Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party attempted an ill-faited coup in Munich, Germany on November 8, 1923. Instead of seizing power, the conspirators suffered 15 casualties and their leaders were arrested, including Hitler. The future dictator would spend a year in prison as a result, where he would write his infamous Mein Kampf. Learn more [...]

The pro-Algerian independence National Liberation Front released a proclamation on November 1, 1954 announcing the beginning of its campaign for Algerian independence from France, marking the start of the Algerian War. The war would rage for seven years and claim hundreds of thousands of lives until it was ended by the 1962 Évian Accords. Algeria [...]

Fascist leader Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister of Italy on October 31, 1922 after being appointed by King Victor Emmanuel II. Mussolini came to power after his paramilitary “blackshirts” marched on Rome to take control of the country’s government. Italy would be under Mussolini’s authoritarian rule until 1943, after which he was arrested and subsequently [...]

US slave revolt leader Nat Turner was arrested in Virginia on October 30, 1831. Turner, inspired by a religious vision, led a rebellion in August of that year which resulted in the deaths of 55 white people, including the family who enslaved Turner. White mobs later killed between 36 and 102 Black people in retaliation [...]

The Parliament of Catalonia declared independence from Spain in a failed bid for sovereignty on October 27, 2017. The declaration followed an independence referendum, boycotted by pro-union residents, that saw 92% of voters choose independence. The declaration was subsequently declared illegal by Spain’s Supreme Court. Many Catalan independence figures such as then-Catalan President Carles Puigdemont [...]

French Queen consort Marie Antoinette was convicted of treason by a Revolutionary court and then guillotined on October 16, 1793. The queen consort was convicted of conspiring with foreign powers, depleting the treasury, and high treason only four days after her initial arrest on October 12. Her husband Louis XVI was executed nine months prior. [...]

French members of the Crusade-era chivalric order the Knights Templar, including Grand Master Jacques de Molay, were arrested upon the orders of King Phillip IV of France on October 13, 1307. The group was baselessly accused of multiple offenses, including idolatry and homosexual acts. The Templars would be tried for these offenses before being disbanded [...]

Attorney Anita Hill testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee on October 11, 1991 about sexual harassment she suffered from her former supervisor Clarence Thomas, who was nominated by President Ronald Regan for a seat on the US Supreme Court. The US Senate would later confirm Thomas by a vote of 52–48 despite Hill’s testimony. [...]

Communist Poland banned the trade union Solidarity on October 9, 1982, two years after the union started a large-scale strike in the Gdansk shipyard, where it was founded. Solidarity would later become instrumental in the fall of communism in Poland. The union’s leader, Lech Wałęsa, was later elected the first president of post-communist Poland in [...]

The Berlin Airlift, a US-UK effort to circumvent a Soviet blockade of allied-occupied West Berlin, ended on September 30, 1949. After the Soviet Union cut off supply access to West Berlin, the US and UK sent necessities to the enclave by air. The effort ended four months after the Soviet Union ended the Berlin blockade. [...]