79 Believed until 2018 to be the date of the massive eruption of Mt. Vesuvius which buried the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabiae, killing untold thousands, latest evidence suggests the eruption occurred after 17 October. Pliny the Younger was seventeen and staying with his famous uncle, Pliny the Elder, a naturalist, author and naval commander for the Roman fleet at Misenum in the Bay of Naples. His account written as a letter to the Roman historian Tacitus 25 years later made the eruption of Vesuvius famous long after Pompeii was buried under debris and forgotten.
410 Rome is overrun by Visigoths under Alaric I for the first time in nearly 800 years, seen as the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The fall and collapse of the Roman Empire was a long process, but few events shocked people at the time as the sack of Rome, the first such event in almost 1000 years. St. Jerome who was in Bethlehem at the time wrote "the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken." The Visigoth barbarians were responsible, led by their leader Alaric I. The Western Roman Empire was already in a state of disarray, having split from the East fifteen years before. After sacking and looting the capital, Alaric looted and pillaged several other towns and cities before dying only months after taking Rome.
1456 The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed
1516 Battle of Marj Dabiq: Ottoman forces decisively defeat the Mamluk Sultanate near Aleppo, ending Egyptian control in the Middle East
1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Protestants by Roman Catholics begins in Paris with the murder by defenestration of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and later spreads to the French provinces
1814 British forces capture Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812 and destroy many landmarks
1853 First potato chips are prepared by chef George Crum at Moon's Lake House near Saratoga Springs, New York (popular legend says he invents them, though earlier recipes exist)
1963 24th Venice Film Festival: "Hands Over the City," directed by Francesco Rosi, wins the Golden Lion
1968 France becomes the world's fifth thermonuclear power with a detonation at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific
2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing become the most-watched event on TV ever, with nearly 5 billion viewers, 70% of the world's population
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