- 1648 – The Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe.
- 1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed.
- 1901 – Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagra Falls in a barrel.
- 1929 – “Black Thursday” stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
- 1931 – New York City’s George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic.
- 1947 – Walt Disney testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists.
- 1962 – The blockade of Cuba went into effect, with a ring of U.S. warships and planes under orders to block by whatever means, further Soviet arms deliveries to Fidel Castro.
- 2002 – Police arrest John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, D.C.
