I often wonder what significant anniversaries are due at some point in the future as some of them might be of interest as triggers for blog posts or visits somewhere. However, it is often difficult to find out quickly what events have significant anniversaries - hence this section on the website.
By "significant anniversaries", I mean dates that are not, for example, the 73rd anniversary of something, but the 50th, 100th, 200th etc.
It should help to flag up interesting events.
Anniversaries during October 2015
Note: This page lists ALL anniversaries, not just the key dates.
For that more useful list, click here.
| Anniversary | Details |
| 1056th | Edgar the Peaceable becomes king of all England. (1st Oct 0959) |
| 462nd | Coronation of Queen Mary I of England (1st Oct 1553) |
| 172nd | The News of the World tabloid begins publication in London. (1st Oct 1843) |
| 97th | World War I: Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence (a/k/a "Lawrence of Arabia") capture Damascus. (1st Oct 1918) |
| 69th | Mensa International is founded in the United Kingdom. (1st Oct 1946) |
| 46th | Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time. (1st Oct 1969) |
| 44th | The first brain-scan using x-ray computed tomography (CT or CAT scan) is performed at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London. (1st Oct 1971) |
| 77th | Pioneering photojournalism magazine, Picture Post is first published. (1st Oct 1938) |
| 177th | First Anglo-Afghan War begins when Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India, issues a manifesto from Simla giving Britain's reasons for intervening in Afghanistan. (1st Oct 1838) |
| 0th | New consumer protections come into force under the Consumer Rights Act, guaranteeing a full refund for faulty goods up to thirty days after purchase. (1st Oct 2015) |
| 3rd | Automatic enrolment to workplace pension schemes commences. (1st Oct 2012) |
| 399th | King James's School, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, is founded by Dr. Robert Chaloner. (1st Oct 1616) |
| 399th | Ben Jonson's satirical five-act comedy The Devil is an Ass is produced at the Blackfriars Theatre by the King's Men, poking fun at credence in witchcraft and Middlesex juries. (1st Oct 1616) |
| 57th | the sovereignty of Christmas Island is transferred from the United Kingdom to Australia. (1st Oct 1958) |
| 77th | first Kindertransport from Berlin to London Liverpool Street station via Harwich. (1st Oct 1938) |
| -4th | Torrential rain brings flooding to many parts of Great Britain with dozens of warnings issued by the Environment Agency. Some areas in the Midlands, Wales and southern England are hit by a week's rain in just one hour. (1st Oct 2019) |
| 13th | The main provisions of National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act (of 25 June) come into force in England, including renaming and merger of existing NHS regional health authorities to form 28 new strategic health authorities, and introduction of primary care trusts to be responsible for the supervision of family health care functions. (1st Oct 2002) |
| 6th | The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom officially opens, taking over various powers, including those of the Law Lords. (1st Oct 2009) |
| -7th | More than 50,000 rail workers go on a 24-hour strike, the biggest of the year to date, with only 11% of train services running in the UK. (1st Oct 2022) |
| -7th | Thousands of people around the UK attend a series of simultaneous protests against the cost of living crisis, timed to coincide with the jump in gas and electricity unit prices. (1st Oct 2022) |
| 752nd | The battle of Largs is fought between Norwegians and Scots. (2nd Oct 1263) |
| 90th | John Logie Baird performs the first test of a working television system. (2nd Oct 1925) |
| 732nd | Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, becomes the first person executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered. (2nd Oct 1283) |
| 83rd | Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom. (2nd Oct 1932) |
| 63rd | The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon. (2nd Oct 1952) |
| -3rd | The government announces that heterosexual couples in England and Wales will be given the right to enter into civil partnerships rather than marriage. (2nd Oct 2018) |
| -2nd | Monarch Airlines, the UK's fifth biggest airline, is placed into administration. (2nd Oct 2017) |
| 70th | Piccadilly Circus tube station becomes the first to be lit by fluorescent light. (2nd Oct 1945) |
| 90th | John Logie Baird successfully transmits the first television pictures with a greyscale image. (2nd Oct 1925) |
| 90th | London's first double-decker buses with covered top decks are introduced. (2nd Oct 1925) |
| 47th | a woman from Birmingham gives birth to the first recorded instance of live Sextuplets in the UK. (2nd Oct 1968) |
| 10th | The first parkrun, described as the Bushy Park Time Trial, takes place in Bushy Park, London. (2nd Oct 2005) |
| 237th | British Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska. (3rd Oct 1778) |
| -2nd | Following a spate of acid attacks, the government announces that sales of acids to under 18s will be banned. (3rd Oct 2017) |
| 172nd | the statue of Nelson placed atop Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London. (3rd Oct 1843) |
