MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2026

202 B.C.-Battle of Zama: Hannibal Barca and the Carthaginian army are defeated by Roman legions under Scipio Africanus, ending the Second Punic War

1781-British forces under General Charles Cornwallis sign terms of surrender to George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown at 2 p.m., effectively ending the American Revolutionary War

1926-Russian Politburo expels Leon Trotsky and his followers

1943-Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey

1983-U.S. Senate establishes Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, observed on the third Monday in January (on or near his January 15 birthday)

1987-Black Monday: Stock markets around the world crash, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which falls 508.32 points (22 percent), 4.5 times the previous daily record

2015-Scientists from the University of California find evidence that life on Earth may have begun 4.1 billion years ago, 300 million years earlier than previously thought