October 1st: Yosemite National Park, one of the country’s most famous and popular national parks, was established on this day in 1890. The Gold Rush had brought many settlers out to this region searching a fortune in mining, however, before this, the area had been primarily populated by Native American tribes.

October 2nd, 2018: Operation Typhoon, Hitler’s push to capture Moscow, began. As Hitler’s army grew closer to the capital, and the foreboding Russian winter grew closer, Russian peasants began using scorched earth tactics to slow the assault down. That is, the Russians began destroying everything-bridges, barns food, et cetera-in an effort to slow Germans to a crawl. In the end, Hitler and his forces were unable to take Moscow from the Soviets.

October 3rd, 2018: East and West Germany reunited in 1990 after 45 years of the country being split and occupied by Western and Soviet forces.

October 4th, 2018: Soviet scientists successfully launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth. This advancement, which proved that the Soviet space effort was significantly more advanced than its US counterpart, kicked off a push by the US government to catch up with Soviet space technology known as the space race.

October 5th, 2018: First ever televised presidential address: President Truman made the first televised Presidential address to America in an effort to convince people to use less grain to help Europeans after World War II. However, the low prevalence of televisions in the US at this time (numbers were in the thousands) meant that most Americans still listened to this address through the radio.