It happened today – this day in history – October 22
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362: The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside of Antioch, is destroyed in a mysterious fire.
1383: A two-year period of civil war and disorder begins in Portugal after King Fernando dies without a male heir to the throne.
1721: Tsar Peter the Great becomes “All-Russian Imperator”.
1797: Andre-Jacques Garnerin makes the first parachute descent from a balloon above Paris.
1811: Birth of composer Franz Liszt in Hungary.
1812: The Duke of Wellington seizes Burgos, Spain.
1836: Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first elected president of the Republic of Texas.
1862: Confederate troops reconquer Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, during the American Civil War.
1868: Jacques Offenbach’s opera “Genevieve de Brabant” premieres in New York.
1877: The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners.
1878: The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.
1879: Thomas Edison perfects the carbonised cotton filament light bulb.
1881: The Boston Symphony Orchestra gives its first concert.
1883: New York’s original Metropolitan Opera House has its grand opening with a performance of the opera “Faust” by Verdi.
1884: The International Meridian Conference in Washington D.C. adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) worldwide, creating 24 international time zones with longitude zero at the Greenwich meridian.
1895: In Paris an express train overruns a buffer stop, crosses more than 30 meters of concourse before plummeting through a window at Gare Montparnasse.
1897: The world’s first car dealer opens in London.
1906: Race riot in Philadelphia. On the same day, French artist Paul Cezanne dies aged 67.
1907: The Ringling Brothers Greatest Show on Earth buys Barnum & Bailey circus.
1910: Dr Hawley Crippen is convicted at the Old Bailey of poisoning his wife and sentenced to death.
1917: Former world boxing champion Bob Fitzsimmons dies aged 54.
1926: Harry Houdini is punched in the stomach by student J. Gordon Whitehead in Montreal during a discussion on how the escapologist was able to brace his muscles. Unfortunately he is unprepared as he was seated and recovering from a broken ankle. Houdini dies nine days later from peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix.
1928: China expels all Russian instructors and civil servants.
1933: Italian boxer Primo Carnera beats Spanish challenger Paulino Uzcudun on points in Rome to retain the IBU heavyweight title.
1934: Bank Robber Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd is shot and killed by FBI agents in Ohio.
1936: The first commercial flight from the US mainland to Hawaii.
1945: Argentinian politician Juan Peron marries actress Eva Duarte.
1953: Laos gains full independence from France.
1954: West Germany joins NATO.
1962: President John F Kennedy imposes a naval blockade on Cuba, beginning the Cuban Missile Crisis – supposedly the closest the world has come to nuclear war.
1964: French philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre refuses the Nobel prize for Literature.
1966: One of Britain’s most notorious double-agents, George Blake, escapes from prison in a daring break-out believed to have been masterminded by the Soviet Union.
1967: Denny Hulme becomes the first New Zealander to win the Formula 1 World Drivers Championship with a third place in the Mexican Grand Prix.
1968: Apollo 7 returns to earth.
1969: Singer Tommy Edwards dies after suffering a brain aneurysm aged 47. On the same day, Paul McCartney publicly denies rumours that he is dead.
1973: Death of Spanish cellist and composer Pablo Casals aged 96.
1974: A bomb explodes in Brooks Club in London near to where opposition leader Edward Heath is dining.
1975: Soviet spacecraft Venera 9 soft-lands on Venus, becoming the first lander to return images from the surface of another planet.
1978: The inauguration of Pope John Paul II.
1983: CND holds its biggest ever protest against nuclear missiles in London with an estimated one million people taking part.
1986: Broadcaster Jane Dornacker is killed in a helicopter crash during a live traffic report for WNBC radio in New York.
1989: Folk singer, songwriter, poet, and record producer Ewan MacColl dies aged 74.
1992: “Blazing Saddles” star Cleavon Little dies from cancer aged 53.
1994: Record producer Jimmy Miller dies of liver failure aged 54.
1995: Author Kingsley Amis dies after a fall aged 73.
1996: Vice chairman of Chelsea FC, Matthew Harding dies aged 42 in a helicopter crash while flying back from a Chelsea match at Bolton Wanderers.
1999: Maurice Papon, an official in the French Vichy government during the Second Word War is jailed for crimes against humanity.
2000: George Michael paid £1.45m for the Steinway piano on which John Lennon wrote Imagine.
2001: Tennis champions Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf marry in Las Vegas.
2006: Singles chart:
- Welcome To The Black Parade – My Chemical Romance
- America – Razorlight
- Rock This Party (Everybody Dance Now) – Bob Sinclair & Cutee B
- I Don’t Feel Like Dancing – Scissor Sisters
- Something Kinda Oooh – Girls Aloud
- It’s All Coming Back to Me Now – Meat Loaf ft Marion Raven
- Come To Me – P Diddy ft Nicole Scherzinger
- Wonderful World – James Morrison
- Checkin’ It Out – Lil’ Chris
- Lonely At The Top – The Ordinary Boys
Album chart:
- Sam’s Town – The Killers
- Ta-Dah – Scissor Sisters
- Razorlight – Razorlight
- Undiscovered – James Morrison
- Eyes Open – Snow Patrol
- The Open Door – Evanescence
- Costello Music – The Fratellis
- These Streets – Paolo Nutini
- Alright Still – Lily Allen
- The Ultimate – Luther Vandross
2009: Microsoft releases Windows 7.
2012: Six Italian scientists are convicted of manslaughter for their failure to predict the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake.
2019: Parliament approves the Brexit deal to leave the EU but rejects legislation to fast-track it to meet the October 31 deadline. On the same day, legislation for Northern Ireland legalising same-sex marriage and abortion comes into effect.
BIRTHDAYS: Christopher Lloyd, actor, 82; Sir Derek Jacobi, actor, 82; George Cohen, footballer, 81; Catherine Deneuve (Dorleac), actress, 77; Jan de Bont, director, 77; Leslie West, guitarist (Mountain) 75; Arsène Wenger, former Arsenal manager, 71; Jeff Goldblum, actor/musician, 68; Shaggy (Orville Richard Burrell), rapper, 52; Shelby Lynne, singer-songwriter, 52; Spike Jonze (Adam Spiegel, director/producer, 51; Saffron Burrows, actress, 48; Michael Fishman, child actor, 39; Plan B (Ben Drew) rapper, singer-songwriter, actor and director, 37; Zach Hanson, musician, 35; Jonathan Lipnicki, child actor, 30
