On October 4
On October 4, the Human Saga records one pivotal event: Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite (1957).
On this day
On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, from the Baikonur (Tyuratam) site in the Kazakh Republic.
Also this week in history (Oct 1 – Oct 7)
On 1 October 331 BCE, Alexander the Great decisively defeated Darius III on the plain of Gaugamela, near modern Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China from the Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, with Zhou Enlai as premier.
On 3 October 1990, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) ceased to exist and joined the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), restoring a single German state for the first time since 1945.
On 7 October 2023 the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a large-scale surprise assault from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, breaching the border barrier and attacking military bases and civilian communities.
On 7 October 1571 a fleet of the Holy League, a Catholic coalition assembled by Pope Pius V and led by Spain and Venice under Don Juan of Austria, defeated the Ottoman navy in the Gulf of Patras off western Greece.
On 6 October 1927 Warner Bros. premiered The Jazz Singer in New York City, the first feature-length motion picture with synchronised recorded music and passages of lip-synchronous singing and speech.
On 6 October 1973, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria under Anwar Sadat and Hafez al-Assad launched a coordinated surprise attack on Israeli forces in the Sinai and the Golan Heights, seeking to recover territory lost in…
On 7 October 2001 a US-led coalition launched air strikes on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, opening Operation Enduring Freedom less than a month after the September 11 attacks.