20 October 1539

Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka were sworn in as president and vice president of Indonesia, becoming the oldest and the youngest person to assume respective offices.

First Libyan Civil War: Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed Libyan leader, was captured by rebel forces during the Battle of Sirte, and was killed shortly thereafter.

Aeroflot Flight 6502 crashed on approach to Kurumoch Airport in Samara, Russia (then Kuybyshev in the Soviet Union), killing 70 people on board.

The Spanish trawler Sonia sank in British waters after a five-hour chase by the Irish Naval Service patrol vessel Aisling, during which almost 600 shots were fired.

Three members of the American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd died when their chartered plane crashed in Gillsburg, Mississippi.

Watergate scandal: Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckelshaus resigned after refusing to obey President Richard Nixon's order to have Archibald Cox fired.

Experimental results from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were published showing that protons were composed of smaller particles, the first evidence of quarks.

Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin filmed an unidentified subject, which they claimed was Bigfoot, at Six Rivers National Forest in California.

African-American college football player Johnny Bright was the victim of an on-field assault, eventually leading to changes in NCAA football rules that mandated the use of more protective helmets with face guards.

World War II: Fulfilling a promise he made two years previously, General Douglas MacArthur landed on Leyte to begin the recapture of the Philippines.

Pope Pius XII (pictured) published his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, which critiqued ideologies such as racism, cultural superiority and totalitarianism.

British woman Mabel Freer was refused entry to Australia after failing a dictation test given in Italian, leading to a debate over Australia's immigration policy.

Under the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction, Maria Theresa (pictured) ascended the Habsburg throne.

Liz Truss steps down as British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party amid the country's political crisis, serving for the least time of any British Prime Minister (49 days).

Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declare victory in the Raqqa campaign.

Libyan Crisis: Rebel forces capture Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his son Mutassim in his hometown of Sirte and kill them shortly thereafter, ending the first Libyan civil war.

The general conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passes the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

The Sloan Great Wall, once the largest cosmic structures known to humanity, is discovered by students at Princeton University.

Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-73.

A massive firestorm breaks out in the hills of Oakland and Berkeley, California killing 25 people and destroying more than 3,000 homes, apartments and condominiums.

Aeroflot Flight 6502 crashes while landing at Kuibyshev Airport (now Kuromoch International Airport) in Kuibyshev (now present-day Samara, Russia), killing 70 people.

During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.

Two police officers and a Brink's armored car guard are killed during an armed robbery carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army and Weather Underground in Nanuet, New York.

A plane carrying the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in woodland in Mississippi, United States. Six people, including three band members, are killed.