1667 – Godefroy Wendelin, Flemish astronomer, the crater Vendelinus on the Moon is named after him, dies at 87
1669 – William Prynne, English Puritan leader (b. 1600)
1889 – Loisa Puget, French composer, dies at 79
1942 – Arthur Dolphin, cricketer (1 Test England 1921, 1 run, 1 catch), dies
1971 – Carl Ruggles, American composer (Evocations), dies at 95
1993 – Ben Scholtens, historian (Gaama Duumi), murdered at 39
1998 – Mary Calderone, American physician and founder of Planned Parenthood, dies at 94
2011 – John McCarthy, American computer scientist (coined the term “artificial intelligence,” created the Lisp programming language), dies at 84
2022 – Ashton Carter, American military civilian official (Secretary of Defense, 2015-17), and academic administrator, dies of a heart attack at 68
2023 – Anderl Molterer, Austrian alpine skier (Olympic silver Giant slalom, bronze Downhill 1956; Hahnenkamm Race 1959), dies at 92
Author: gil7
Historical Events for 24th October 2025
1856 – Constitution of South Australia is adopted
1885 – “World Championship” Baseball Series, Cincinnati Base Ball Grounds: St. Louis Browns beat Chicago White Stockings 13–4 in Game 7; disputed series tied at 3-3-1
1924 – Christian General Feng Joe Siang occupies Beijing
1954 – Britain’s Mike Hawthorn wins the season-ending Spanish Grand Prix at Pedralbes; Argentine Maserati driver Juan Manuel Fangio wins his second Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship by 17 points from countryman José Froilán González
1956 – The Associated Press names Cincinnati manager Birdie Tebbetts the National League Manager of the Year
1970 – Nancy Walker creates Ida Morgenstein role on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”
1986 – Great Britain cuts diplomatic relations with Syria
2018 – Indian cricketer Virat Kohli becomes the 12th and the fastest to score 10,000 runs in one day international matches, taking just 205 innings
Today in History for 24th October 2025
Historical Events
1899 – Battle of Rietfontein, South Africa: Boers vs. British army
1913 – Joe Tinker fired as Cincinnati Reds manager
1956 – Margaret Towner becomes the first woman to be ordained into the Presbyterian Church in the US (PCUSA)
1976 – First Toronto International Film Festival opens
2021 – COVID-19 cases in Eastern Europe surpass 20 million, with Russia, Ukraine, and Romania among the top five countries reporting deaths globally
Famous Birthdays
1939 – Uri Sharvit, Israeli composer, born in Jerusalem
1954 – Perry Lee “Tiny” Tavares, American rocker, born in Providence, Rhode Island
1960 – Wolfgang Güllich, German rock climber, born in Ludwigshafen, West Germany (d. 1992)
1962 – Jay Novacek, American NFL tight end (Dallas Cowboys), born in Martin, South Dakota
1984 – Kaela Kimura, Japanese model and singer (Rirura Riruha), born in Adachi, Tokyo
Famous Deaths
1869 – Joseph Jackson Lister, British optician who perfected the optical microscope by designing the achromatic objective lens, dies at 83
1952 – Frederick Jacobi, American composer, dies at 61
1994 – Alexandr Nikolaievich Shelepin, dir of KGB (1958-61), dies
2008 – Ankie Peypers, Dutch author and poet, dies at 80
2020 – Kevin McCarra, Scottish sports journalist (The Guardian, Scotland on Sunday, The Times), dies from Alzheimer’s disease at 62
Famous Deaths for 23rd October 2025
1874 – Abraham Geiger, German theologian and leader of Reform Judaism, dies at 64
1903 – Francis Ellingwood Abbot, American theologian (Scientific Theism), dies at 66
1976 – Leonard Lee, American vocalist (Shirley and Lee – “I’m Gone”), dies at 40
1997 – Luther Simjian, Armenian-American Inventor (teleprompter and first self-posing portrait camera), dies at 92
2003 – Tony Capstick, English actor, comedian, and musician. dies of an aneurysm at 59
2006 – Lebo Mathosa, South African entertainer (b. 1977)
2007 – (Mustaf) “John” Ilhan, Turkish-Australian entrepreneur (Crazy John’s mobile phones), dies of a hereditary heart condition at 42
2009 – Lou Jacobi, Canadian actor and comedian (Irma la Douce, The Dean Martin Show), dies at 95
