Hankering For History: Events that happened today in history, October 19th!

Here are some of the great historical events that happened today, October 19th, in history!

439	The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, take Carthage in North Africa.
1216	King John of England dies at Newark and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.
1448	The Ottoman Sultan Murat II defeats Hungarian General Janos Hunyadi at Kosovo, Serbia.
1466	The peace of Torun ends the war between the Teutonic knights and their own disaffected subjects in Prussia.
1739	England declares war on Spain over borderlines in Florida. The War is known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear because the Spanish coast guards cut off the ear of British seaman Robert Jenkins.
1765	The Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, drew up a declaration of rights and liberties.
1781	British troops under Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Va., as the American Revolution neared its end.
1812	Napoleon Bonaparte begins his retreat from Moscow.
1848	John “The Pathfinder” Fremont moves out from near Westport, Missouri, on his fourth Western expedition–a failed attempt to open a trail across the Rocky Mountains along the 38th parallel.
1864	At the Battle of Cedar Creek, Va., a narrow victory helps the Union secure the Shenandoah Valley.
1873	Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Rutgers universities draft the first code of football rules.
1914	The German cruiser Emden captures her thirteenth Allied merchant ship in 24 days.
1917	The first doughnut is fried by Salvation Army volunteer women for American troops in France during World War I.
1942	The Japanese submarine I-36 launches a floatplane for a reconnaissance flight over Pearl Harbor. The pilot and crew report on the ships in the harbor, after which the aircraft is lost at sea.
1949	The People’s Republic of China is formally proclaimed.
1950	United Nations forces entered the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
1954	Egypt and Britain conclude a pact on the Suez Canal, ending 72 years of British military occupation. Britain agrees to withdraw its 80,000-man force within 20 months, and Egypt agrees to maintain freedom of canal navigation.
1960	Canada and the United States agree to undertake a joint Columbia River project to provide hydroelectric power and flood control.
1969	Vice President Spiro T. Agnew referred to anti-Vietnam War protesters “an effete corps of impudent snobs.”
1973	President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court demand to turn over the Watergate tapes.
1987	In retaliation for Iranian attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf, the U. S. navy disables three of Iran’s offshore oil platforms.
2001	Two Army Rangers were killed in a helicopter crash in Pakistan in the first combat-related American deaths of the military campaign in Afghanistan.
2003	Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa during a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square.
2005	A defiant Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of premeditated murder and torture at his trial in Baghdad.
2006	The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 12,000 for the first time, finishing the day at 12,011.73.
2008	Retired Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican who was President George W. Bush’s first secretary of state, broke with the party and endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president.
2011	In Greece, hundreds of youths smashed and looted stores in central Athens and clashed with riot police during a massive anti-government rally against painful new austerity measures.

Today’s historical facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.