01 October History
- 331BC - Alexander the Great decisively shatters King Darius III's Persian army at Gaugamela (Arbela), in a tactical masterstroke that leaves him master of the Persian Empire.
- 1273 - Rudolf of Hapsburg is elected emperor in Germany.
- 1588 - The feeble Sultan Mohammed Shah of Persia, hands over power to his 17-year old son Abbas.
- 1791 - In Paris, the National Legislative Assembly holds its first meeting.
- 1839 - The British government decides to send a punitive naval expedition to China.
- 1847 - Maria Mitchell, American astronomer, discovers a comet and is elected the same day to the American Academy of Arts—the first woman to be so honored. The King of Denmark awarded her a gold medal for her discovery.
- 1856 - The first installment of Gustav Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary appears in the Revue de Paris after the publisher refuses to print a passage in which the character Emma has a tryst in the back seat of a carriage.
- 1864 - The Condor, a British blockade-runner, is grounded near Fort Fisher, North Carolina.
- 1878 - General Lew Wallace is sworn in as governor of New Mexico Territory. He went on to deal with the Lincoln County War, Billy the Kid and write Ben-Hur. His Civil War heroics earned him the moniker Savior of Cincinnati.
- 1890 - Yosemite National Park is dedicated in California.
- 1908 - The Ford Model T, the first car for millions of Americans, hits the market. Over 15 million Model Ts are eventually sold, all of them black.
- 1942 - The German Army grinds to a complete halt within the city of Stalingrad.
- 1943 - British troops in Italy enter Naples and occupy Foggia airfield.
- 1944 - The U.S. First Army begins the siege Aachen, Germany.
- 1946 - Eleven Nazi war criminals are sentenced to be hanged at Nuremberg trials—Hermann Goring, Alfred Jodl, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachin von Ribbentrop, Fritz Saukel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Julius Streicher, and Alfred Rosenberg.
- 1974 - Five Nixon aides–Kenneth Parkinson, Robert Mardian, Nixon's Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell–go on trial for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation.
01 October Birthdays
- 1837 - Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment during America's Civil War.
- 1904 - Vladimir Horowitz, Russian-born American virtuoso pianist.
- 1924 - Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the U.S. (1977-1981)
- 1932 - Albert Collins, guitarist.
- 1935 - Julie Andrews (Julia Elizabeth Wells), actress and singer whose films include Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.
- 1946 - Tim O'Brien, novelist (The Things They Carried, In the Lake of the Woods).