2013 – Bill Mazer, American sports broadcaster (New York institution in sports reporting; sports trivia expert), dies at 92
2015 – Jimmy Roberts, Canadian ice hockey defenceman (NHL All Star 1965, 69, 70; Stanley Cup 1965, 66, 73, 76, 77; Montreal Canadiens), dies at 75
Historical Events for 23rd October 2025
1702 – Battle of Bay of Vigo: Dutch and English fleet destroy and occupy Spanish silver fleet and French squadron
1944 – First Central Kitchen opens in Amsterdam
1952 – Charlie Chaplin’s “Limelight”, starring himself and Claire Bloom, with an appearance by Buster Keaton, premieres in New York City; Not released in Los Angeles until 1972, winning Chaplin his only competitive Academy Award for original score
1953 – WTRF TV channel 7 in Wheeling-Steubenville, WV (CBS) 1st broadcast
1962 – WCIV TV channel 4 in Charleston, South Carolina (NBC) begins broadcasting
1977 – New York City Marathon: defending champion Bill Rodgers wins in 2:11:38; Miki Gorman retains women’s title in 2:43:10
1998 – Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat agree to the Wye River Memorandum, resuming implementation of the stalled Oslo II Accord which established a level of self-government for Palestine; signed at the White House, In Washington D.C.
2022 – Brock Purdy plays against the Kansas City Chiefs, throwing for 66 yards and an interception
Today in History for 23rd October 2025
Historical Events
1850 – First US National Women’s Rights convention opens in Brinley Hall, Worcester, Massachusetts
1853 – Maastricht-Aken railway in Netherlands opens
1971 – Three Catholic civilians are shot dead by the British Army during an attempted robbery in Newry, County Down
1989 – Browns’ Bernie Kosar sets club record with a 97-yard TD pass
2007 – Rounder Records releases “Raising Sand”, a collaborative album by American bluegrass singer Alison Krauss and British rock vocalist Robert Plant; tops the chart in Norway, peaks at #2 in US, UK, and Sweden
Famous Birthdays
1794 – Joseph Panny, Austrian violinist and composer, born in Kollmitzberg, Austria (d. 1838)
1805 – John Russell Bartlett, American linguist and historian known for his “Dictionary of Americanisms”, born in Providence, Rhode Island (d. 1886)
1941 – Igor Smirnov, Transnistrian politician, President of breakaway region of Moldova, born in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Soviet Union
1945 – Kim Larsen, Danish rock singer (“In the Middle of the Night”), born in Copenhagen, Denmark (d. 2018)
1991 – Mako of Akishino, Japanese former princess of the imperial family who gave up her title upon marriage, born in Toyko
Famous Deaths
1928 – François Victor Alphonse Aulard, French historian, dies at 79
1944 – Charles Glover Barkla, English physicist (1917 Nobel Prize for Physics for X-ray scattering), dies at 67
1950 – Al Jolson [Asa Yoelson], American-Lithuanian jazz singer and silent film actor (Mamie, Swanee), dies at 64
1995 – Gavin Ewart, English poet (Pleasures of the Flesh), dies at 79
2020 – W. C. Gorden, American College Football Hall of Fame coach (Jackson State University, 1976-91, record 119–48–5), dies at 90
Famous Deaths for 22nd October 2025
1494 – Gian Galeazzo, Italian duke of Milan (1476-94), dies
1674 – Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Dutch painter, dies at 53
1707 – Cloudesley Shovell, British Commander-in-Chief of the British fleet, drowns in Scilly Naval disaster at 57
1881 – Janis Cimze, Latvian composer, Father of Latvian choir music, dies at 67
1954 – Oswald de Andrade, Brazilian author (one of the modernist Group of Five), dies at 64
1970 – René Schneider, Chilean general/supreme commander, murdered
1989 – Roland Winters [Winternitz], American actor (Mama; The Smothers Brothers; Jet Pilot; Meet Millie), dies at 84
1996 – Matthew Harding, businessman/football supporter, dies at 42
1999 – Martin Donnelly, New Zealand cricket batsman (7 Tests, 1 x 100, 4 x 50, HS 206; Wellington, Canterbury) and rugby union centre (1 Test England 1947), dies at 82
2006 – Choi Kyu-hah, President of South Korea, dies at 87