| 497th | Cardinal Wolsey's Treaty of London is signed by France, England, the Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy, Spain, Burgundy and the Netherlands allying the European powers against the Ottoman Empire. (3rd Oct 1518) |
| 7th | Peter Mandelson returns to the Westminster cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform as part of a reshuffle following Ruth Kelly's resignation. (3rd Oct 2008) |
| -7th | Following a backlash, the government announces the cancellation of their plan to abolish the highest income tax band. (3rd Oct 2022) |
| 480th | The first complete English-language Bible (the Coverdale Bible) is printed, with translations by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale. (4th Oct 1535) |
| 132nd | First meeting of the Boys' Brigade in Glasgow, Scotland. (4th Oct 1883) |
| 49th | Basutoland becomes independent from the United Kingdom and is renamed Lesotho. (4th Oct 1966) |
| 39th | Official launch of the Intercity 125 High Speed Train (HST). (4th Oct 1976) |
| 79th | Battle of Cable Street between Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and anti-fascist demonstrators. (4th Oct 1936) |
| 57th | BOAC uses new Comet jets to become the first airline to fly jet passenger services across the Atlantic. (4th Oct 1958) |
| -7th | The first preliminary hearing of the COVID-19 inquiry is held. Chair Baroness Hallett says those who have suffered will be at the inquiry's heart. (4th Oct 2022) |
| 120th | The first individual time trial for racing cyclists is held on a 50-mile course north of London. (5th Oct 1895) |
| 85th | British Airship R101 crashes in France en-route to India on its maiden voyage. (5th Oct 1930) |
| 79th | The Jarrow March sets off for London. (5th Oct 1936) |
| 47th | Police baton civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland - considered to mark the beginning of The Troubles. (5th Oct 1968) |
| 46th | The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus airs on BBC. (5th Oct 1969) |
| 41st | Guildford pub bombings: bombs planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) kill four British soldiers and one civilian. (5th Oct 1974) |
| 4th | The world's largest solar bridge project got underway in London. (5th Oct 2011) |
| -4th | Lucia Lucas becomes the first transgender singer to perform with the English National Opera in London. (5th Oct 2019) |
| -7th | Train drivers hold another day of strikes, with 9,000 members of ASLEF staging a 24-hour walkout. (5th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | Liz Truss makes her first Conservative Party Conference speech as Prime Minister, saying she is focused on "growth, growth, growth" and decrying what she calls an "anti-growth coalition". The event is interrupted by protesters from Greenpeace. (5th Oct 2022) |
| -6th | Flooding hits parts of London following torrential rain overnight, with Knightsbridge and Kensington particularly badly affected. (5th Oct 2021) |
| 161st | The Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead starts shortly after midnight, leading to 53 deaths and hundreds injured. (6th Oct 1854) |
| 300th | First of the major Jacobite Rebellions in Scotland against the rule of King George I. (6th Oct 1715) |
| -4th | Flights repatriating the final 4,800 Thomas Cook holidaymakers stranded abroad following the company's collapse take off, bringing to an end Operation Mattetrhorn, the largest peacetime repatriation operation that has seen more than 150,000 people brought back to the UK. (6th Oct 2019) |
| -7th | Four people are injured, with three taken to hospital, following a street robbery and stabbing near Liverpool Street station in the heart of London's financial district. Police establish a cordon at the junction of Bishopsgate and Camomile Street but say the attack is not terror-related. (6th Oct 2022) |
| -6th | The £20 weekly increase to Universal Credit is withdrawn, 18 months after its introduction. (6th Oct 2021) |
| -6th | Amazon opens its first non-food store in the UK, at Bluewater Shopping Centre near Dartford. (6th Oct 2021) |
| 252nd | King George III issues British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements. (7th Oct 1763) |
| 14th | The United States of America's Armed-forces invade Afghanistan. Submarines of the British Royal Navy participate using Tomahawk cruise missiles. (7th Oct 2001) |
| 11th | British hostage Ken Bigley, of Liverpool, is beheaded by militants in Iraq. (7th Oct 2004) |
| -6th | After an agreement fell through in 2020 with owner Mike Ashley, Saudi-led consortium Public Investment Fund buys 80% of Newcastle United's shares worth £300m, making Newcastle the richest British football club, surpassing Manchester City. (7th Oct 2021) |
| 815th | Isabella of Angoulême is crowned Queen consort of England. (8th Oct 1200) |
| 209th | Forces of the British Empire lay siege to the port of Boulogne in France by using Congreve rockets, invented by Sir William Congreve. (8th Oct 1806) |
| 186th | Stephenson's The Rocket wins The Rainhill Trials. (8th Oct 1829) |
| 63rd | The Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash kills 112 people. (8th Oct 1952) |
| 42nd | London Broadcasting Company, Britain's first legal commercial Independent Local Radio station, begins broadcasting. (8th Oct 1973) |
