This is a list of selected October 19 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
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Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Lord Charles Cornwallis -
John Jay -
Ferdinand II of Aragon -
Isabella of Castile -
Scipio Africanus of the Roman RepublicScipio Africanus of the Roman Republic
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Streptomycin
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Constitution Day in Niue (1974); | stub |
| 1789 – John Jay (pictured) was sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States. | external links |
| 1998 – The eco-terrorist group Earth Liberation Front set fire to the Vail Ski Resort in Vail, Colorado, US, causing $12 million in damage. | Need to verify date, refimprove |
| 2001 – SIEV X, an Indonesian fishing boat en route to Christmas Island carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sank in international waters, killing 353 of them. | needs more footnotes |
Eligible
- 202 BC – Publius Cornelius Scipio, a consul of the Roman Republic, decisively defeated Hannibal and the Carthaginians at Zama, ending the Second Punic War.
- 1781 – American Revolutionary War: British forces led by Lord Cornwallis officially surrendered to Franco-American forces under George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau, ending the Siege of Yorktown.
- 1914 – First World War: Allied forces engaged German troops in the First Battle of Ypres.
- 1943 – Allied aircraft sank the German cargo ship Sinfra, killing over 2,000 people, mostly Italian POWs.
- 1950 – The Chinese Army captured the town of Qamdo as part of China's plan to take control of Tibet.
- 1987 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 22.6% on Black Monday, the largest one-day percentage decline in Dow Jones history.
- 1987 – Iran–Iraq War: United States Navy forces destroyed two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf in response to an Iranian missile attack on a Kuwaiti oil tanker.
- 1988 – The British government banned the voices of representatives from Sinn Féin and several Irish republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups from being broadcast on television and radio in the United Kingdom.
- 1989 – The Troubles: The Guildford Four had their convictions quashed after serving 15 years for their alleged involvement in the Guildford pub bombings.
- 2004 – Irish aid worker Margaret Hassan was abducted in Baghdad by unidentified kidnappers, who murdered her about four weeks later.
- 2005 – Hurricane Wilma became the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum atmospheric pressure of 882 mbar.
October 19: Mother Teresa Day in Albania
- 1469 – Ferdinand II of Aragon married Isabella I of Castile (both pictured), a marriage that paved the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Despite incurring nearly twice as many casualties as the Confederates, the Union Army emerged victorious in the Battle of Cedar Creek.
- 1900 – German physicist Max Planck proposed his law of black body emission, a pioneer result of modern physics and quantum theory.
- 1943 – Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, was first isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
- 1986 – President of Mozambique Samora Machel and 43 others were killed when his presidential aircraft crashed in the Lebombo Mountains just inside the border of South Africa.