October 19: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1469 - Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
2. 1781 - At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis' sword and formally surrendered to George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau.
3. 1789 - Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.
4. 1900 - Max Planck, in his house at Grunewald, on the outskirts of Berlin, discovers the law of black body emission (Planck's law).
5. 1943 - Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
6. 1950 - Iran becomes the first country to accept technical assistance from the United States under the Point Four Program.
7. 1959 - The first discothèque opens, the Scotch-Club in Aachen, Germany.
8. 1973 - President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.
9. 2005 - Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
10. 2005 - Hurricane Wilma becomes the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum pressure of 882 mb.
11. Famous Birthdays: George Abbot (Archbishop of Canterbury), Cassius Clay (American abolitionist), Charles Merrill (American investment banker), Jean Dausset (French immunologist), Yoko Shimomura (Japanese composer)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: October 18

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: October 20

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.