On This Day in History: October 1

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

October 1 is the 274th day of the year(275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 91 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1946, 12 high-ranking Nazis are sentenced to death by the International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg. Among those condemned to death by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and chief of the German air force; and Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior. Seven others, including Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s former deputy, were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life. Three others were acquitted.

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military, held by the main victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany, in 1945-46, at the Palace of Justice. The first and best known of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which tried 22 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany. It was held from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. The second set of trials of lesser war criminals was conducted under Control Council Law No. 10 at the US Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT); among them included the Doctors’ Trial and the Judges’ Trial.

The Main Trial

The International Military Tribunal was opened on October 18, 1945, in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. The first session was presided over by the Soviet judge, Nikitchenko. The prosecution entered indictments against 24 major war criminals and six criminal organizations – the leadership of the Nazi party, the Schutzstaffel (SS) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Gestapo, the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the “General Staff and High Command,” comprising several categories of senior military officers.

The indictments were for:

  1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace

  2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace

  3. War crimes

  4. Crimes against humanity

 331 BC – Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.

959 – Edgar the Peaceable becomes king of all England.

1189 – Gerard de Ridefort, grandmaster of the Knights Templar since 1184, is killed in the Siege of Acre.

1787 – Russians under Alexander Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn.

1791 – First session of the French Legislative Assembly.

1795 – Belgium is conquered by France.

1800 – Spain cedes Louisiana to France via the Treaty of San Ildefonso.

1811 – The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1814 – Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw the Europe’s political map after the defeat of Napoleon the previous spring.

1827 – The Russian army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination in Armenia.

1829 – South African College is founded in Cape Town, South Africa; it will later separate into the University of Cape Town and the South African College Schools.

1843 – The News of the World tabloid began publication in London.

1847 – German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds Siemens AG & Halske.

1854 – The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts, to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.

1869 – Austria issues the world’s first postcards.

1880 – John Philip Sousa becomes leader of the United States Marine Band.

1880 – First electric lamp factory opened by Thomas Edison.

1887 – Balochistan conquered by the British Empire.

1890 – The Yosemite National Park and the Yellowstone National Park are established by the U.S. Congress.

1891 – In the U.S. state of California, Stanford University opens its doors.

1898 – Czar Nikolay II expels Jews from major Russian cities.

1898 – The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie.

1903 – Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series.

1905 – Frantisek Pavlik is killed in a demonstration in Prague, inspiring Leos Janacek to the piano composition 1. X. 1905.

1908 – Ford puts the Model T car on the market at a price of US$825.

1910 – Los Angeles Times bombing: A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, California, killing 21.

1918 – World War I: Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence (a/k/a “Lawrence of Arabia”) capture Damascus.

1920 – Sir Percy Cox landed in Basra to assume his responsibilities as high commissioner in Iraq.

1926 – An oil field accident cost aviator Wiley Post his left eye, but he used the settlement money to buy his first aircraft.

1928 – The Soviet Union introduces its First Five-Year Plan.

1931 – The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York opens.

1936 – Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain.

1937 – The Japanese city Handa is founded in Aichi Prefecture.

1938 – Germany annexes the Sudetenland.

1939 – After a one-month Siege of Warsaw, hostile forces entered the city.

1940 – The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.

1942 – USS Grouper torpedoes Lisbon Maru not knowing she is carrying British PoWs from Hong Kong

1942 – First flight of the Bell XP-59 “Aircomet”.

1943 – World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.

1946 – Nazi leaders sentenced at Nuremberg Trials.

1946 – Mensa International is founded in the United Kingdom.

1947 – The F-86 Sabre flies for the first time.

1949 – The People’s Republic of China is declared by Mao Zedong.

1957 – First appearance of “In God We Trust” on U.S. paper currency.

1958 – NASA created to replace NACA.

1960 – Nigeria gains independence from    

1962 – First broadcast of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

1964 – The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley.

1964 – Japanese Shinkansen (“bullet trains”) begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.

1965 – Apostasia of 1965, a political move in Greece designed to overthrow the Prime Minister, George Papandreou.

1965 – General Suharto crushes an attempted coup in Indonesia.

1966 – West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with eighteen fatal injuries and no survivors 5.5 miles south of Wemme, Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9.

1968 – The Guyanese government takes over the British Guiana Broadcasting Service (BGBS).

1969 – The Concorde supersonic transport plane breaks the sound barrier for the first time.

1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida, United States.

1975 – The Seychelles gain internal self-government. The Ellice Islands split from Gilbert Islands and take the name Tuvalu.

1975 – Thrilla in Manila: Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines.

1978 – Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom.

1979 – The United States returns sovereignty of the Panama canal to Panama.

1982 – Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a Constructive Vote of No Confidence.

1982 – EPCOT Center opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.

1982 – Sony launches the first consumer compact disc player (model CDP-101).

1985 – The Israeli air force bombs PLO Headquarters in Tunis.

1987 – The Whittier Narrows earthquake shook the San Gabriel Valley, registering as a magnitude 5.9.

1989 – Denmark: World’s first legal modern same-sex civil union called “registered partnership”

1991 – New Zealand’s Resource Management Act 1991 commences.

1992 – Turkish destroyer TCG Muavenet (DM-357) crippled causing 27 deaths and injuries, by missiles negligently launched by U.S. aircraft carrier USS Saratoga.

1994 – Palau gains independence from the United Nations (trusteeship administered by the United States of America).

1998 – Vladimir Putin became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

2009 – The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which acquired the judicial functions of the House of Lords, begins work.