| 2nd | British physicist Peter Higgs is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his theory of the Higgs boson. (8th Oct 2013) |
| 50th | The Post Office Tower opens in London. (8th Oct 1965) |
| 3rd | Scientists warn of the dangers of using liquid nitrogen in drinks after an 18-year-old woman in Lancaster requires emergency surgery after consuming a cocktail containing the substance. (8th Oct 2012) |
| -4th | Parliament is prorogued until 14 October. (8th Oct 2019) |
| 7th | The government announced a bank rescue package worth some £500 billion as a response to the ongoing financial crisis. (8th Oct 2008) |
| -7th | Another strike is held by rail workers, with only 20% of services running. (8th Oct 2022) |
| 501st | Marriage of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor. (9th Oct 1514) |
| 75th | During a night-time air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, England is hit by a bomb. (9th Oct 1940) |
| 73rd | Statute of Westminster 1931 formalises Australian autonomy. (9th Oct 1942) |
| 40th | An IRA bomb explosion outside Green Park tube station near Piccadilly in London killed one and injured 20. (9th Oct 1975) |
| 11th | Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh, designed by Enric Miralles, is opened. (9th Oct 2004) |
| 9th | Opening of the Beetham Tower, Manchester, a landmark 168-metre 47-storey skyscraper with oversailing upper floors designed by Ian Simpson of SimpsonHaugh and Partners, the tallest building in the UK outside London, and with its penthouse apartments (above the Hilton Hotel) being the highest residential addresses in the country. (9th Oct 2006) |
| 435th | After a three-day siege, the English Army beheads over 600 Irish and Papal soldiers and civilians at Dún an Óir, Ireland. (10th Oct 1580) |
| 58th | The Windscale fire in Cumbria, U.K. is the world's first major nuclear accident. (10th Oct 1957) |
| 44th | Sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. (10th Oct 1971) |
| 52nd | Prime Minister Harold Macmillan announces his resignation on the grounds of ill health. (10th Oct 1963) |
| 92nd | First BBC broadcast from Aberdeen - followed by Bournemouth on the 17th. (10th Oct 1923) |
| 87th | Tyne Bridge opens, connecting Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead. (10th Oct 1928) |
| -7th | The UK imposes sanctions on Iran's morality police, along with five leading political and security officials, following the death of Mahsa Amini. (10th Oct 2022) |
| -6th | The four remaining cooling towers at Eggborough Power Station are demolished with explosives. (10th Oct 2021) |
| 366th | Sack of Wexford: After a ten-day siege, English New Model Army troops (under Oliver Cromwell) stormed the town of Wexford, killing over 2,000 Irish Confederate troops and 1,500 civilians. (11th Oct 1649) |
| 288th | George II and Caroline of Ansbach are crowned King and Queen of Great Britain. (11th Oct 1727) |
| 218th | Battle of Camperdown: Naval battle between Royal Navy and Royal Netherlands Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars. The outcome of the battle was a decisive British victory. (11th Oct 1797) |
| 116th | Second Boer War begins: In South Africa, a war between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State erupts. (11th Oct 1899) |
| 3rd | Heavy rain in the United Kingdom causes flash flooding in the coastal village of Clovelly, Devon, damaging homes and pulling up cobbles in the street. (11th Oct 2012) |
| 57th | first broadcast of the long-running BBC Television sports programme Grandstand. (11th Oct 1958) |
| -7th | The Bank of England warns of a "material risk" to financial stability, as the government's borrowing costs rise sharply again. (11th Oct 2022) |
| -6th | A question on sexual activities in areas with widespread HIV transmission will be removed following recommendations to make blood donation inclusive. (11th Oct 2021) |
| 799th | King John of England loses his crown jewels in The Wash, probably near Fosdyke, perhaps near Sutton Bridge (12th Oct 1216) |
| 192nd | Charles Macintosh, of Scotland, sells the first raincoat. (12th Oct 1823) |
| 100th | British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium (12th Oct 1915) |
| 36th | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams is published. (12th Oct 1979) |
| -3rd | The Wedding of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank takes place at the St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. (12th Oct 2018) |
| 3rd | The UK's largest independent investigation into police wrongdoing will be conducted following damning reports into the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. (12th Oct 2012) |
| 100th | British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium. (12th Oct 1915) |
| 6th | The Evening Standard becomes a free newspaper in central London. (12th Oct 2009) |
| -6th | COVID-19 in the UK: A joint report from the Health & Social Care and Science and Technology Select Committee describes the decisions on lockdowns and social distancing during the early weeks of the pandemic, and the advice that led to them, as "one of the most important public health failures the UK has ever experienced", and the vaccination approach, including its research, development, and rollout as "one of the most effective initiatives in UK history". (12th Oct 2021) |
| 131st | Greenwich, in London, England, is established as Universal Time meridian of longitude. (13th Oct 1884) |
