THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― OCTOBER 10

October 10 is the 283rd day of the year (284th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 82 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Thursday or Friday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Sunday (56). 

NATIONAL CAKE-DECORATING DAY 

732 – At the Battle of Tours near Poitiers, France, Frankish leader Charles Martel, a Christian, defeats a large army of Spanish Moors, halting the Muslim advance into Western Europe. Abd-ar-Rahman, the Muslim governor of Cordoba, was killed in the fighting, and the Moors retreated from Gaul, never to return in such force.

1775 – General William Howe is named the interim commander in chief of the British army in America on this day in 1775, replacing Lieutenant General Thomas Gage. He was permanently appointed to the post in April 1776.

1780 – A powerful storm slams the islands of the West Indies, killing more than 20,000 people, on this day in 1780. Known as the Great Hurricane of 1780, it was the deadliest storm ever recorded.

1845 – 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 effect, requiring midshipmen to study at the academy for four years and to train aboard ships each summer―the basic format that remains at the academy to this day.

1868 – Cuba revolts for independence against Spain.

1916 – On this day in 1916, Italian forces during World War I initiate the Eighth Battle of the Isonzo, essentially continuing a previous assault on Austrian positions near the Isonzo River and attempting to increase gains made during previous battles in the same region.

1944 – WWII: 800 Gypsy children, including more than a hundred boys between 9 and 14 years old are systematically murdered by the Nazis.

1951 – President Harry S. Truman signs the Mutual Security Act, announcing to the world, and its communist powers in particular, that the U.S. was prepared to provide military aid to "free peoples." The signing of the act came after the Soviet Union exploded their second nuclear weapon in a test on October 3.

1965 – In the first major operation since arriving the previous month, the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) joins with South Vietnamese Marines to strike at 2,000 North Vietnamese troops 25 miles from An Khe in the Central Highlands.

1970 – During the October Crisis, the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ), a militant separatist group, kidnaps Quebec labor minister Pierre Laporte in Montreal. Five days earlier, FLQ terrorists had seized British trade commissioner James Richard Cross. In exchange for the lives of the men, the FLQ demanded the release of two dozen FLQ members convicted of various charges, including kidnappings, bombings, and arms theft.

1973 – Less than a year before Richard M. Nixon's resignation as president of the United States, Spiro T. Agnew becomes the first U.S. vice president to resign 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 three years probation, and disbarred by the Maryland court of appeals.

1980 – Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope network is dedicated. The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a radio astronomy observatory is located on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, some 50 miles (80 km) west of Socorro, New Mexico.

1991 – 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, Harris was arrested. His violent outburst was one of several high-profile attacks by postal workers that resulted in the addition of the phrase "going postal" to the American lexicon.


TODAY'S BIRTHS

1731 – Henry Cavendish, French-English chemist, physicist, and philosopher (d. 1810)

1813 – Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer and philanthropist (d. 1901)

1825 – Stephanus Johannes Paulus "Paul" Kruger, South African soldier and politician, 5th President of the South African Republic, namesake of the Krugerand and Kruger National Park (d. 1904)

1917 – Thelonious Monk, American pianist and composer (d. 1982)
1924 – Ed Wood, American actor, director, producer, screenwriter of "B" films (d. 1978)

1948 – Cyril Neville, American R&B percussionist and singer

From Wikipedia and Google, except as noted.