1920 – Baruj Benacerraf, Venezuelan-born immunologist, Nobel laureate (d. 2011)
• 1920 – Catholicos Baselios Mar Thoma Didymos I Catholicos, Indian Orthodox Church
• 1921 – Bill Mauldin, American cartoonist (d. 2003)
• 1922 – Neal Hefti, American jazz musician (d. 2008)
• 1923 – Carl Djerassi, Austrian chemist
• 1923 – Gerda van der Kade-Koudijs, Dutch athlete
• 1925 – Dominick Dunne, American author (d. 2009)
• 1925 – Robert Hardy, English actor
• 1926 – Jon Vickers, Canadian tenor
• 1929 – Yevgeny Primakov, Russian politician
• 1930 – Bertha Brouwer, Dutch athlete (d. 2006)
• 1930 – Niki de Saint Phalle, French sculptor (d. 2002)
• 1930 – Natalie Sleeth, American composer (d. 1992)
• 1930 – Omara Portuondo, Cuban singer
• 1931 – Franco Interlenghi, Italian actor
• 1935 – Takahata Isao, Japanese animated film director
• 1936 – Akiko Kojima, Japanese model
• 1938 – Ralph Bakshi, American cartoonist
• 1938 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia
• 1940 – Frida Boccara, French singer (d. 1996)
• 1940 – Connie Mack, U.S. Senator
• 1940 – José Ulises Macías Salcedo, Catholic bishop
• 1940 – Galen Weston, Canadian businessman and philanthropist
• 1942 – Bob Ross, American artist and television host (d. 1995)
• 1942 – Melora Harte, American voice actor
• 1943 – Don Simpson, American film producer (d. 1996)
• 1944 – Denny Laine, English musician (Moody Blues, Ginger Baker's Air Force, Wings)
• 1944 – Otto Wiesheu, German minister
• 1944 – Claude Brochu, Canadian businessman and sports executive (Montreal Expos)
• 1945 – Melba Moore, American singer
• 1945 – Gerrit Ybema, Dutch politician (d. 2012)
• 1946 – Peter Green, English guitarist (Fleetwood Mac)
• 1946 – Lynn Carey, American actress and singer (Mama Lion)
• 1947 – Richard Dreyfuss, American actor
• 1947 – Helen Coonan, Australian politician
• 1948 – Kate Jackson, American actress
• 1948 – Frans de Waal, Dutch primatologist
• 1949 – James Williamson, American guitarist
• 1949 – Paul Orndorff, American professional wrestler
• 1949 – David Paton, Scottish musician (Pilot, The Alan Parsons Project, Camel)
• 1949 – Kieron Baker, English footballer
• 1950 – Bronwen Mantel, Canadian actress and voice actor
• 1950 – Abdullah Gul, Turkish President
• 1951 – Dirk Kempthorne, American politician, 49th United States Secretary of the Interior and 30th Governor of Idaho
• 1951 – Tiff Needell, British racing driver and television presenter
• 1953 – Denis Potvin, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1955 – Kevin DuBrow, American singer (Quiet Riot) (d. 2007)
• 1955 – Roger O'Donnell, English musician (The Cure)
• 1956 – Wilfredo Gómez, Puerto Rican boxer
• 1957 – Dan Castellaneta, American voice actor
• 1958 – David Remnick, American writer and editor of The New Yorker
• 1958 – Blažej Baláž, Slovak painter
• 1959 – Jesse Barfield, American baseball player
• 1959 – Mike Gartner, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1960 – Finola Hughes, British actress
• 1960 – Thorsten Schlumberger, German footballer
• 1961 – Randy Jackson, American musician
• 1961 – Joel Otto, American ice hockey player turned coach
• 1962 – Einar Örn Benediktsson, Icelandic musician (The Sugarcubes)
• 1964 – Yasmin Le Bon, British model
• 1964 – Eddie McGuire, Australian television presenter
• 1967 – Joely Fisher, American actress
• 1967 – Rufus Sewell, English actor
• 1968 – Johann Olav Koss, Norwegian speed skater
• 1968 – Tsunku, Japanese music producer
• 1969 – Giorgos Donis, Greek footballer
• 1969 – Eleni Menegaki, Greek TV presenter
• 1969 – SA Martinez, American singer (311)
• 1970 – Edwin van der Sar, Dutch footballer
• 1970 – Phillip Cocu, Dutch footballer
• 1971 – Winona Ryder, American actress
• 1971 – Daniel J. Bernstein, American professor
• 1971 – Matthew Hayden, Australian cricketer
• 1972 – Takafumi Horie, Japanese entrepreneur
• 1972 – Gabrielle Union, American actress
• 1972 – Tracee Ellis Ross, American actress
• 1973 – Robert Pirès, French footballer
• 1973 – Éric Messier, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1974 – Michael Vaughan, English cricketer
• 1975 – Kelly Lin, Chinese actress
• 1976 – Stephen Craigan, Northern Irish footballer
• 1976 – Milena Govich, American actress
• 1976 – Giorgos Kalaitzis, Greek basketball player
• 1977 – Jon Abrahams, American actor
• 1977 – Brendan Fehr, Canadian actor
• 1977 – Vaggelis Kaounos, Greek footballer
• 1978 – Travis Henry, American football player
• 1979 – Ignasi Giménez Renom, Catalan politician
• 1979 – Andrew-Lee Potts, English actor
• 1980 – Ben Foster, American actor
• 1980 – Kaine Robertson, New Zealand-born Italian rugby player
• 1980 – B.J. Sams, American football player
• 1981 – Amanda Beard, American swimmer
• 1981 – Jonathan Brown, Australian Australian rules footballer
• 1981 – Georgios Fotakis, Greek footballer
• 1981 – Reema Sen, Indian actress
• 1982 – Ariel Lin, Taiwanese actress and singer
• 1982 – Chelan Simmons, Canadian actress
• 1983 – Richard Brancatisano, Australian actor
• 1983 – Maurice Clarett, American football player
• 1983 – Dana Eveland, American baseball player
• 1983 – Jason Tahincioglu, Turkish racing driver
• 1984 – Eric Staal, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1985 – Jefferson Severino, Brazilian footballer
• 1986 – Sarita Pérez de Tagle, Filipina actress and model
• 1987 – Makoto Ogawa, Japanese singer
• 1987 – Frazer McLaren, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1987 – Jessica Dubé, Canadian figure skater
• 1990 – Eric Saade, Swedish singer
• 1993 – India Eisley, American actress

