October 10

Today in History
• 1780 - Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000 to 30,000 in the Caribbean
• 1802 - 1st non-Indian settlement in Oklahoma
• 1839 - British troops under General Charles Napier occupy Beirut
• 1845 - Naval School (now called US Naval Academy) opens at Annapolis
• 1865 - John Wesley Hyatt patents the billiard ball
• 1868 - 1st written account of a Canadian football game
• 1871 - The Great Chicago Fire is finally extinguished after 3 days
• 1888 - Teatotalers excursion train crushed, killing 64 at Mud Run, Pennsylvania


Holidays - Traditional and Obscure
• Cuba Independence Day
• Curaçao Day
• Fiji Day
• Huduma Day
• The Beginning of the Ten Years’ War
• World Homeless Day
• World Inclusion Day
• World Mental Health Day

Birthdays
• 1678 - John Campbell, 2nd duke of Argyll and field marshal (Union of 1707)
• 1731 - Henry Cavendish, England, physicist and chemist (discovered hydrogen)
• 1817 - C. H. D. Buys Ballot, Dutch meteorologist (Buys Ballot's law)
• 1825 - Paul Kruger, 3rd President of South African Republic (1883-1900)
• 1830 - Isabella II, Queen of Spain (1833-68)
• 1861 - Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian Arctic explorer and advocate for refugees
• 1863 - Louis Cyr, French Canadian strongman (lifting 500 pounds (227 kg) with one finge
• 1911 - Clare Hollingworth, war correspondent, first to report on the outbreak of WWII