1392-10-3: Muhammed VII becomes the twelfth sultan of the Emirate of Granada.
1574-10-3: The Siege of Leiden is lifted by the Watergeuzen.
1683-10-3: Qing dynasty naval commander Shi Lang receives the surrender of the Tungning kingdom on Taiwan after the Battle of Penghu.
1712-10-3: The Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor.
1739-10-3: The Treaty of Niš is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia ending the Russian-Turkish War.
1789-10-3: George Washington proclaims a Thanksgiving Day for that year.
1792-10-3: A militia departs from the Spanish stronghold of Valdivia to quell a Huilliche uprising in southern Chile.
1863-10-3: The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
1873-10-3: Chief Kintpuash and companions are hanged for their part in the Modoc War of northern California.
1912-10-3: U.S. forces defeat Nicaraguan rebels at the Battle of Coyotepe Hill.
1918-10-3: King Boris III of Bulgaria accedes to the throne.
1919-10-3: Cincinnati Reds pitcher Adolfo Luque becomes the first Latin American player to appear in a World Series.
1929-10-3: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is renamed to Yugoslavia by King Alexander I.
1930-10-3: The German Socialist Labour Party in Poland - Left is founded.
1932-10-3: The Kingdom of Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1935-10-3: Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy invades Ethiopia.
1942-10-3: A German V-2 rocket reaches a record 85 km (46 nm) in altitude.
1943-10-3: World War II: German forces murder 92 civilians in Lingiades, Greece.
1949-10-3: WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta.
1951-10-3: Korean War: The First Battle of Maryang San pits Commonwealth troops against communist Chinese troops.
1952-10-3: The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon in the Montebello Islands, Western Australia, to become the world's third nuclear power.
1957-10-3: The California State Superior Court rules that the book Howl and Other Poems is not obscene.
1962-10-3: Project Mercury: US astronaut Wally Schirra, in a Sigma 7, is launched from Cape Canaveral for a six-orbit flight.
1963-10-3: A violent coup in Honduras begins two decades of military rule.
1981-10-3: The hunger strike at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland ends after seven months and ten deaths.
1985-10-3: The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight.
1986-10-3: TASCC, a superconducting cyclotron at the Chalk River Laboratories in Canada, is officially opened.
1989-10-3: A coup in Panama City is suppressed and 11 participants are executed.
1990-10-3: The German Democratic Republic is abolished and becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany; the event is afterwards celebrated as German Unity Day.
1991-10-3: Nadine Gordimer is announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1993-10-3: An American attack against a warlord in Mogadishu fails; eighteen US soldiers and over 350 Somalis die.
1995-10-3: O. J. Simpson murder case: O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
2008-10-3: The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 for the U.S. financial system is signed by President George W. Bush.
2009-10-3: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey join in the Turkic Council.
2013-10-3: At least 360 migrants are killed when their boat sinks near the Italian island of Lampedusa.
2015-10-3: Forty-two people are killed and 33 go missing in the Kunduz hospital airstrike in Afghanistan.
2021-10-3: Eight people are killed in an airplane crash near Milan, Italy.