Today in History in 1836 Sam Houston becomes the first President of the Republic of Texas; in 1927 Nikola Tesla introduces six new inventions including a motor with one-phase electricity; and in 2019 the official enthronement ceremony for Emperor Naruhito of Japan is held.

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 22 is the 295th day of the year (296th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 70 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

362 – The temple of Apollo near Antioch is destroyed in a fire.

794 - Emperor Kanmu relocates the Japanese capital to Heiankyo (Kyoto).

1383 – A time of civil war began in Portugal when King Fernando dies without a male heir to the throne.

1575 - Founding of Aguascalientes, Mexico.

1633 - Battle of Southern Fujian Sea: The Ming Dynasty defeats the Dutch East India Company.

1707 - Scilly naval disaster: Four British Royal Navy ships run aground near the Isles of Scilly, off Cornwall, England, because of faulty navigation. Over 1,600 sailors drown.

1740 - End of a two-week massacre of ethnic Chinese people in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) in present-day Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies).

1746 – The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) is created.

1777 - American Revolutionary War: American defenders of Fort Mercer on the Delaware River repulse repeated Hessian attacks in the Battle of Red Bank.

1784 – Russia founds a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

1797 – One thousand meters (3,200 feet) above Paris, Andre-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump.

1836 – Sam Houston becomes the first President of the Republic of Texas.

1844 – The Great Anticipation: The Millerites, followers of William Miller, expect the end of the World to occur on this date. The following day is referred to as the 'Great Disappointment'.

1859 - Spain declares war on Morocco.

1875 - First telegraphic connection in Argentina.

1877 – A mining disaster in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, kills 215 people.

1878 – The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.

1883 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance by Charles Gounod's Faust.

1895 - In Paris, an express train derails after overrunning the buffer stop, crossing almost 30 meters of concourse, before crashing through a wall and falling 10 meters on the road below.

1910 - Hawley Harvey Crippen is found guilty at the Old Bailey in London of poisoning his wife, and is subsequently hanged at Pentonville Prison.

1923 - A royalist coup d'état fails in Greece.

1927 - Nikola Tesla introduces six new inventions including a motor with one-phase electricity.

1941 - World War II: French resistance member Guy Moquet and 29 others are executed by the German in retaliation for the death of a German officer.

1943 - World War II: in the second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts and air raid on the city of Kassel in the current state of Hesse. 10,000 people are killed.

1948 - Walter Ulbricht declares the Oder-Neisse Line to be the border between East Germany and Poland.

1950 – The 1st FIBA Basketball World Cup started in Argentina.

1957 – Vietnam War: First American soldier to die in Vietnam.

1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy says that American spy planes have found Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.

1964 – Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but turns down the honor.

1964 – Canada: A Multi-Party Parliamentary Committee choses the design which becomes the new official Flag of Canada.

1966 - The Soviet Union launches the Luna 12 probe.

1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.

1968 – Hard rock band Led Zeppelin release the classic album Led Zeppelin II, featuring the hit single "Whole Lotta Love."

1975 – The Soviet unmanned space probe Venera 9 lands on Venus.

1978 - Inauguration of Pope John Paul II.

1999 – Maurice Papon, a French Vichy Government official in World War II, is jailed for Crimes against Humanity.

2005 – Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season the most active on record.

2006 – An expansion plan for the Panama Canal is approved in a referendum in Panama.

2007 - Raid on Anuradhapura Air Force Base is carried out by 21 commandos of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. All except one die in this attack. Eight Sri Lanka Air Force planes are destroyed and 10 are damaged.

2008 - India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.

2014 - 2014 shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa.

2015 - An attacker kills two people with a sword at a school in Trollhattan, Western Sweden, before being shot dead by police.

2017 - The Liberal Democratic Party under Shinzo Abe wins early parliamentary elections in Japan.

2019 - Abortion and same-sex marriage become legal in Northern Ireland after the deadline for the return of the Assembly at Stormont at Belfast is missed; the two laws had been voted for by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom because of the Assembly's absence.

2019 - The official enthronement ceremony for Emperor Naruhito of Japan is held.