The Cleveland Street scandal occurred in 1889, when a homosexual male brothel in Cleveland Street, London, was uncovered by police. At the time, sexual acts between men were illegal in Britain, and the brothel's clients faced possible prosecution and certain social ostracism if discovered. It was rumoured that one of the brothel's clients was Prince Albert Victor, who was the son of the Prince of Wales and second-in-line to the British throne. Officials were involved in a cover-up to keep the prince's name and others' out of the scandal. One of the clients, Lord Arthur Somerset, was an equerry to the Prince of Wales but he, as well as the brothel keeper, Charles Hammond, managed to flee abroad before a prosecution could be brought. The rent boys, who also worked as messenger boys for the Post Office, were given light sentences and none of the clients were prosecuted. After Henry FitzRoy, Earl of Euston was named in the press as a client, he successfully sued for libel. The British press never named Prince Albert Victor, and there is no evidence he ever visited the brothel, but his inclusion in the rumours has coloured biographers' perceptions of him since. The scandal fuelled the attitude that male homosexuality was an aristocratic vice that corrupted lower-class youths. (more...)

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October 10: National Day in Fiji (1970); Double Ten Day in the Republic of China

• 732 – Battle of Tours (pictured): Charles Martel and the Franks defeated a large Andalusian Muslim army led by Abd er Rahman near Tours and Poitiers, stopping the northward advance of Islam from the Iberian Peninsula.
• 1780 – The Great Hurricane of 1780: One of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes on record struck the Caribbean, killing at least 22,000 people over the next several days.
• 1868 – Carlos Manuel de Céspedes made the Grito de Yara, declaring Cuban independence from Spain, sparking the Ten Years' War.
• 1943 – World War II: The Kempeitai, the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army, arrested and tortured over 50 civilians and civilian internees on suspicion of their involvement in a raid on Singapore Harbour during Operation Jaywick.
• 1982 – St. Maximilian Kolbe, who had volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland, was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.