| -3rd | Storm Callum: Parts of Wales experience their worst flooding in 30 years. (13th Oct 2018) |
| 4th | BP was given the go-ahead to proceed with a new £4.5 billion oil project west of the Shetland Islands. (13th Oct 2011) |
| 47th | the rebuilt Euston railway station opens. (13th Oct 1968) |
| 122nd | the first students enter St Hilda's College, Oxford, founded for women by Dorothea Beale. (13th Oct 1893) |
| 949th | Battle of Hastings - In England on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, the Norman forces of William the Conqueror defeat the English army and kill King Harold II of England. (14th Oct 1066) |
| 693rd | Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's independence. (14th Oct 1322) |
| 429th | Mary, Queen of Scots, goes on trial for conspiracy against Elizabeth I of England. (14th Oct 1586) |
| 242nd | Just before the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, several of the British East India Company's tea ships are set ablaze at the old seaport of Annapolis, Maryland. (14th Oct 1773) |
| 203rd | Work on London's Regent's Canal starts. (14th Oct 1812) |
| 172nd | The British arrest the Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell for conspiracy to commit crimes. (14th Oct 1843) |
| 105th | The English aviator Claude Grahame-White lands his Farman Aircraft biplane on Executive Avenue near the White House in Washington, D.C. (14th Oct 1910) |
| 102nd | Senghenydd Colliery Disaster, the United Kingdom's worst coal mining accident, occurs, and it claims the lives of 439 miners. (14th Oct 1913) |
| 89th | The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, is first published. (14th Oct 1926) |
| 76th | The German submarine U-47 sinks the British battleship HMS Royal Oak within her harbour at Scapa Flow, Scotland. (14th Oct 1939) |
| 75th | Balham subway station disaster, in London, England, occurs during the Nazi Luftwaffe air raids on Great Britain. (14th Oct 1940) |
| 58th | Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first Canadian Monarch to open up an annual session of the Canadian Parliament, presenting her Speech from the Throne in Ottawa, Canada (14th Oct 1957) |
| 46th | The UK introduces the British fifty-pence coin, which replaces, over the following years, the British ten-shilling note, in anticipation of the decimalization of the British currency in 1971, and the abolition of the shilling as a unit of currency anywhere in the world. (14th Oct 1969) |
| 127th | The first recorded film, Roundhay Garden Scene, is made in Roundhay in Leeds. The film is two seconds and 18 frames in length. (14th Oct 1888) |
| 13th | The Northern Ireland Assembly is suspended following allegations of spying in "Stormontgate". (14th Oct 2002) |
| -7th | Kwasi Kwarteng is dismissed as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He becomes the second shortest-serving Chancellor in UK political history, after Iain Macleod who died of a heart attack in 1970. Jeremy Hunt succeeds him. (14th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | Just Stop Oil protesters throw tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh's 1888 masterpiece, Sunflowers, in the National Gallery. The rotating sign outside Scotland Yard is also spray painted orange. More than 20 arrests are made. (14th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | Royal Mail announces plans to axe 10,000 jobs, blaming ongoing strike action and rising financial losses. (14th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | Battersea Power Station opens to the public for the first time in 40 years. (14th Oct 2022) |
| 62nd | British nuclear test Totem 1 detonated at Emu Field, South Australia. (15th Oct 1953) |
| 2nd | Charles Taylor arrives in the UK to serve the remainder of his 50-year prison sentence, the first head of state to be convicted of war crimes since World War II. (15th Oct 2013) |
| 59th | The RAF retires its last Lancaster bomber (15th Oct 1956) |
| -7th | The delayed 2021 Rugby League World Cup begins. (15th Oct 2022) |
| -6th | Conservative MP Sir David Amess dies after being stabbed multiple times during his constituency surgery at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea. Police arrest a 25-year-old male British national, and treat the killing as an act of terror. (15th Oct 2021) |
| -6th | COVID-19 in the UK: NHS Test and Trace suspends testing provided by a private laboratory in Wolverhampton amid fears up to 43,000 people were given the wrong result for COVID-19 tests. The Health Security Agency announces it will hold a 'serious incident investigation' into the matter. (15th Oct 2021) |
| -6th | The contactless payment limit is increased from £45 to £100. (15th Oct 2021) |
| 181st | Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London is burnt to the ground. (16th Oct 1834) |
| 146th | Girton College, Cambridge is founded, becoming England's first residential college for women. (16th Oct 1869) |
| 76th | World War II: First attack on British territory by the German Luftwaffe. (16th Oct 1939) |
| -3rd | Pepper becomes the first robot to appear at a UK parliamentary meeting, talking to MPs about the future of artificial intelligence in education. (16th Oct 2018) |
