Historical Events on Sunday, 5th October

05/10/2021

Windows 11 is released to the general public.

Windows 11 is the current major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released on October 5, 2021, as the successor to Windows 10 (2015). It is available as a free upgrade for devices running Windows 10 that meet its system requirements. The Windows Server counterpart, Server 2025, was released in 2024. It is the first major version of Windows without a corresponding mobile edition, following the end of support for Windows 10 Mobile, and is implemented to mobile devices with different form factors, screen sizes and CPU architectures as a unified edition of Windows. As of October 14, 2025, Windows 11 is the only fully supported consumer-oriented version of Windows.

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05/10/2011

In the Mekong River massacre, two Chinese cargo boats are hijacked and 13 crew members murdered.

The Mekong River massacre occurred on the morning of 5 October 2011, when two Chinese cargo ships were attacked on a stretch of the Mekong River in the Golden Triangle region on the borders of Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. All 13 crew members on both ships were killed and dumped in the river. It was the deadliest attack on Chinese nationals abroad in modern times. In response, China temporarily suspended shipping on the Mekong, and reached an agreement with Myanmar, Thailand and Laos to jointly patrol the river. The event was also the impetus for the Naypyidaw Declaration and other anti-drug cooperation efforts in the region. On 28 October 2011, Thai authorities arrested nine Pha Muang Task Force soldiers, who subsequently "disappeared from the justice system". Drug lord Naw Kham and three subordinates were eventually tried and executed by the Chinese government for their roles in the massacre.

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05/10/2000

Mass demonstrations in Serbia force the resignation of Slobodan Milošević.

The overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, began after the general election on 24 September 2000 and culminated on 5 October 2000. It is commonly referred to as the 5 October Revolution or colloquially the Bulldozer Revolution, after an event during the day-long protest in which a heavy equipment operator charged the Radio Television of Serbia building, considered to be symbolic of the Milošević regime's propaganda.

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05/10/1999

The Ladbroke Grove rail crash in West London kills 31 people.

The Ladbroke Grove rail crash occurred on 5 October 1999 at Ladbroke Grove in London, England, when a Thames Trains passenger train passed a signal at danger, colliding almost head-on with a First Great Western passenger train. With 31 people killed and 417 injured, it was one of the worst rail accidents in 20th-century British history.

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05/10/1994

Swiss police find the bodies of 48 members of the Order of the Solar Temple, who had died in a cult mass murder-suicide.

The Order of the Solar Temple, or simply the Solar Temple, was a new religious movement and secret society, often described as a cult, notorious for the mass deaths of many of its members in several mass murders and suicides throughout the 1990s. The OTS was a neo-Templar order, claiming to be a continuation of the Knights Templar, and incorporated an eclectic range of beliefs with aspects of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and New Age ideas. It was led by Joseph Di Mambro, with Luc Jouret as a spokesman and second in command. It was founded in 1984, in Geneva, Switzerland.

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05/10/1991

An Indonesian Air Force C-130 crash kills 135 people.

On 5 October 1991, an Indonesian Air Force Lockheed C-130H-30 Hercules crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta-Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport due to an engine fire. It killed all but 1 of the 134 people onboard with an additional 2 people on the ground.

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05/10/1990

After 150 years The Herald newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, is published for the last time as a separate newspaper.

The Herald was a morning – and later – evening broadsheet newspaper published in Melbourne, Australia, from 3 January 1840 to 5 October 1990. It later merged with its sister morning newspaper The Sun News-Pictorial to form the Herald-Sun.

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05/10/1988

A Chilean opposition coalition defeats Augusto Pinochet in his re-election attempt.

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean army officer and military dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He led the military junta that overthrew President Salvador Allende in 1973 and established a dictatorship. He was proclaimed President of Chile in 1974 and served until 1990, when he stepped down to pave the way for democratic elections. Throughout his presidency, thousands of political opponents were tortured or executed. Pinochet is the longest-serving head of state in the history of Chile.

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05/10/1985

Seven Israeli vacationers, including four children, are killed in a mass shooting at Ras Burqa in the Sinai Peninsula by an Egyptian soldier.

The Ras Burqa massacre was a mass shooting on 5 October 1985 on Israeli vacationers in Ras Burqa, a beach resort area in the Sinai peninsula, in which seven people, including four children, were killed by Egyptian soldier Suleiman Khater.

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05/10/1984

Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space.

Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau was a Canadian Armed Forces officer, astronaut and politician. Garneau served as a naval officer before being selected as an astronaut as part of the 1983 NRC Group. He became the first Canadian in space on October 5, 1984, and flew on three Space Shuttle missions. From 2001 to 2005, Garneau was president of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Garneau entered politics and was elected to the House of Commons in 2008, serving as a Montreal-area member of Parliament (MP) until 2023. A member of the Liberal Party, Garneau served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from January to October in 2021 and as Minister of Transport from 2015 to 2021.

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05/10/1982

Tylenol products are recalled after bottles in Chicago laced with cyanide cause seven deaths.

Tylenol is a brand of medication, advertised for reducing pain, reducing fever, and relieving the symptoms of allergies, cold, cough, headache, and influenza. An active ingredient in these medications is acetaminophen (paracetamol), an analgesic and antipyretic, although other ingredients with significant effects are included in some variants. Like the generic names paracetamol and acetaminophen, the brand name Tylenol is derived from a chemical name for the compound, N-acetyl-para-aminophenol.

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05/10/1974

Bombs planted by the PIRA in pubs in Guildford kill four British soldiers and one civilian.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army, officially known as the Irish Republican Army and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argued that the all-island Irish Republic continued to exist, and it saw itself as that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected.

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05/10/1970

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is founded in the United States.[citation needed]

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational programs to public television stations in the United States, distributing shows such as Nature, Nova, Frontline, PBS News Hour, Washington Week, Masterpiece, American Experience, and children's programs such as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Barney & Friends, Arthur, Curious George, The Magic School Bus, and others. Certain stations also provide spillover service to Canada.

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The British Trade Commissioner, James Cross, is kidnapped by members of the Front de libération du Québec, triggering the October Crisis in Canada.

James Richard Cross was an Irish-born British diplomat who served in India, Malaysia and Canada. While posted in Canada, Cross was kidnapped by members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) during the October Crisis of October 1970. He was ultimately released almost two months later, and subsequently returned to the United Kingdom.

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05/10/1968

A Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march in Derry is violently suppressed by police.

The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was an organisation that campaigned for civil rights for Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967, the civil rights campaign attempted to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, and lobbying for an end to discrimination against Catholics in areas such as elections, discrimination in employment, in public housing and abuses of the Special Powers Act.

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05/10/1966

A reactor at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station near Detroit suffers a partial meltdown.

The Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant on the shore of Lake Erie near Monroe, in Frenchtown Charter Township, Michigan on approximately 1,000 acres (400 ha). All units of the plant are operated by the DTE Energy Electric Company and owned by parent company DTE Energy. It is approximately halfway between Detroit, Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio. It is also visible from parts of Amherstburg and Colchester, Ontario as well as on the shore of Lake Erie in Ottawa County, Ohio. Two units have been constructed on this site. The first unit's construction started on August 4, 1956 and reached initial criticality on August 23, 1963, and the second unit received its construction permit on September 26, 1972. It reached criticality on June 21, 1985 and was declared commercial on November 18, 1988. The plant is connected to two single-circuit 345 kV Transmission Lines and three 120 kV lines. They are operated and maintained by ITC Transmission.

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05/10/1963

The United States suspends the Commercial Import Program in response to repression of the Buddhist majority by the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem.

The Commercial Import Program, sometimes known as the Commodity Import Program (CIP), was an economic aid arrangement between South Vietnam and its main supporter, the United States. It lasted from January 1955 until the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and the dissolution of South Vietnam following the invasion by North Vietnam after US forces had withdrawn from the country due to the 1973 cease-fire agreement.

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05/10/1962

The first of the James Bond film series, based on the novels by Ian Fleming, Dr. No, is released in Britain.

The James Bond franchise focuses on the titular character, a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelisations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd, Anthony Horowitz and Charlie Higson. The latest novel is On His Majesty's Secret Service by Charlie Higson, published in May 2023. Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.

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The first Beatles single "Love Me Do" is released in Britain.

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the most influential band in popular music and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and the recognition of popular music as an art form. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock 'n' roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways. The band also explored music styles ranging from folk and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. As pioneers in recording, songwriting and artistic presentation, the Beatles revolutionised many aspects of the music industry and were often publicised as leaders of the era's youth and sociocultural movements.

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05/10/1947

President Truman makes the first televised Oval Office address.

An Oval Office address is a type of speech made by the president of the United States, usually but not always in the Oval Office at the White House. It is considered among the most solemn settings for an address made by a leader, and is most often delivered to announce a major new policy initiative, on the occasion of a leader's departure from office, or during times of national emergency.

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05/10/1945

A six-month strike by Hollywood set decorators turns into a bloody riot at the gates of the Warner Brothers studio.

