October 3 is the 276th day of the year (277th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 89 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- 3 October Festival (Leiden, Netherlands)
- Christian feast day:
- German Unity Day (Germany)
- National Day (Iraq), celebrates the independence of Iraq from the United Kingdom in 1932.
- National Foundation Day or Gaecheonjeol (South Korea)
- Soldiers’ Day (Honduras) or Morazán Day (Honduras)
History
In 2457 BC, Gaecheonjeol, Hwanung (환웅) purportedly descended from heaven. South Korea’s National Foundation Day.
In 2333 BC, According to Korean legend, Dangun established Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom.
In 52 BC, Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Caesar, ending the siege and Battle of Alesia.
In 42 BC, First Battle of Philippi: Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight a decisive battle with Caesar’s assassins Brutus and Cassius.
In 42 BC – Gaius Cassius Longinus, leader of the Liberators who killed Julius Caesar ordered his freedman Pindarus to kill him, to which the day of his death was his birthday, October 3. He was mourned by Brutus as “the Last of the Romans” and buried in Thasos. In Dante‘s Inferno (Canto XXXIV), Cassius is one of three people deemed sinful enough to be chewed in one of the three mouths of Satan, in the very center of Hell, for all eternity, as a punishment for killing Julius Caesar. The other two are Brutus, his fellow conspirator, and Judas Iscariot, the Biblical betrayer of Jesus.
In 382, Roman Emperor Theodosius I concludes a peace treaty with the Goths and settles them in the Balkans in exchange for military service.
In 1283, Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, is the first nobleman to be executed by hanging, drawing and quartering.
In 1574, The Siege of Leiden is lifted by the Watergeuzen.
In 1683, The Qing dynasty naval commander Shi Lang reaches Taiwan (under the Kingdom of Tungning) to receive the formal surrender of Zheng Keshuang and Liu Guoxuan after the Battle of Penghu.
In 1712, The Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor.
In 1739, The Treaty of Niš is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia at the end of the Russian–Turkish War, 1736–39.
In 1778, Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska.
In 1789, George Washington makes the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America.
In 1835, The Staedtler company is founded in Nuremberg, Germany.
In 1838, Black Hawk, American tribal leader (b. 1767) dies in 1838 (at age 70 or 71) in what is now southeastern Iowa. He has been honored by an enduring legacy: his book, many eponyms, and other tributes. He was a war leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the Midwest of the United States. Although he had inherited an important historic medicine bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man, and a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.
During the War of 1812, Black Hawk had fought on the side of the British against the U.S., hoping to push white American settlers away from Sauk territory. Later he led a band of Sauk and Fox warriors, known as the British Band, against European-American settlers in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin in the 1832 Black Hawk War. After the war, he was captured by U.S. forces and taken to the eastern U.S. He and other war leaders were taken on tour of several cities.
Shortly before being released from custody, Black Hawk told his story to an interpreter; aided also by a newspaper reporter, he published Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk, Embracing the Traditions of his Nation… in 1833 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The first Native American autobiography to be published in the U.S., his book became an immediate bestseller and has gone through several editions.
In 1849, American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death.
In 1860, Rembrandt Peale, American painter and curator (b. 1778) dies. He was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale’s style was influenced by French Neoclassicism after a stay in Paris in his early thirties. In July 1787, Charles Willson Peale introduced his son Rembrandt to George Washington, and the young aspirant artist watched his father paint the future president. In 1795, at the age of 17, Rembrandt painted an aging Washington, making him appear far more aged than in reality. The portrait was well received, and Rembrandt had made his debut.
In 1863, The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by United States President Abraham Lincoln as are Thursdays, November 30, 1865 and November 29, 1866.
In 1872, The Bloomingdale brothers open their first store at 938 Third Avenue, New York City.
In 1873, Captain Jack and companions are hanged for their part in the Modoc War.
In 1912, U.S. forces defeat Nicaraguan rebels under the command of Benjamín Zeledón at the Battle of Coyotepe Hill.
In 1918, King Boris III of Bulgaria accedes to the throne.
In 1919, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Adolfo Luque becomes the first Latin player to appear in a World Series.
In 1929, The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia, “Land of the South Slavs”.
In 1930, The German Socialist Labour Party in Poland – Left is founded following a split in DSAP in Łódź.
In 1932, Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom.
In 1935, Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy invades Ethiopia under General de Bono.
In 1936, John Heisman, American football player and coach (b. 1869) dies. He was an American player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College (1892, 1894), Buchtel College—now known as the University of Akron (1893–1894), Auburn University (1895–1899), Clemson University (1900–1903), Georgia Tech (1904–1919), the University of Pennsylvania (1920–1922), Washington & Jefferson College (1923), and Rice University (1924–1927), compiling a career college football record of 186–70–18.
His 1917 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have been recognized as a national champion. Heisman was also the head basketball coach at Georgia Tech (1908–1909, 1912–1914), tallying a mark of 9–14, and the head baseball coach at Buchtel (1894), Clemson (1899–1904), and Georgia Tech (1904–1917), amassing a career college baseball record of 219–119–7.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1954. The Heisman Trophy, awarded annually to the season’s most outstanding college football player, is named after him
In 1942, Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space.
In 1949, WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta.
In 1950, Korean War: The First Battle of Maryang San, primarily pitting Australian and British forces against communist China, begins.
In 1952, The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon to become the world’s third nuclear power.
In 1957, The California State Superior Court rules that Allen Ginsberg‘s Howl and Other Poems is not obscene.
In 1962, Project Mercury: Sigma 7 is launched from Cape Canaveral, with astronaut Wally Schirra aboard, for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight.
In 1963, A violent coup in Honduras pre-empts the October 13 election, ends a period of reform, and begins two decades of military rule.
In 1981, The hunger strike by Provisional Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland ends after seven months and ten deaths.
In 1985, The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight. (Mission STS-51-J).
In 1986, TASCC, a superconducting cyclotron at the Chalk River Laboratories, is officially opened.
In 1990, German reunification: The German Democratic Republic ceases to exist and its territory becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany. East German citizens became part of the European Community, which later became the European Union. Now celebrated as German Unity Day.
In 1993, Battle of Mogadishu: A firefight occurs during a failed attempt to capture key officials of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid‘s organisation in Mogadishu, Somalia, costing the lives of 18 American soldiers, and over 350 Somalis.
In 1995, O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
In 2008, The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 for the U.S. financial system is signed by President George W. Bush.
In 2009, The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey sign the Nakhchivan Agreement on the Establishment of Turkic Council.
In 2013, At least 134 migrants are killed when their boat sinks near the Italian island of Lampedusa.
In 2013, The Gambia withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.
In 2013, A solar eclipse sweeps across Africa, Europe and the Eastern United States.
In 2014, One World Trade Center officially opens
In 2015, Forty-two killed and 33 missing in Kunduz hospital airstrike operated by Médecins Sans Frontières.