On Oct. 19, 1812, French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte began their retreat from Moscow.
In 1943, during World War II, the foreign ministers of the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain opened a conference in Moscow to discuss broad principles of cooperation among their countries.
In 1944 the Navy announced that black women would be allowed into Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, known as the WAVES.
In 1950 UN forces entered the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, during the early months of the Korean War.
In 1951 President Harry Truman signed an act formally ending the state of war with Germany.
In 1960 the United States imposed an embargo on exports to Cuba covering all commodities except medical supplies and certain food products.
In 1977 the supersonic Concorde made its first landing in New York.
In 1987 the stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value.
In 1989 the Senate rejected a proposed constitutional amendment barring desecration of the American flag.
In 1990 Iraq ordered all foreigners in occupied Kuwait to report to authorities or face punishment.
In 1993 Benazir Bhutto was returned to the premiership of Pakistan.
In 1995, ignoring a veto threat, the House passed a Republican plan for overhauling Medicare by raising premiums for senior citizens and the disabled and saving billions of dollars from hospital and doctor fees.
In 1998, in Miami, the first class-action lawsuit brought by smokers against the tobacco industry went to trial.
In 1999 legislation to overhaul the nation’s campaign finance laws fell to a filibuster by Senate Republicans for the fourth straight year.
In 2000 a government advisory panel of scientists declared that phenylpropanolamine, an ingredient used in dozens of popular over-the-counter medicines, could not be classified as safe, saying it could be the cause of several hundred hemorrhagic strokes suffered annually by people under 50.
In 2001 U.S. special forces began operations on the ground in Afghanistan, opening a significant new phase of the assault against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Also in 2001 about 374 people died when their ferry sank off Indonesia while en route to Australia; most of the victims were believed to be asylum-seekers from Afghanistan and Iraq.
In 2002 a 37-year-old man was seriously wounded outside a steakhouse in Ashland, Va., in the latest shooting linked by authorities to the Washington sniper case. Also in 2002, in York, Pa., former Mayor Charlie Robertson was acquitted and two other men were convicted in the shotgun slaying of Lillie Belle Allen, a young black woman, during race riots that tore the city apart in 1969.
In 2003 New York magician David Blaine emerged from 44 days of isolation in a clear plastic box suspended over London.
In 2004 insurgents in Iraq abducted Margaret Hassan, the local director of CARE International, from her car in Baghdad. (Hassan is believed to have been slain by her captors.)