Historical Events for 22nd October 2025
362 – The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside of Antioch, is destroyed in a mysterious fire
1932 – Charles de Broqueville becomes premier of Belgium
1979 – Deposed Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi arrives in NYC for medical treatment
1980 – 4th government of Martens forms in Belgium
1988 – Elton John sells out Madison Square Garden in New York City for a record 26th time
2001 – MLB American League Championship: New York Yankees beat Seattle Mariners, 4 games to 1
2019 – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agree deal to jointly control former Kurdish territory in Northern Syria
2024 – Construction of the cube-shaped Mukaab skyscraper, designed to be the world’s largest building, standing 400 meters tall and wide, begins in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh
Today in History for 22nd October 2025
Historical Events
1884 – International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) worldwide and creates 24 international time zones with longitude zero at the Greenwich Meridian
1930 – Blake and Razaf’s “Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1930” premieres in NYC
1938 – Chester Carlson conducts the first successful experiment in electrophotography and later sells it to the Haloid Company, now known as Xerox Corporation, which names it xerography
1968 – Apollo 7 returns to Earth
1997 – NHL superstar Wayne Gretzky’s wife Janet is knocked unconscious and gets 2 stitches after plexiglass falls on her watching a game
Famous Birthdays
1894 – Méi Lánfāng [Lan], Chinese opera performer known as “Queen of Peking Opera” for his portrayal of female roles, born in Beijing, China (d. 1961)
1908 – Helmut Gollwitzer, German anti-Nazi theologian and pacifist, born in Pappenheim, Bavaria (d. 1993)
1920 – Timothy Leary, American psychologist and advocate for psychedelic drug use, born in Springfield, Massachusetts (d. 1996)
1952 – Greg Hawkes, American rock keyboardist (The Cars – “Shake it Up”; “Drive”), born in Fulton, Maryland
1974 – Tim Kinsella, American singer-songwriter (Cap’n Jazz; Owls), and visual artist, born in Chicago, Illinois
Famous Deaths
1792 – Guillaume Le Gentil, French astronomer, dies at 67
1871 – Roderick Murchison, Scottish Geologist (Silurian system), dies at 79
1937 – Frank Damrosch, German-American author and music teacher (founded New York Musical Institute of Musical Art, later Julliard), dies at 88
2001 – Helmut Krackowizer, Austrian motorcycle racer and journalist (“Motorcycle Sport”, “The History of Famous Makes of Motorcycle”), dies from a heart attack at 80
2020 – Matt Blair, American football linebacker (6 × Pro Bowl 1977–82; First-team All-Pro 1980; Minnesota Vikings), dies from dementia complications at 70
Famous Deaths for 21st October 2025
1500 – Go-Tsuchimikado, 103rd Emperor of Japan (1464-1500), dies at 58
1687 – Edmund Waller, English poet (Song: Go, lovely rose) and politician, dies at 81
1861 – Edward Dickinson Baker, British-American attorney, politician (US Senator from Oregon, 1860-61; US Representative from Illinois, 1845-47, 1849-51), and Union Army officer, dies in the US Civil War Battle of Balls Bluff, Virginia at 50
1881 – Eduard Heine, German mathematician known for the Heine-Borel theorem, dies at 60
1944 – Alois Kayser, German missionary to Nauru (b. 1877)
1945 – Henry Armetta, Italian-American actor (The Black Cat, Bell for Adano, Big Store), dies from a heart attack at 57
1955 – Roy Minnett, Australian cricket all-rounder who played 9 Tests, 3 x 50, 11 wickets; NSW, dies at 69
1978 – Mel Street, American country music singer-songwriter (“Lovin’ on Back Streets”, “Lovin’ on Borrowed Time”), dies of a self-inflicted gunshot on his 45th bithday
1995 – Jose Ignacio Cabrujas, Venezuelan playwright and writer ‘Maestro of the Telenovelas’, dies at 58
2019 – Willie Brown, American Pro Football Hall of Fame cornerback, coach and executive (Super Bowl 1976, 80, 84; Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders), dies at 78