Today in History, 10/3

42 BC: At the First Battle of Philippi, Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight an indecisive battle with Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius.
1283: Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, becomes the first person executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered. This was ordered by - guess who - Edward I.
1739: The Treaty of Nissa is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia at the end of the Russian-Turkish War, 1736-1739.
1778: British Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska.
1795: General Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence being named to defend the French National Convention against armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the three year old revolutionary government.
1849: American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death.1863: Thanksgiving Day declared as the fourth Thursday in November by President Abraham Lincoln.
1873: Emily Post, etiquette maven is born.1898: Leo McCarey is born. He directed Duck Soup.

1908: Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles in Vienna.
1916: James Herriot, veterinarian is born.1925: Gore Vidal is born.1932: Iraq gains independence from Britain.
1941: Chubby Checker is born.

1941: Adolf Hitler declares in a speech that Russia had been "broken" and would "never rise again."
1942: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany takes place: it is the first man-made object to reach space.
1949: Lindsey Buckingham is born. He did that song "Holiday Road" for National Lampoon's Vacation.

1951: "Shot Heard 'Round the World" One of the greatest moments in Major League Baseball history occurs when the New York Giants' Bobby Thomson hits a game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning off of the Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, to win the National League pennant after being down 14 games.

1952: The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon.
1954: Stevie Ray Vaughan is born.

1955: Captain Kangaroo debuts on the CBS.

1955: The Mickey Mouse Club debuts on ABC.

1957: Allen Ginsberg's Howl is ruled not obscene.
1962: Rocker Tommy Lee is born. He used to be the drummer for Motley Crue (I'm not even going to try to honor the umlaut) but these days he's best known for making amateur porn.

1964: The first Buffalo Wings are made at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York.
1973: Neve Campbell is born.1985: Space Shuttle Atlantis flies its maiden voyage.1990: West Germany and East Germany ended 45 years of postwar division, declaring the creation of a new unified country.
1993: At the Battle of Mogadishu, in an attempt to capture officials of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's organisation in Mogadishu, Somalia, 18 US Soldiers and about 1,000 Somalis are killed in heavy fighting.
1995: O.J. Simpson found not guilty of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.