[Acebot44]

Some pretty interesting stuff happened on this day...

October 19th

* 202 BC – Second Punic War: At the Battle of Zama, Roman legions under Scipio Africanus defeat Hannibal Barca, leader of the invading Carthaginian army.
* 1453 – The French recapture of Bordeaux brings the Hundred Years' War to a close, with the English retaining only Calais on French soil.
* 1469 – Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
* 1789 – Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.
* 1812 – Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.
* 1873 – Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.
* 1933 – Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
* 1944 – United States forces land in the Philippines.
* 1959 – The first discothèque opens.
* 1973 – President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.
* 1987 – Black Monday - the Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%, 508 points.
*2005 – Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.


Births

1945 – John Lithgow, American actor
1954 – Joe Bryant, American basketball player and Kobe's daddy
1962 – Evander Holyfield, American boxer
1965 – Brad Daugherty, American basketball player
1970 – Chris Kattan, American comedian and actor