This Day in History: 0000-10-01

1 Oct – Macedonian King Alexander the Great led Greek forces to smash Persian troops under Darius III in the Battle of Gaugamela, not far from modern Mosul. As a result Babylon, Mesopotamia and half of Persia fell under Greek control (331 BC).
1 Oct – The Ford Motor Company launched the Model T for $825, making cars available to the middle class and revolutionizing transportation in American (1908).
1-9 Oct – The heavily favored Chicago White Sox were defeated in the 1919 World Series by the upstart Cincinnati Reds in what became infamous as the “Black Sox scandal”; an attempt by some White Sox players to throw (lose) the series in return for cash (1919).
1 Oct – Allied troops entering Naples discovered an ongoing typhus epidemic among the civilian population with over 400 fatalities. A mass delousing program with DDT aborted the outbreak (1943).
1 Oct – Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China (1949).