Today in History in 1950 the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz is first published in seven US newspapers; in 1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuts; in 1959 The Twilight Zone pilot premieres; and in 1962 Johnny Carson debuts as host of The Tonight Show.

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

October 2 is the 275th day of the year (276th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 90 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

.829 – Theophilus becomes Byzantine Emperor.

1187 – Saladin captures Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule.

1263 – The Battle of Largs is fought between Scots and Norwegians.

1535 – Jacques Cartier discovers Montreal, Quebec.

1552 – Conquest of Kazan by Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible.

1780 – American Revolutionary War: British spy John Andre is hanged by American forces for his role in Benedict Arnold's plot to sell West Point to the British Army.

1814 – Battle of Rancagua: Spanish royalist troops under Mariano Osorio defeat rebel Chilean forces under Bernardo O'Higgins and Jose Miguel Carrera.

1835 – Texas Revolution begins: Battle of Gonzales – Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, Texas but encounter stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia.

1836 – Naturalist Charles Darwin returns to Falmouth, England aboard the HMS Beagle after a 5-year journey collecting biological data he will later use to develop his theory of evolution.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Saltville – Union forces attack Saltville, Virginia but are defeated by Confederate troops.

1889 – In Washington, DC, the first international Conference of American States begins.

1889 – In Colorado, Nicolas Creede strikes it rich in silver during the last great silver boom of the American Old West.

1919 – US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed.

1924 – The Geneva Protocol is adopted as a means to strengthen the League of Nations.

1925 – John Logie Baird performs the first test of a working television system.

1928 – The "Prelature of the Holy Cross and the Work of God", commonly known as Opus Dei, was founded by Saint Josemaría Escrivá.

1935 – Italy invades Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1937 – Dominican Republic leader Rafael Trujillo orders the execution of the Haitian population living within the borderlands. Around 20,000 are killed in the following few days.

1941 – World War II: Operation Typhoon – Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow.

1942 – World War II: Ocean liner RMS Queen Mary accidentally hits and sinks her own escort ship HMS Curacoa off Ireland.

1944 – Holocaust: Nazi troops end the Warsaw Uprising.

1950 – The comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz is first published in seven US newspapers.

1955 – The ENIAC computer is deactivated at 11:45 PM.

1955 – Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuts (last new episode aired on June 26, 1962).

1958 – Guinea declares itself independent from France.

1959 – The Twilight Zone pilot premieres.

1962 – Johnny Carson debuts as host of The Tonight Show.

1967 – Thurgood Marshall sworn in as the first African-American justice of United States Supreme Court.

1968 – A peaceful student demonstration in Mexico City ends in the Tlatelolco massacre.

1970 – A plane carrying the Wichita State University football team, administrators and supporters crashes in Colorado, killing 31 people.

1979 – Pope John Paul II speaks at the UN.

1984 – Elisabeth Kopp becomes the first woman to be elected to the Swiss Federal Council.

1988 – The 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul come to an end.

1990 – A Chinese airline Boeing 737-247 is hijacked; after landing at Guangzhou, crashes into an empty Boeing 707-3J6B and then a Boeing 757-21B on the ground killing 132

1992 – Hero opens in theaters, starring Dustin Hoffman.

1992 – The Carandiru Massacre takes place after a riot in the Carandiru prison system in São Paulo, Brazil.

1993 – The 1993 Moscow riots by Hardline Communists occur.

1996 – The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments are signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

1996 – An Aeroperu Boeing 757 crashes in Pacific Ocean shortly after takeoff from Lima, Peru killing 70.

1997 – In the European Union the Amsterdam Treaty is signed.

2001 – Bankruptcy of Swissair.

2002 – The Beltway sniper attacks begin.

2004 – American Samoa joins the North American Numbering Plan.

2005 – The Ethan Allen tour boat capsizes on Lake George, Upstate New York, killing 20 people.

2006 – Five schoolgirls are killed in a shooting at an Amish school in Pennsylvania, before the gunman commits suicide.

2007 – President of South Korea Roh Moo-hyun walks across the Military Demarcation Line in North Korea, on his way to the inter-Korean summit meeting with Kim Jong-il.

2009 – Rio de Janeiro is chosen to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

2009 – Voters in Ireland support the EU's Lisbon Treaty in a second referendum.

2016 – Dozens of people are killed in a protest in Ethiopia's Oromia region.

2016 – Voters in Colombia reject a peace deal between their government and FARC by a narrow margin.

2018 – Nobel Prize in Physics: Donna Strickland becomes the 3rd woman to win the award for Physics, while Arthur Ashkin becomes the oldest-ever Nobel laureate, at age 96 (until John B. Goodenough wins the following year's Chemistry Prize at age 97); They share it with Gérard Mourou.

2018 – Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is murdered in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.