OCTOBER 29

1787: Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni debuts in Prague
1923: The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
1960: American boxing great Mohammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) wins first professional bout
1969: The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet
1971: Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden is born
1991: The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid
1998: John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, returns to space at age 77
2004: European leaders signed the European Union’s first constitution

OCTOBER 30

1811: English author Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is published anonymously
1925: John Logie Baird creates Britain’s first television transmitter
1938: Radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, starring Orson Welles, causes panic among listeners in America
1974: Muhammad Ali knocks out George Foreman in the eighth round in Kinshasa, Zaire, to regain his world heavyweight title
1976: Pakistan’s Majid Khan hammers a century off only 74 balls against New Zealand to become only the fourth man to make a hundred before lunch, on the first day of a Test
2000: First ODI played at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium under flood lights between Pakistan and England

OCTOBER 31

1926: Magician Harry Houdini dies
1956: Rear Admiral G J Dufek becomes the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole
1975: Indian musician Sachin Dev ‘SD’ Burman dies
1976: Pakistan’s Javed Miandad becomes youngest Test cricketer to score a double century
1984: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her two bodyguards
1987: India’s Chetan Sharma takes first hat-trick in World Cup Cricket

NOVEMBER 1

1512: Michelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were shown to the public for the first time
1604: William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello is presented for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London
1611: William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy The Tempest is presented for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London
1894: Nicholas II becomes the new Tsar of Russia after his father, Alexander III, dies
1922: The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed VI, abdicates
1952: The United States test its first hydrogen bomb
1973: Indian actress Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan is born
1973: The Indian state of Mysore is renamed as Karnataka to represent all the regions within Karunadu
1989: Wasim Akram hits six off penultimate ball as Pakistan beat West Indies in final of Nehru Cup
1990: Nawaz Sharif becomes Prime Minister of Pakistan after winning the elections

NOVEMBER 2

1914: Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire
1929: Former President of Pakistan Rafiq Tarar is born
1936: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaims the Rome-Berlin Axis, establishing the alliance of the Axis Powers
1936: The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service
1964: King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother King Faisal
1965: Indian actor Shahrukh Khan is born
1981: Pakistani cricketer Irfan Fazil is born

NOVEMBER 3

1905: Czar Nicholas II of Russia signs a document of amnesty for political prisoners
1957: The Soviet Union sends the first animal, a dog named Laika, into space aboard the Sputnik II. Laika dies in orbit
2004: Hamid Karzai is declared the winner in Afghanistan’s first presidential election
2007: President Pervez Musharraf declares emergency rule across Pakistan; suspends the Constitution and fires the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

NOVEMBER 4

1922: Howard Carter discovers the tomb of Tutankhamen in Egypt
1979: The American embassy in Tehran, Iran, is seized by militants; 90 Americans are taken hostage
2008: Democrat senator Barack Obama wins the presidential election; becoming the first African-American US president
— OA