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Today in History, October 31st

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther's 95 Theses launched the Protestant Reformation. Plus Nevada statehood and the Bitcoin white paper.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published October 31, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

October 31 is best known as the day in 1517 when Martin Luther is said to have posted his 95 Theses in Wittenberg, sparking the Protestant Reformation. The date also brought Nevada’s admission as the 36th state in 1864 and the release of the Bitcoin white paper in 2008.

The big story: Martin Luther’s 95 Theses (1517)

Luther’s complaint started with a sales pitch. A Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel was selling indulgences, payments promising forgiveness of sins, to raise money for rebuilding St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Wittenberg’s ruler, Frederick the Wise, had banned the sales in his town, but locals bought them elsewhere and showed them to Luther as proof they no longer needed to repent. Luther answered with 95 arguments against the practice and against corruption in the Church. Tradition says he nailed them to the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church on October 31, 1517, though scholars question whether the nailing really happened. Either way, the theses spread fast once they were translated from Latin into German. In 1521 Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther, and Emperor Charles V declared him an outlaw after he refused to recant. Frederick protected him anyway. The movement that grew from his challenge became the Protestant Reformation.

More events on October 31

Year	What happened
1776	King George III addressed Parliament and admitted that the war with the American colonies was going badly for Britain.
1864	Nevada was admitted as the 36th state, in part to help President Abraham Lincoln’s reelection bid.
1926	Escape artist Harry Houdini died of peritonitis in a Detroit hospital.
1941	Work on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial was completed.
1950	Earl Lloyd of the Washington Capitols became the first Black player to appear in an NBA game.
1961	Joseph Stalin’s embalmed body was removed from Lenin’s tomb in Moscow’s Red Square.
1963	Ed Sullivan saw Beatlemania firsthand at London’s Heathrow Airport, a moment that helped open the door to the British Invasion.
1968	President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.
1984	Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her own bodyguards in New Delhi.
1997	Violet Palmer became the first woman to officiate an NBA game.
2008	Someone using the name Satoshi Nakamoto published the white paper that introduced Bitcoin.

Born on October 31

1795: John Keats, English Romantic poet, born in London.
1860: Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts in the U.S., born in Savannah, Georgia.
1887: Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China’s Nationalist government and later of its government on Taiwan, born in Zhejiang province.
1931: Dan Rather, CBS newsman for four decades, born in Wharton, Texas.