The early history of cricket began with a children's game in southeast England, possibly traced to Flemish immigrants to that area. The earliest definite reference to cricket is dated 17 January 1597 (Old Style) in a deposition in a legal case regarding the usage of a parcel of land. Around that time, it evolved into an adults' game, and there are many references to it in the 17th century. The earliest-known "big match" was played in Sussex in 1697, when the sport was already acquiring wealthy and influential patrons such as Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond (pictured). They hired the first professional players, and matches were played for high stakes to satisfy gambling interests. During the first quarter of the 18th century, cricket became the foremost sport in England's southeastern counties. By 1725, it was increasingly widespread and became the country's national summer sport. Meanwhile, overseas trade had taken it to both India and North America. (Full article...)
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October 6: German-American Day in the United States
Egyptian forces raising the Egyptian flag in a captured Israeli position in the Sinai
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1762 – Seven Years' War: The Battle of Manila concluded with a British victory over Spain, leading to a twenty-month occupation.
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1777 – American Revolutionary War: Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery were captured by British forces under Sir Henry Clinton, dismantling the Hudson River Chains.
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1973 – The Egyptian Armed Forces crossed the Suez Canal (pictured) to attack occupying Israel Defense Forces at the Bar Lev Line in the Sinai Peninsula, beginning the Yom Kippur War.
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1995 – Astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz reported the discovery of a planet orbiting 51 Pegasi as the first known exoplanet around a main-sequence star.
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2000 – Denouncing corruption in Argentine president Fernando de la Rúa's administration and the Senate, Vice President Carlos Álvarez resigned.
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Thomas Mundy Peterson (October 6, 1824 – February 4, 1904) was a resident of Perth Amboy, New Jersey who has been claimed to be the first African American to vote in an election under the provisions of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. His vote was cast on March 31, 1870; the Amendment had been ratified almost two months earlier, on February 3, but was only officially certified by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish on March 30. To honor him as the first African-American voter after the passage of the 15th Amendment, in 1884, the citizens of Perth Amboy raised $70 ($2500 in 2024 dollars) to award him with a medal, consisting of a gold bar from which a medallion depicting Abraham Lincoln was hung. This photograph shows Peterson in 1884, wearing his medal.
Photograph credit: William R. Tobias; restored by Adam Cuerden
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