This Week In History
October 21, 2008
Trucks laden with food crossed the Line of Control dividing disputed Kashmir as India and Pakistan reopened a trade route for the first time in 60 years 1901: The Eastman Kodak Company was formed to market the Brownie camera, which brought photography to the masses
1923: The world’s first planetarium was opened in Munich, Germany
1998: Former communist Massimo d’Alema became Prime Minister of Italy
2004: The World Wildlife Fund said consumption of Earth’s resources was outstripping its capacity to support life
October 22, 2004
President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan opened a vast mosque in his birthplace, Kipchak, featuring inscriptions from his own writings as well as the Koran 1883: New York’s Metropolitan Opera House opened with a production of Gounod’s Faust 2008: India successfully launched Chandrayaan-1, the country’s first unmanned lunar exploration mission
2008: The 200-millionth app was downloaded from Apple’s digital media iTunes store that opened in April 2003
2017: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition secured a landslide win in Japan’s snap general election
October 23, 1915
Over 25,000 women marched through New York City to demand the right to vote, the largest such parade yet held. American women finally won the vote in 1920 1958: Russian author Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Doctor Zhivago 1973: A ceasefire ended the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Syria
2005: Saplings of Wollemi pine, rediscovered in Australia in 1994, went on sale for the first time 2011: Cristina Kirchner was re-elected as President of Argentina, making her the first woman in Latin American history to retain the job
October 24, 2003
The era of supersonic air transport came to an end as the last ever Concorde flights touched down at London’s Heathrow Airport after 27 years of service 1876: A small bedside wind-up alarm clock was patented by Seth Thomas
1939: The first nylon stockings went on sale to employees of DuPont, in Delaware, where they were made
1943: Penicillin, hailed as a powerful new wonder drug, was being widely used to treat wounded soldiers during World War II
2013: A tunnel linking the continents of Europe and Asia opened beneath the Bosphorus in Istanbul
October 25, 2017
China’s ruling Communist Party voted to enshrine Xi Jinping’s name and ideology in the nation’s constitution, elevating him to the level of founder Mao Zedong 1936: Germany broadcast the first radio request programme
2003: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of Russia’s Yukos oil company, was charged with tax evasion and fraud
2007: After a two-year production delay, the Airbus A380 superjumbo finally took off on its first passenger flight
2015: Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party pulled off an upset in Canada’s federal election, ending nine years of Conservative rule October 26, 1863 An international conference in Geneva set out the principles which led to the First Geneva Convention and the establishment of the International Red Cross 1863: The Football Association was founded in England by representatives from 11 London clubs
1994: An oil leak in Siberia spread across a large area of fragile tundra
1998: Ecuador and Peru signed a peace treaty that ended years of conflict over their ill-defined borders
2006: The citizens of Kiribati and Tuvalu were warned that they would have to relocate in 10 years because of rising sea levels
October 27, 2017
British Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton won his fourth world championship, joining a select club of only five drivers with four or more titles 1553: Spanish physician Michael Servetus, who discovered how blood circulates to the lungs, was burned at the stake for heresy 1978: Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1993: The Sultan of Brunei left a $170,000 tip at a hotel in Cyprus 2017: Catalonia’s regional parliament declared unilateral independence from Spain