Sir James Young Simpson discovers the anesthetic properties of chloroform, revolutionizing surgery and pain management.
Browse Historical Events by Month:
What Happened in October?
Explorations, great battles, and crowned leaders. Discover meaningful events and milestones from October throughout history. Dates for earlier events may be approximate.
Note: Sources for the historical content shown, include research and reviews of relevant Online History Resources or printed material. When possible, we show a link to a source which provides additional or unique perspective about the event.
We do our best to provide accurate information but would appreciate being notified if any incorrect information is found. You may do so by using our Feedback link.
The Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead, England, destroys a large portion of both towns. More
The Charge of the Light Brigade takes place during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, resulting in the loss of the Light Brigade, one of Britain’s most spectacular military disasters. It was memorialized by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s popular poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, written just a few weeks after the battle. More
The Second Opium War between Britain and France against China begins with the Battle of Canton.
John Brown, a staunch abolitionist, and a group of his supporters start their march toward the town of Harpers Ferry. In the early hours of October 17, they capture local residents and seized the federal armory and arsenal. Brown was captured two days later and quickly placed on trial and charged with treason against the state of Virginia, murder, and slave insurrection. Brown was sentenced to death for his crimes and hanged on December 2, 1859. More
During the Second Opium War, The British High Commissioner to China, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, orders the complete destruction of the Old Summer Palace in retaliation for the imprisonment and torture of several Anglo-French delegation members by the Qing government, with several of them being killed.
The French and British troops had captured the palace days earlier and had looted and destroyed the imperial collections. The destruction of the Peking’s Summer Palace has been considered criminal and barbaric by many Chinese and remains a a very sensitive issue in China today. More
The Second Opium War ends with the signing of the Convention of Peking. The Beijing Convention consists of three individual treaties signed by China, with Great Britain (October 24), France (October 25), and Russia (November 14). More
The first transcontinental telegraph system is completed by Western Union, making it possible to transmit messages rapidly from coast to coast. This technological advance, pioneered by inventor Samuel F. B. Morse, heralded the end of the Pony Express. More
The Pony Express, the horseback mail service that had provided the fastest means of communication between the eastern and western United States officially closes, after only one and one-half years of service, two days after the first Transcontinental Telegraph line is inaugurated.
The nearly 2,000-mile route, using a continuous relay of the best riders and horses, from St. Joseph, Missouri, to San Francisco, California, averaged ten days, while winter deliveries required twelve to sixteen days, approximately half the time needed by stagecoach. More
President Abraham Lincoln encourages Americans to recognize the last Thursday of November as “a day of Thanksgiving. More
Nevada is admitted into the Union becoming the 36th State.
The brothers John and Simeon Reno staged what is generally believed to be the first train robbery in American history. Their take was $13,000 from an Ohio and Mississippi railroad train in Jackson County, Indiana.
Also considered the first train robbery by some, a similar train burglary exactly nine months before. In early 1866, bandits entered an Adams Express car in route to Boston from New York and stole over half a million dollars from safes on the unoccupied car. As in the Seymour case, detectives from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency quickly identified the criminals. More
The United States formally takes possession of Alaska from Russia in a ceremony known as the Alaska Purchase. The $7.2 million purchase, ended Russia’s presence in North America and ensured U.S. access to the Pacific northern rim.
Skeptics had dubbed the purchase of Alaska “Seward’s Folly,” but the former Secretary of State was vindicated when a major gold deposit was discovered in the Yukon in 1896, and Alaska became the gateway to the Klondike gold fields. The strategic importance of Alaska was finally recognized in World War II. Alaska became a state on January 3, 1959. More
Cuba Independence Day. It Commemorates the beginning of the 10 years unsuccessful war of independence from Spain from 1868-78. and the the U.S. intervention in 1898 that ended the Spanish colonial presence in the Americas. Following the war, U.S. forces occupied Cuba until 1902, when the United States allowed a new Cuban government to take full control of the state’s affairs.
As a condition of independence, the United States forced Cuba to grant a continuing U.S. right to intervene on the island in accordance with the Platt Amendment. The amendment was repealed in 1934 when the United States and Cuba signed a Treaty of Relations.
The most devastating forest fire in American history swept through Northeast Wisconsin, claiming 1200+ lives. It scorched 1.2 to 1.5 million acres. The fire skipped over the waters of Green Bay to burn parts of Door and Kewaunee counties. The fire also burned 16 other towns, but the damage in Peshtigo was the worst.
The city of Peshtigo was gone in an hour and 800 lives were lost. The damage estimate was at $169 million. The Peshtigo Fire usually receives little note outside the region because another horrific fire happened the same night -- the great Chicago Fire. More
The Great Chicago Fire starts at about 9:00 p.m. in or around a small barn belonging to Patrick and Catherine O’Leary. The fire quickly spread and lasted two days. It killed about 300 people, and destroyed over 17,000 buildings, leaving 100,000 homeless. The estimated damage costs were $200 million dollars (roughly $4 billion in 2020 dollars). The real cause of the fire has never been determined by city officials. More
Joseph Glidden applies for a patent for a reinforced wire fence that placed the barbs along a wire and then twisted another wire around it to keep the barbs in place, an improvement over Michael Kelly's 1868 invention that "twisted two wires together to form a cable for barbs.
Nine patents for improvements to wire fencing were granted by the U.S. Patent Office to American inventors, beginning with Michael Kelly and ending with Joseph Glidden in November 24 1874 when he was 61 years old. By the time of his death in 1906, he was one of the richest men in America. More
Haiphong cyclone, Over 300,000 people perished in one of most catastrophic natural disasters in history. The cyclone smashed into the Gulf of Tonkin causing widespread destruction as tidal waves flooded the city of Haiphong in northeastern Vietnam.
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, USA, involving the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday. More
The Orient Express train makes its inaugural run leaving Paris with 40 passengers for Constantinople, (as the city of Istanbul was still commonly called in the west) and ending in Giurgiu, Romania, with stops in Munich and Vienna.
At Giurgiu, passengers were ferried across the Danube to Ruse, Bulgaria, to pick up another train to Varna where they were then ferried by steamship across the Black Sea to Constantinople. With this one trip, the notion of long-distance travel was completely redefined. All original Orient Express routes finally retired in 2009 after almost 100 years of the most famous train journeys in the world. More