World roundup: October 31 2025

Stories from China, Sudan, Venezuela, and elsewhere

Happy Halloween to those who are celebrating!

TODAY IN HISTORY

October 31, 1517: Martin Luther mails his Ninety-five Theses to the Archbishop of Mainz, the event that has come to mark the start of the Protestant Reformation. He’s also more famously said to have nailed the text to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, though Luther’s own recounting of events raises questions about whether he did so on October 31 or, really, at all. It’s entirely possible he did, but while that act has been cast as a stunning display of rebellion by history, posting disputations in a public place like the door to the city’s church was common practice at the time. Whatever actually happened, it’s safe to say that word got around.

German painter Julius Hübner’s 1878 Luther publishes the 95 Theses portrays what would have been a relatively commonplace occurrence as a dramatic public event (Lutherhaus via Wikimedia Commons)

October 31, 1941: The USS Reuben James, a Clemson-class destroyer, is torpedoed by German submarine U-552 while sailing as part of a convoy that had set out from Newfoundland about a week earlier. The attack killed 100 of the 144 people on board and made the Reuben James the first US vessel to be sunk in combat in World War II’s European Theater.

MIDDLE EAST

LEBANON

The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least one person in Lebanon on Friday in another of its daily airstrikes. It later claimed that the target was “a Hezbollah maintenance officer.” In light of that strike and in the wake of Thursday’s killing of a municipal worker in the town of Blida, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told reporters that his government “is ready for negotiations to end the Israeli occupation, but any negotiation … requires mutual willingness, which is not the case.” He further criticized the Israeli government for “responding” to the offer of talks “by carrying out more attacks against Lebanon … and intensifying tensions.”