Hollywood Black Friday, or Hollywood Bloody Friday, is the name given, in the history of organized labor in the United States, to October 5, 1945. On that date, a six-month strike by the set decorators represented by the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) boiled over into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Bros.' studios in Burbank, California, led by Herbert Sorrell. The strikes helped the passage of the Taft–Hartley Act in 1947 and led to the eventual breakup of the CSU and reorganization of the rival International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) leadership.

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05/10/1944

The Provisional Government of the French Republic enfranchises women.

The Provisional Government of the French Republic was the provisional government of Free France between 3 June 1944 and 27 October 1946, following the liberation of continental France after Operations Overlord and Dragoon, and lasting until the establishment of the French Fourth Republic. Its establishment marked the official restoration and re-establishment of a provisional French Republic, assuring continuity with the defunct French Third Republic.

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05/10/1943

World War II: Pacific Theater: Ninety-eight American POWs are executed by Japanese forces on Wake Island.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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05/10/1938

Holocaust: In Nazi Germany, Jews' passports are invalidated.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs.

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05/10/1936

The Jarrow March sets off for London.

The Jarrow March of 5–31 October 1936, also known as the Jarrow Crusade, was an organised protest against the unemployment and poverty suffered in the English town of Jarrow during the 1930s. Around 200 men, or "Crusaders" as they preferred to be called, marched from Jarrow to London, carrying a petition to the British government requesting the re-establishment of industry in the town following the closure in 1934 of its main employer, Palmer's shipyard. The petition was received by the House of Commons but not debated, and the march produced few immediate results. The Jarrovians went home believing that they had failed.

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05/10/1931

Clyde Edward Pangborn and Hugh Herndon,Jr. make the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean in the plane Miss Veedol.

Clyde Edward Pangborn, nicknamed "Upside-Down Pangborn", was an American aviator and barnstormer who performed aerial stunts in the 1920s for the Gates Flying Circus. He was its half-owner, chief pilot and operating manager, working in partnership with Ivan R. Gates. In 1931, Pangborn and co-pilot Hugh Herndon Jr. flew their plane, Miss Veedol, on the first non-stop flight across the Pacific Ocean.

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05/10/1930

British airship R101 crashes in France en route to India on its maiden voyage killing 48 people.

R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme, a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry–appointed team and was effectively in competition with the government-funded but privately designed and built R100. When built, it was the world's largest flying craft at 731 ft (223 m) in length, later enlarged to 777 feet, and at that size it was not surpassed by another hydrogen-filled rigid airship until the LZ 129 Hindenburg was launched seven years later.

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05/10/1921

The World Series is the first to be broadcast on radio.[citation needed]

The 1921 World Series was the championship series in Major League Baseball for the 1921 season. The 18th edition of the World Series, it matched the National League champion New York Giants and the American League champion New York Yankees.

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05/10/1914

World War I: An aircraft successfully destroys another aircraft with gunfire for the first time.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

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05/10/1911

The Kowloon–Canton Railway commences service.

The Kowloon–Canton Railway was a railway network in Hong Kong. It was owned and operated by the Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) until 2007. Rapid transit services, a light rail system, feeder bus routes within Hong Kong, and intercity passenger and freight train services to China on the KCR network, have been operated by the MTR Corporation since 2007.

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05/10/1910

In a revolution in Portugal the monarchy is overthrown and a republic is declared.

The 5 October 1910 Revolution was the overthrow of the centuries-old Portuguese monarchy and its replacement by the First Portuguese Republic. It was the result of a coup d'état organized by the Portuguese Republican Party.

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05/10/1905

The Wright brothers pilot the Wright Flyer III in a new world record flight of 24 miles in 39 minutes.

The Wright brothers, Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, were American aviation pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful airplane. They made the first controlled, sustained flight of an engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, four miles (6 km) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, at what is now known as Kill Devil Hills. In 1904 the Wright brothers developed the Wright Flyer II, which made longer-duration flights including the first circle, followed in 1905 by the first truly practical fixed-wing aircraft, the Wright Flyer III.

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05/10/1900

Peace congress in Paris condemns British policy in South Africa and asserts Boer Republic's right to self-determination.

The South African Republic, also known as the Transvaal Republic, was a landlocked independent Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result of the Second Boer War.

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05/10/1877

The Nez Perce War in the northwestern United States comes to an end.

The Nez Perce War was an armed conflict in 1877 in the Western United States that pitted several bands of the Nez Perce tribe of Native Americans and their allies, a small band of the Palouse tribe led by Red Echo (Hahtalekin) and Bald Head, against the United States Army. Fought between June and October, the conflict stemmed from the refusal of several bands of the Nez Perce, dubbed "non-treaty Indians," to give up their ancestral lands in the Pacific Northwest and move to an Indian reservation in Idaho Territory. This forced removal was in violation of the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla, which granted the tribe 7.5 million acres of their ancestral lands and the right to hunt and fish on lands ceded to the U.S. government.

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05/10/1869

The Saxby Gale devastates the Bay of Fundy region in Canada.

The Saxby Gale was a tropical cyclone which struck eastern Canada's Bay of Fundy region on the night of October 4–5, 1869. The storm was named for Lieutenant Stephen Martin Saxby, a naval instructor who, based on his astronomical studies, had predicted extremely high tides in the North Atlantic Ocean on October 1, 1869, which would produce storm surges in the event of a storm.

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The Eastman tunnel, in Minnesota, United States, collapses during construction, causing a landslide that nearly destroys St. Anthony Falls.

The Eastman tunnel, also called the Hennepin Island tunnel, was a 2,000-foot-long (600 m) underground passage in Saint Anthony, Minnesota, dug beneath the Mississippi River riverbed between 1868 and 1869 to create a tailrace so water-powered business could be located upstream of Saint Anthony Falls on Nicollet Island. The tunnel ran downstream from Nicollet Island, beneath Hennepin Island, and exited below Saint Anthony Falls.

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05/10/1813

War of 1812: The Army of the Northwest defeats a British and Native Canadian force threatening Detroit.

The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Congress on 17 February 1815.

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05/10/1789

French Revolution: The Women's March on Versailles effectively terminates royal authority.

The Women's March on Versailles, also known as the Black March, the October Days or simply the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were nearly rioting over the high price of bread. The unrest quickly became intertwined with the activities of revolutionaries seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France. The market women and their allies ultimately grew into a crowd of thousands. Encouraged by revolutionary agitators, they ransacked the city armory for weapons and marched on the Palace of Versailles. The crowd besieged the palace and, in a dramatic and violent confrontation, they successfully pressed their demands upon King Louis XVI. The very next day, the crowd forced the king and his family to return with them to Paris. Over the next few weeks, most of the French assembly also relocated to the capital.

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05/10/1607

Assassins attempt to kill Venetian statesman and scientist Paolo Sarpi.

Paolo Sarpi, O.S.M. was an Italian Servite friar and Catholic priest who was a notable historian, scientist, canon lawyer, polymath and statesman active on behalf of the Venetian Republic during the period of its successful defiance of the papal interdict (1605–1607) and its war (1615–1617) with Austria over the Uskok pirates. His writings, frankly polemical and highly critical of the Catholic Church and its Scholastic tradition, "inspired both Hobbes and Edward Gibbon in their own historical debunkings of priestcraft." Sarpi's major work, the History of the Council of Trent (1619), was published in London in 1619; other works: a History of Ecclesiastical Benefices, History of the Interdict and his Supplement to the History of the Uskoks, appeared posthumously. Organized around single topics, they are early examples of the genre of the historical monograph.

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05/10/1450

Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria expels Jews from his jurisdiction.

Louis IX was Duke of Bavaria-Landshut from 1450. He was a son of Henry XVI the Rich and Margaret of Austria. Louis was the founder of the University of Ingolstadt.

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05/10/1143

With the signing of the Treaty of Zamora, King Alfonso VII of León and Castile recognises Portugal as a Kingdom.

The Treaty of Zamora was a diplomatic meeting held on 4–5 October 1143 between Afonso Henriques, then styled Infante of Portugal, and his cousin Alfonso VII of León, King of León and Castile. It took place at the Cathedral of Zamora in the presence of the papal legate, Cardinal Guido de Vico.

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05/10/0869

The Fourth Council of Constantinople is convened to depose patriarch Photios I.

The Fourth Council of Constantinople was the eighth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church held in Constantinople from 5 October 869, to 28 February 870. It was poorly attended, the first session by only 12 bishops and the number of bishops later never exceeded 103. In contrast, the pro-Photian council of 879–80 was attended by 383 bishops. The Council met in ten sessions from October 869 to February 870 and issued 27 canons.

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05/10/0816

King Louis the Pious is crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by the Pope.

Louis the Pious, also called the Fair and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781. As the only surviving son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position that he held until his death except from November 833 to March 834, when he was deposed.

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05/10/0610

Heraclius arrives at Constantinople, kills Byzantine Emperor Phocas, and becomes emperor.

Heraclius was Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the Exarch of Africa, led a revolt against the unpopular emperor Phocas.

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