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October 29 in History

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The Fires That Toppled a Kaiser

October 29, 1918

The Fires That Toppled a Kaiser

Textbooks say the German Revolution began in Kiel, but the real refusal happened days earlier in the fog off Wilhelmshaven. How a secret admirals' plot and a few extinguished furnaces brought down an empire in eleven days.

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Also on this day

More that happened on October 29

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  1. 539 BCEKing Cyrus the Great of Persia entered Babylon, liberating Jewish captives and permitting them to return to their homeland.
  2. 1618English explorer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded at the Palace of Westminster following charges of treason against King James.
  3. 1665Portuguese troops defeated the Kingdom of Kongo at the Battle of Mbwila and executed the Kongolese ruler King António I.
  4. 1787Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducted the world premiere of his celebrated opera Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre in Prague.
  5. 1863An international conference concluded in Geneva, establishing the foundational principles and organization of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
  6. 1929Panic selling on Wall Street caused the American stock market to collapse completely, ushering in the Great Depression.
  7. 1969Engineers transmitted the first network communication between computers at two California universities using the newly developed ARPANET system.
  8. 1998South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its findings, condemning apartheid authorities and liberation movements for committing atrocities.
  9. 1998Astronaut John Glenn returned to orbit aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, becoming the oldest human ever to travel into outer space.
  10. 2012Hurricane Sandy struck the eastern United States, flooding coastal cities, shutting financial markets, and claiming hundreds of lives.
  11. 2015The Chinese government announced the official termination of its long-standing one-child policy after thirty-five years of enforcement.

Chosen from the October 29 pages of HistoryNet and OnThisDay.com, retold in our own words.