Today:
680 – The Battle of Karbala takes place during the Second Islamic Civil War, leading to the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, an event commemorated by Shia Muslims.
732 – The Battle of Tours (or Poitiers) is fought, where Charles Martel halts the advance of Muslim forces into Western Europe.
1780 – The Great Hurricane of 1780, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, ravages the Caribbean, killing an estimated 22,000 people.
1845 – The Naval School (later the United States Naval Academy) opens in Annapolis, Maryland.
1868 – Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a Cuban plantation owner, starts the Ten Years’ War in an attempt to gain independence from Spain.
1911 – The Wuchang Uprising begins, marking the start of the Xinhai Revolution that would lead to the fall of China’s Qing dynasty.
1938 – Nazi Germany completes its annexation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.
1944 – The Holocaust: 800 Romani people are exterminated at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
1967 – The Outer Space Treaty, which forms the basis of international space law, enters into force.
1970 – Fiji becomes independent from British colonial rule.