Deaths

• 1038 – Aethelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury
• 1138 – Bolesław III Krzywousty, Duke of Poland (b. 1086)
• 1268 – Conradin, Duke of Swabia (b. 1252)
• 1268 – Frederick I, Margrave of Baden (b. 1249)
• 1321 – Stephen Uroš II, King of Serbia (b. 1253)
• 1590 – Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert, Dutch politician (b. 1522)
• 1618 – Sir Walter Raleigh, English explorer (b. 1554)
• 1650 – David Calderwood, Scottish historian (b. 1575)
• 1666 – Edmund Calamy the Elder, English Presbyterian leader (b. 1600)
• 1666 – James Shirley, English dramatist (b. 1596)
• 1783 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician (b. 1717)
• 1829 – Maria Anna Mozart, Austrian musician (b. 1751)
• 1877 – Nathan Bedford Forrest, American Confederate general (b. 1821)
• 1897 – Henry George, American writer, politician and political economist (b. 1839)
• 1901 – Leon Czolgosz, American assassin of U.S. President William McKinley (b. 1873)
• 1905 – Étienne Desmarteau, Canadian athlete (b. 1873)
• 1911 – Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-born newspaper publisher (b. 1847)
• 1916 – John Sebastian Little, American politician and congressman (b. 1851)
• 1919 – A. B. Simpson, Canadian preacher (b. 1843)
• 1932 – Joseph Babiński, Polish-French neurologist (b. 1857)
• 1933 – Albert Calmette, French physician (b. 1863)
• 1933 – Paul Painlevé, French mathematician and politician (b. 1853)
• 1936 – Ramiro de Maeztu, Spanish writer and political theorist (b. 1874)
• 1939 – Dwight B. Waldo, American educator and historian (b. 1864)
• 1940 – Phan Boi Chau, Vietnamese nationalist (b. 1867)
• 1941 – Harvey Hendrick, American baseball player (b. 1897)
• 1949 – George Gurdjieff, Armenian mystic (b. 1872)
• 1950 – King Gustaf V of Sweden (b. 1858)
• 1953 – William Kapell, American pianist (b. 1922)
• 1957 – Louis B. Mayer, American film producer (b. 1885)
• 1957 – Rosemarie Nitribitt, German call girl (b. 1933)
• 1958 – Zoe Akins, American playwright (b. 1886)
• 1963 – Adolphe Menjou, American actor (b. 1890)
• 1971 – Duane Allman, American musician (b. 1946)
• 1971 – Arne Tiselius, Swedish chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1902)
• 1977 – Chiyonoyama Masanobu, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 41st Yokozuna (b. 1926)
• 1981 – Georges Brassens, French singer (b. 1921)
• 1986 – Mimis Fotopoulos, Greek actor (b. 1913)
• 1987 – Woody Herman, American musician (b. 1913)
• 1993 – Lipman Bers, American Mathematician (b.1914)
• 1994 – Shlomo Goren, Israeli Chief Rabbi (b. 1918)
• 1995 – Terry Southern, American screenwriter (b. 1924)
• 1997 – Anton LaVey, American founder of the Church of Satan (b. 1930)
• 1997 – Andreas Gerasimos Michalitsianos, Greek-American astronomer and NASA astrophysicist (b. 1947)
• 1998 – Paul Misraki, French songwriter (b. 1908)
• 1999 – Michel Regnier (Greg), Belgian comic-book writer and artist (Achille Talon) (b. 1931)
• 2002 – Glenn McQueen, American animator (b. 1960)
• 2003 – Hal Clement, American writer (b. 1922)
• 2003 – Franco Corelli, Italian tenor (b. 1921)
• 2004 – Edward Oliver LeBlanc, Dominican politician (b. 1923)
• 2004 – Vaughn Meader, American comedian (b. 1936)
• 2004 – Peter Twinn, English mathematician (b. 1916)
• 2006 – Mohammadu Maccido, 18th Sultan of Sokoto (b. 1928)
• 2008 – Mike Baker, American singer Shadow Gallery (b. 1963)
• 2011 – Jimmy Savile, British media personality (b. 1926)

Holidays and observances

• Christian Feast Day:
  • Abraham of Rostov
  • Douai Martyrs
  • Gaetano Errico
  • James Hannington (Anglican Church)
  • Narcissus of Jerusalem (Roman Catholic Church)
  • October 29 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

• Coronation Day (Cambodia)
• Republic Day or Cumhuriyet Bayramı (Turkey)

External links

• BBC: On This Day
• The New York Times: On This Day
• On This Day in Canada

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