| 42nd | The Wicker Man was first shown in cinemas, as a b-movie double with "Don't Look Now", a controversially sexual film. One would become a cult classic, the other forgotten. (16th Oct 1973) |
| 102nd | HMS Queen Elizabeth launched at Portsmouth Dockyard as the Royal Navy's first oil-fired battleship. (16th Oct 1913) |
| 924th | London Tornado of 1091: A tornado thought to be of strength T8/F4 strikes the heart of London. (17th Oct 1091) |
| 669th | Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by Edward III of England near Durham, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years. (17th Oct 1346) |
| 355th | Nine Regicides, the men who signed the death warrant of Charles I, are hanged, drawn and quartered. (17th Oct 1660) |
| 353rd | Charles II of England sells Dunkirk to France for 40,000 pounds. (17th Oct 1662) |
| 201st | London Beer Flood occurs in London, killing nine. (17th Oct 1814) |
| 155th | First The Open Championship (referred to in North America as the British Open). (17th Oct 1860) |
| 98th | First British bombing of Germany in World War I. (17th Oct 1917) |
| 59th | The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England. (17th Oct 1956) |
| -7th | The new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, delivers an emergency statement to the Commons, in which he announces that the government "will reverse almost all the tax measures" from the mini-budget. The reconfigured budget will raise £32bn, out of the £70bn needed to close the funding gap. (17th Oct 2022) |
| 999th | The Danes defeat the Saxons in the Battle of Ashingdon. (18th Oct 1016) |
| 164th | Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London. (18th Oct 1851) |
| 93rd | The BBC is founded by a consortium, to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service. (18th Oct 1922) |
| -3rd | A case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (so-called "mad cow disease") is confirmed on a farm in Aberdeenshire, the first of its kind in Scotland for 10 years. (18th Oct 2018) |
| 47th | National Giro opens for business through the General Post Office, (18th Oct 1968) |
| -4th | Sainsbury's becomes the first major supermarket to stop selling fireworks at its 2,300 stores across the UK. (18th Oct 2019) |
| 10th | The landmark Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth opens. At 170 metres (560ft) it is the tallest accessible structure in the UK outside London. (18th Oct 2005) |
| 7th | An episode of The Russell Brand Show aired, featuring a series of prank phone calls to the actor Andrew Sachs by comedians Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, leading to a media row. (18th Oct 2008) |
| -6th | A minute's silence is held for Sir David Amess in the House of Commons. Boris Johnson pays tribute to Amess and announces that Southend-on-Sea will become a city, a status which the murdered MP had long campaigned for. (18th Oct 2021) |
| 799th | King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry. (19th Oct 1216) |
| 562nd | The French recapture of Bordeaux brings the Hundred Years' War to a close, with the English retaining only Calais on French soil. (19th Oct 1453) |
| 366th | New Ross town, Co. Wexford, Ireland, surrenders to Oliver Cromwell. (19th Oct 1649) |
| 234th | At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis' sword and formally surrendered to George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau. (19th Oct 1781) |
| 0th | Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives at Heathrow Airport for his first state visit to the UK. (19th Oct 2015) |
| 3rd | Scotland Yard launches a "formal criminal investigation" into Jimmy Savile, after 200 potential sexual abuse victims come forward. (19th Oct 2012) |
| -4th | Another People's Vote march is held through London, matching the size of the previous one on 23 March 2019, in which hundreds of thousands attended. (19th Oct 2019) |
| -7th | Truss takes her first Prime Minister's Questions after cancelling most of the mini-budget. She tells the Commons she is "completely committed" to raising pensions in line with inflation, per the "triple lock" guarantee. (19th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | Suella Braverman resigns as Home Secretary after sending an official document from her personal email to a fellow MP, a serious breach of ministerial rules. She is succeeded by Grant Shapps. (19th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | The government wins a vote on its fracking plans by 326 to 230, a majority of 96. The vote is characterised as 'chaotic', with Conservative MPs unsure whether the vote would be treated as a vote of confidence in the government, and MPs alleging that bullying and manhandling took place in the voting lobby. However, ministers deny these claims, with Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg saying to "characterise it as bullying was mistaken". (19th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | Inflation in September rises slightly, back to its July level of 10.1%, up from 9.9% in August. (19th Oct 2022) |
| -6th | Tesco opens its first checkout-free store, known as GetGo, similar in format to the automated Amazon Go stores. (19th Oct 2021) |
| -6th | The government announces grants of £5,000 to replace old gas boilers with heat pumps and other low-carbon technology, as part of its plan to phase out the sale of new gas boilers by 2035. Experts criticise the plans as unambitious, given that only 90,000 heat pumps will be installed over three years, out of 25 million homes with gas boilers. (19th Oct 2021) |
