On August22,1860, German engineer Paul Gottlieb Nipkow was born, who invented a predecessor of today's television http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2014/08/paul-nipkow-and-picture-scanning.html
On May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued the papal bull 'Inter caetera' (Among other [works]), which granted to Spain all lands to the "west and south" of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west and south of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde islands.
On October 20, 1401, Klaus Störtebeker, representative of a companionship of privateers known as the Victual Brothers, was executed by order of the senate of Hamburg. His life has become legend and he often is compared to other historic freedom fighters such as Che Guevara or Robin Hood, because he fought the rich in the name of the poor.
On October 18, 1989, the unmanned NASA spacecraft Galileo was launched on her mission to study the planet Jupiter and its moons. Named after the astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and entry probe, which descended into Jupiter's atmosphere.
On October 17, 1835, Dutch explorer of Africa Alexandrine Petronella Francina Tinne was born. She was the first European woman to attempt to cross the Sahara.
On October 16, 1906, German shoemaker Wilhelm Voight, just released from prison for forgery, purchased parts of used captain's uniforms. In this masquerade of a Prussian military officer he arrested the mayor and the treasurer of Köpenick for suspicion of crooked bookkeeping and confiscated the municipal funds
On October 12, 1875, English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, and mountaineer Aleister Crowley was born. During his lifetime, Crowley gained widespread notoriety.
On October 9 or 10, 1813, famous Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi was born. He is primarily known for his romantic operas, and together with Richard Wagner, Verdi is considered the most influential composer of operas of the nineteenth century.
On October 9, 1835, French composer, organist, conductor, and pianist of the Romantic era Camille Saint-Saëns was born. He was something of an anomaly among French composers of the nineteenth century in that he wrote in virtually all genres, including opera, symphonies, concertos, songs, sacred and secular choral music, solo piano, and chamber music.
On October 7, 1885, Danish physicist and Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr was born. Bohr made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.
On October 6, 1927, the first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, The Jazz Singer premiered. With its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system it heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era.
On October 4, 1903, American physicist and inventor John Vincent Atanasoff was born. He is best known for being considered as one of the inventors of the electronic digital computer.
On October 3, 1889, German pacifist and Nobel Laureate Carl von Ossietzky was born. He received the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in exposing the clandestine German re-armament.
On October 2, 1608, German-Dutch lensmaker Hans Lippershey applied to the States-General of the Netherlands for a patent for his instrument "for seeing things far away as if they were nearby".
(Probably) on September 29, 1547, famous Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright Miguel de Cervantes was born. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, is considered to be the first modern European novel, a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written.
On September 26, 1889, German philosopher Martin Heidegger was born. He is best known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being". His best known book, Being and Time, is considered one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century.