ON THIS DAY
What happened on October 3?
October 3 includes a wartime proclamation, the end of a mandate, a rocket breakthrough with a devastating legacy, a nuclear test and peaceful national reunification.
9 moments shown
Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving proclamation
During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln invited people to observe the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving.
Iraq entered the League of Nations as an independent state
The British mandate formally ended and Iraq joined the League of Nations under King Faisal I.
Italy invaded Ethiopia
Italian forces invaded Ethiopia from Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, beginning the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.
The A-4 rocket completed its first successful flight
Germany successfully tested the A-4 rocket, later called the V-2, at Peenemünde. The technology reached the edge of space before being deployed as a weapon in the Second World War.
Britain conducted its first atomic bomb test
Operation Hurricane detonated a British atomic device at the Monte Bello Islands off Western Australia.
Space Shuttle Atlantis began its first flight
NASA launched Atlantis on STS-51J from Kennedy Space Center, beginning the orbiter’s first mission in space.
Germany was reunified
The German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany, bringing the country’s postwar division to a formal end.
EU accession negotiations with Türkiye opened
The European Union and Türkiye launched formal accession negotiations at an intergovernmental conference.
A migrant boat sank near Lampedusa
A boat carrying hundreds of people from East Africa sank near the Italian island of Lampedusa, causing one of the Mediterranean’s deadliest migrant shipwrecks.
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