| 197th | The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the Canada - United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length. (20th Oct 1818) |
| 105th | The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic, is launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (20th Oct 1910) |
| 42nd | The Dalai Lama made his first visit to the UK. (20th Oct 1973) |
| 2nd | About 100 homes are damaged when a "tornado" hits Hayling Island in Hampshire. (20th Oct 2013) |
| 100th | First women recruited as bus and tram conductors. (20th Oct 1915) |
| 67th | KLM Constellation air disaster: a KLM Lockheed Constellation airliner crashes (20th Oct 1948) |
| -7th | Liz Truss announces her pending resignation as Prime Minister after just 45 days. Her tenure will be the shortest of any Prime Minister in UK history. Her successor will be elected in a Conservative leadership contest, to be completed in the next week. (20th Oct 2022) |
| 210th | Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signals almost the end of French maritime power and leaves Britain's navy unchallenged until the 20th century. (21st Oct 1805) |
| 191st | Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement. (21st Oct 1824) |
| 161st | Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War. (21st Oct 1854) |
| 49th | Aberfan disaster: A slag heap collapses on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren. (21st Oct 1966) |
| 202nd | Nelson Monument, Liverpool unveiled. (21st Oct 1813) |
| 2nd | The government approves Hinkley Point C, the first nuclear plant to be constructed in the UK since 1995. It will be completed in 2023 and remain operational for 60 years, supplying about 7% of the country's electricity. (21st Oct 2013) |
| 4th | London's St Paul's Cathedral was forced to close its doors to visitors for the first time since the Second World War after Occupy London protesters set up camp on its doorstep. (21st Oct 2011) |
| 77th | Apostolic Delegation to Great Britain appointed. (21st Oct 1938) |
| -7th | The parliamentary watchdog finds that Labour MP Christian Matheson should be suspended from the Commons for four weeks for "serious sexual misconduct". He subsequently resigns from his Chester seat. (21st Oct 2022) |
| 308th | Scilly naval disaster: four British Royal Navy ships run aground near the Isles of Scilly because of faulty navigation. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and thousands of sailors drown. (22nd Oct 1707) |
| 138th | The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners. (22nd Oct 1877) |
| 137th | The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton. (22nd Oct 1878) |
| 105th | Dr. Crippen is convicted at the Old Bailey of poisoning his wife and is subsequently hanged at Pentonville Prison in London. (22nd Oct 1910) |
| 52nd | A BAC One-Eleven prototype airliner crashes in UK with the loss of all on board. (22nd Oct 1963) |
| 3rd | Surgeons have carried out the first ever robotic open-heart operations in Britain at the New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton. (22nd Oct 2012) |
| 49th | British spy George Blake escapes from Wormwood Scrubs prison; he is next seen in Moscow. (22nd Oct 1966) |
| 39th | The Damned release New Rose, the first ever single marketed as "punk rock". (22nd Oct 1976) |
| 720th | The first treaty forming the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France against England is signed in Paris. (23rd Oct 1295) |
| 374th | Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. (23rd Oct 1641) |
| 373rd | Battle of Edgehill: First major battle of the First English Civil War. (23rd Oct 1642) |
| 308th | The first Parliament of Great Britain meets. (23rd Oct 1707) |
| 276th | War of Jenkins' Ear starts: British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declares war on Spain. (23rd Oct 1739) |
| 3rd | James Bond film Skyfall premieres at the Royal Albert Hall in London. (23rd Oct 2012) |
| 37th | the government announces plans for a new single exam to replace O Levels and CSEs. (23rd Oct 1978) |
| -4th | The bodies of 38 adults and a teenager are found in a lorry container in Essex. A 25-year-old man from Northern Ireland is arrested on suspicion of murder. (23rd Oct 2019) |
| 14th | Provisional Irish Republican Army announces that it has begun to decommission its weapons. (23rd Oct 2001) |
| 158th | Sheffield F.C., the world's first football club, is founded in Sheffield, England. (24th Oct 1857) |
| 54th | The first official modern day Prime Minister's Question Time takes place in the House of Commons (24th Oct 1961) |
| 3rd | The last analogue television broadcasts are made in the United Kingdom, in Northern Ireland, as the country completes its transfer to digital television. (24th Oct 2012) |
| 59th | Protocol of S�vres, a secret agreement between the UK, France and Israel allowing the latter to invade Sinai with the support of the two former governments. Eden subsequently denies existence of an agreement. (24th Oct 1956) |
| 12th | Supersonic aircraft Concorde makes its final commercial flights after twenty-seven years. (24th Oct 2003) |
