455 – Emperor Avitus enters Rome with a Gallic army and consolidates his power.
1170 – The Kingdom of Dublin falls to Norman invaders.
1217 – Livonian Crusade: The Estonian leader Lembitu and Livonian leader Kaupo the Accursed are killed in the Battle of St. Matthew's Day.
1435 – The Congress of Arras causes Burgundy to switch sides in the Hundred Years' War.
1745 – A Hanoverian army is defeated, in ten minutes, by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart
1776 – Part of New York City is burned shortly after being occupied by British forces.
1780 – American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.
1792 – French Revolution: The National Convention abolishes the monarchy.
1843 – John Williams Wilson takes possession of the Strait of Magellan on behalf of the Chilean government.
1860 – Second Opium War: An Anglo-French force defeats Chinese troops at the Battle of Palikao.
1896 – Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan: British forces under the command of Horatio Kitchener take Dongola.
1898 – Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days' Reform in China.
1921 – A storage silo in Oppau, Germany, explodes, killing 500-600 people.
1933 – Salvador Lutteroth establishes Mexican professional wrestling.
1934 – A large typhoon hits western Honshū, Japan, killing more than three thousand people.
1937 – J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published.
1938 – The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York. The death toll is estimated at 500-700 people.
1939 – Romanian Prime Minister Armand Călinescu is assassinated by the Iron Guard.
1942 – The Holocaust in Ukraine: On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Nazis send over 1,000 Jews of Pidhaitsi to Bełżec extermination camp.
1942 – The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, Nazis murder 2,588 Jews.
1942 – The Holocaust in Poland: At the end of Yom Kippur, Germans order Jews to permanently move from Konstantynów to Biała Podlaska.
1942 – The Boeing B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.
1949 – The People's Republic of China is proclaimed.
1953 – Lieutenant No Kum-sok, a North Korean pilot, defects to South Korea with his jet fighter.
1964 – Malta gains independence from the United Kingdom, but remains in the Commonwealth.
1964 – The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's fastest bomber, makes its maiden flight from Palmdale, California.
1965 – The Gambia, Maldives and Singapore are admitted as members of the United Nations.
1971 – Bahrain, Bhutan and Qatar join the United Nations.
1972 – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos begins authoritarian rule by declaring martial law.
1976 – Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. He had been a member of the former Chilean Marxist government.
1976 – Seychelles joins the United Nations.
1981 – Belize is granted full independence from the United Kingdom.
1981 – Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court justice.
1984 – Brunei joins the United Nations.
1991 – Armenia gains independence from the Soviet Union.
1993 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin triggers a constitutional crisis when he suspends parliament and scraps the constitution.
1996 – The Defense of Marriage Act is passed by the United States Congress.
1999 – The Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead.
2001 – America: A Tribute to Heroes is broadcast by over 35 network and cable channels, raising over $200 million for the victims of the September 11 attacks.
2001 – Ross Parker is murdered in Peterborough, England, by a gang of ten Muslims.
2003 – The Galileo spacecraft is terminated by sending it into Jupiter's atmosphere.
2013 – Al-Shabaab Islamic militants attack the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya, killing at least 67 people.
