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U.S. Navy fighter jets intercept Italian cruise ship hijackers

Born on This Day

Helen Hayes

1900 - 1993

The “First Lady of the American Theater” who won two Oscars 39 years apart but is best known for her work on Broadway.

Thelonious Monk

1917 - 1982

Pianist, composer and jazz innovator whose playful, improvisational works include “Round Midnight.”

Harold Pinter

1930 - 2008

Nobel-winning British playwright whose unorthodox works included “The Homecoming” and “Betrayal.”

Helen HayesBettmann Archive

Thelonious MonkRedferns

Harold PinterRadio Times via Getty Images

1971

OCT10

London Bridge reopens after being dismantled and reconstructed—in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Used in the U.K. for 600 years, the bridge still features lampposts made from melted-down cannons captured by the British from Napoleon’s army in 1815.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on October 10th

Mason and Dixon draw a line, dividing the colonies

On October 10, 1767, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon complete their survey of the boundary between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland as well as areas that would eventually become the states of Delaware and West Virginia. The Penn and Calvert families had hired Mason and Dixon, English surveyors, to settle their dispute over the […]

U.S. Naval Academy opens

The United States Naval Academy opens in Annapolis, Maryland, with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors. Known as the Naval School until 1850, the curriculum included mathematics and navigation, gunnery and steam, chemistry, English, natural philosophy, and French. The Naval School officially became the U.S. Naval Academy in 1850, and a new curriculum went into […]

Colonel George Custer’s funeral is held at West Point

On October 10, 1877, the U.S. Army holds a West Point funeral with full military honors for Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Killed the previous year in Montana by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Custer’s body had been returned to the East for burial on the grounds of the […]

“Porgy and Bess,” the first great American opera, premieres on Broadway

On October 10, 1935, George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess premieres on Broadway. Porgy and Bess began its journey to the Broadway stage in 1926, when George Gershwin wrote a letter late one night to the author of a book he was reading proposing that the two of them collaborate on an operatic adaptation. The […]

St. Paul’s Cathedral bombed

During the Battle of Britain, the German Luftwaffe launches a heavy nighttime air raid on London. The dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral is pierced by a Nazi bomb, leaving the high altar in ruin. It was one of the few occasions that the 17th-century cathedral suffered significant damage during Germany’s nearly ceaseless bombing raids on […]

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Viet Minh take control of North Vietnam

On October 10, 1954, the Viet Minh formally take over Hanoi and control of North Vietnam.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to African diplomat

In the conclusion to an extremely embarrassing situation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower offers his apologies to Ghanian Finance Minister, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, who had been refused service at a restaurant in Dover, Delaware. It was one of the first of many such incidents in which African diplomats were confronted with racial segregation in the United […]

Vice President Agnew resigns

Less than a year before Richard M. Nixon’s resignation as president of the United States, his Vice President, Spiro Agnew, resigns in disgrace. The same day, he pleaded no contest to a charge of federal income tax evasion in exchange for the dropping of charges of political corruption. He was subsequently fined $10,000, sentenced to […]

Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” tops the charts

On October 10, 1987, the song “Here I Go Again” by English hard-rock group Whitesnake tops the Billboard pop singles chart in the United States. Today, what most people remember about the song is its saucy video: The actress Tawny Kitaen spends a great deal of it in a white negligee, writhing and cartwheeling across […]

A former postal worker commits mass murder

Former U.S. postal worker Joseph Harris shoots two former co-workers to death at the post office in Ridgewood, New Jersey. The night before, Harris had killed his former supervisor, Carol Ott, with a three-foot samurai sword, and shot her fiance, Cornelius Kasten, in their home. After a four-hour standoff with police at the post office, […]

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Superman Christopher Reeve dies at age 52

On October 10, 2004, the actor Christopher Reeve, who became famous for his starring role in four Superman films, dies from heart failure at the age of 52 at a hospital near his home in Westchester County, New York. Reeve, who was paralyzed in a 1995 horse-riding accident, was a leading advocate for spinal cord […]

Malala Yousafzai, 17, wins Nobel Peace Prize

On October 10, 2014, activist Malala Yousafzai, age 17, wins the Nobel Peace Prize. A fierce advocate for girls’ education, in her native Pakistan and around the world, she is the youngest-ever Nobel laureate. Malala Yousafzai was in chemistry class when she learned she had won the Nobel Peace Prize. After hearing the news, she […]

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