| -7th | October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election: Rishi Sunak becomes the new Leader of the Conservative Party, and the Prime minister (24th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | The NHS launches 'Our Future Health', one of the world's largest health and genetic data gathering projects, aimed at creating a long-term repository of information for researchers. Five million UK adults are invited to participate. (24th Oct 2022) |
| 868th | The Portuguese, under Afonso I, and Crusaders from England and Flanders conquer Lisbon after a four-month siege. (25th Oct 1147) |
| 600th | The army of Henry V of England defeats the French at the Battle of Agincourt. (25th Oct 1415) |
| 268th | British fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Hawke defeats the French at the second battle of Cape Finisterre. (25th Oct 1747) |
| 203rd | War of 1812: The American heavy frigate, USS United States, commanded by Stephen Decatur, captures the British frigate HMS Macedonian. (25th Oct 1812) |
| 187th | The St Katharine Docks opened in London. (25th Oct 1828) |
| 115th | The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal. (25th Oct 1900) |
| 95th | After 74 days on Hunger Strike in Brixton Prison, England, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney died. (25th Oct 1920) |
| 91st | The forged Zinoviev Letter is published in the Daily Mail, wrecking the British Labour Party's hopes of re-election. (25th Oct 1924) |
| 375th | The Treaty of Ripon is signed, restoring peace between Scotland and Charles I of England. (25th Oct 1640) |
| -3rd | Gavin Williamson announces that women who serve in the Army are now able to transfer into infantry roles, including the special forces, such as the SAS. (25th Oct 2018) |
| 39th | Opening of the Royal National Theatre on the South Bank in London, in premises designed by Sir Denys Lasdun. (25th Oct 1976) |
| 37th | a ceremony marks the completion of Liverpool Cathedral, for which the foundation stone was laid in 1904. (25th Oct 1978) |
| 57th | the Short SC.1 experimental VTOL aircraft makes its first free vertical flight. (25th Oct 1958) |
| -7th | Liz Truss makes her final speech outside 10 Downing Street, in which she defends her economic policies and insists that "brighter days lie ahead" for the UK. (25th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | Rishi Sunak officially becomes Prime Minister as the King asks him to form a new government. In his first speech, Sunak pays tribute to his predecessors, but acknowledges that "some mistakes were made". He promises to "place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government's agenda". (25th Oct 2022) |
| -6th | London's Ultra Low Emission Zone is expanded by 18 times, to include the area within the North and South Circular Roads. (25th Oct 2021) |
| 255th | George III becomes King of Great Britain. (26th Oct 1760) |
| 240th | King George III goes before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion, and authorized a military response to quell the American Revolution. (26th Oct 1775) |
| 156th | The Royal Charter is wrecked on the coast of Anglesey, north Wales with 459 dead. (26th Oct 1859) |
| -2nd | Women in Scotland are to be allowed to take abortion pills at home, bringing the country into line with others such as Sweden and France. (26th Oct 2017) |
| 152nd | The Football Association is founded at the Freemasons' Tavern in Long Acre, London. (26th Oct 1863) |
| 5th | Independent Print Limited launches i, the first national daily newspaper for a quarter of a century. The 20p paper is aimed at "readers and lapsed readers of quality newspapers". (26th Oct 2010) |
| 97th | Cecil Chubb donates Stonehenge to the nation. (26th Oct 1918) |
| 11th | Selby Coalfield production ceases. (26th Oct 2004) |
| 9th | The Duke of Edinburgh officially opens Arsenal's new stadium. (26th Oct 2006) |
| -7th | Sunak reimposes a ban on fracking in the UK, undoing the plan by Liz Truss, and in line with the Conservative Party's original election manifesto of 2019. (26th Oct 2022) |
| -7th | More than a dozen protesters from Just Stop Oil are arrested after blocking Piccadilly in central London and spray painting luxury car showrooms in nearby Mayfair. (26th Oct 2022) |
| 1076th | Edmund I succeeds Athelstan as King of England. (27th Oct 0939) |
| 371st | Second Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War. (27th Oct 1644) |
| 79th | Mrs Wallis Simpson files for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne. (27th Oct 1936) |
| 62nd | British nuclear test Totem 2 is carried out at Emu Field, South Australia. (27th Oct 1953) |
| 1st | Plans are unveiled by the Met Office for a £97m supercomputer to study weather and climate. Using 13 times more processing power than previous systems, it will perform 16,000 trillion calculations per second. (27th Oct 2014) |
| 37th | four people die and four others are wounded in a shooting spree which began in a residential street in West Bromwich and ends at a petrol station some 20 miles away in Nuneaton. (27th Oct 1978) |
| 47th | police and protestors clash at an anti-Vietnam War protest outside the Embassy of the United States in London. (27th Oct 1968) |
| 97th | Spanish Flu outbreak in London - leads to 2,200 deaths (27th Oct 1918) |
| -6th | Police make 31 arrests as members of Insulate Britain glue themselves to roads around London and Kent. (27th Oct 2021) |
