Hollow Leg History | What Happened on This Date, October 10? - a podcast by The Hollow Leg

732

At the Battle of Tours near Poitiers, France, Frankish leader Charles Martel, a Christian, defeats a large army of Spanish and North African Moors, halting the Muslim advance into Western Europe. Abd-ar-Rahman, the Muslim governor of Cordoba, was killed in the fighting, and the Moors retreated from France, never to return in such force. Victory at Tours ensured the ruling dynasty of Martel’s family, the Carolingians. His son Pepin became the first Carolingian king of the Franks, and his grandson Charlemagne carved out a vast empire that stretched across Europe.

1845

The United States Naval Academy opens in Annapolis, Maryland, with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors. Known as the Naval School until 1850, the curriculum included mathematics and navigation, gunnery and steam, chemistry, English, natural philosophy, and French. The Naval School officially became the U.S. Naval Academy in 1850, and a new curriculum went into effect, requiring midshipmen to study at the academy for four years and to train aboard ships each summer–the basic format that remains at the academy to this day.

1911

The building of railways by foreign powers in China stokes nationalistic fervor, and unfair financial gain for those same foreign powers leads to violent protests. Today's Wuchang Uprising will start the Xinhai Revolution, the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, ending more than 2 millennia of imperial rule, and establishing the Republic of China. The Revolution begins with a bomb explosion and the discovery of revolutionary headquarters in Hankow. The revolutionary movement spread rapidly through west and southern China, forcing the abdication of the last Qing emperor, six-year-old Henry Pu-Yi. By October 26, the Chinese Republic will be proclaimed, and on December 4, Premier Yuan Shih-K'ai will sign a truce with rebel general Li Yuan-hung.

1964

The Tokyo Summer Olympics Begin, as 93 countries participated in the first Olympics to be held in Asia. As a tribute to the horrors of the Second World War, Yoshinori Sakai, who was born in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the day an atomic bomb destroyed the city, was chosen as the torchbearer to light the Olympic flame during the opening. The Tokyo Olympics was also the first Olympic Games that used satellites - Syncom 3 in the United States and Relay 1 in Europe - to telecast the games. Some of the games were also broadcasted in color for the first time.

1970

The paramilitary group Front de libération du Québec is demanding independence for Canada's primarily French-speaking province of Quebec and has already kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross. Now its members kidnap Quebec's Labour Minister, Pierre Laporte, ratcheting up tensions in this 'October Crisis.' In response, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the only peacetime use of the War Measures Act, deploying Canadian soldiers on the streets of Ottawa and Montreal. Police were also given more power in arrest and detention, which is ambiguous to say the least. The kidnappers would murder Laporte one week later.

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