| -6th | The Budget: Chancellor Rishi Sunak presents his autumn statement, designed to help the UK emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes a £150bn increase in departmental spending, an increase in the National Living Wage from £8.91 to £9.50, a cut in the Universal Credit taper rate from 63% to 55%, and the biggest cut to business rates in over 30 years. (27th Oct 2021) |
| 44th | Britain launches its first satellite, Prospero, into low Earth orbit atop a Black Arrow carrier rocket. (28th Oct 1971) |
| 122nd | the Royal Navy's first destroyer, HMS Havock, undergoes sea trials. (28th Oct 1893) |
| 57th | the State Opening of Parliament is broadcast on television for the first time. (28th Oct 1958) |
| -7th | The first televised sentencing at a murder trial in England and Wales takes place at the Old Bailey. This follows the first televised manslaughter sentencing on 28 July. Jemma Mitchell, 38, is given a minimum term of 34 years for killing and decapitating 67-year-old Mee Kuen Chong at her London home in June 2021. (28th Oct 2022) |
| -6th | At the Old Bailey, Danyal Hussein is sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in prison for the murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, two sisters he stabbed to death at random in Wembley Park. (28th Oct 2021) |
| -6th | Sidney Cooke, 94, one of the UK's most notorious paedophiles and serial killers, is denied parole for the tenth time. Cooke was jailed for life with a minimum five-year term in 1999 for the abuse of two brothers. (28th Oct 2021) |
| 397th | Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England. (29th Oct 1618) |
| 73rd | In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews. (29th Oct 1942) |
| 48th | London criminal Jack McVitie is murdered by the Kray twins, leading to their eventual imprisonment and downfall. (29th Oct 1967) |
| 39th | Opening of Selby Coalfield. (29th Oct 1976) |
| 77th | City Hall, Norwich, designed in the Art Deco style by C. H. James and S. R. Pierce, is opened. (29th Oct 1938) |
| -7th | The Mail on Sunday alleges that Russian spies gained access to Liz Truss's phone during her time as foreign secretary, and that the details were suppressed by then-prime minister Boris Johnson and cabinet secretary Simon Case. (29th Oct 2022) |
| 545th | Henry VI of England returns to the English throne after Earl of Warwick defeats the Yorkists in battle. (30th Oct 1470) |
| 530th | King Henry VII of England is crowned. (30th Oct 1485) |
| 90th | John Logie Baird creates Britain's first television transmitter. (30th Oct 1925) |
| 73rd | Lt. Tony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and canteen assistant Tommy Brown from HMS Petard board U-559, retrieving material which would lead to the decryption of the German Enigma code. (30th Oct 1942) |
| 55th | Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. (30th Oct 1960) |
| 0th | Shaker Aamer, the last British resident to be held in Guantanamo Bay, lands in the UK, having been detained for thirteen years. (30th Oct 2015) |
| 2nd | The Privy Council grants a Royal Charter on press regulations after the newspaper industry loses a last minute legal bid to seek an injunction against the plans. (30th Oct 2013) |
| 3rd | Britain's first 4G mobile network is launched, offering high-speed mobile data services in eleven major cities. (30th Oct 2012) |
| 9th | The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is published by the UK government. (30th Oct 2006) |
| -7th | A man kills himself after throwing incendiary devices at a Border Force processing centre in Dover, Kent, where asylum seekers are taken after being rescued in the English Channel. (30th Oct 2022) |
| 75th | The Battle of Britain ends - the United Kingdom prevents a possible German invasion. (31st Oct 1940) |
| 74th | A fire in a clothing factory in Huddersfield, England kills 49 (31st Oct 1941) |
| 59th | The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal. (31st Oct 1956) |
| 42nd | Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members escape from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, Republic of Ireland aboard a hijacked helicopter that lands in the exercise yard. (31st Oct 1973) |
| 79th | Elizabeth Cowell becomes the first female British television presenter, after making a broadcast from Alexandra Palace. (31st Oct 1936) |
| 749th | Second Barons' War: The war winds down as supporters of the slain rebel leader Simon de Montfort make an offer of peace to the king in the Dictum of Kenilworth. (31st Oct 1266) |
| -7th | Just Stop Oil activists target buildings used by the Home Office, MI5, the Bank of England and News Corp, spraying orange paint on each and demanding an end to new oil and gas licences. (31st Oct 2022) |
| -6th | Twelve people are injured following a rail crash in Salisbury, Wiltshire. (31st Oct 2021) |
| -6th | The two-week United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) is held in Glasgow, after being postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A deal is agreed by world leaders, which includes a "phasedown" of unabated coal power, a 30% cut in methane emissions by 2030, plans for a halt to deforestation by 2030, and increased financial support for developing countries. (31st Oct 2021) |
Return to key anniversaries for this month.
Or... select a different date below:
