On this day in History - Oct. 11

• 0732 - Battle at Tours: France under Karel Martel beat Moors.
• 0961 - Death of St. Bruno.
• 1138 - A massive earthquake struck Aleppo, Syria.
• 1188 - Robert I of Dreux dies. Son of Louis VI of France.
• 1303 - Benito Gaetani, Pope Boniface VIII dies in Rome.
• 1335 - Taejo of Joseon was born (d. 1408). Ruler of Korea.
• 1347 - Louis IV dies (b. 1282). Holy Roman Emperor.
• 1424 - Jan Zizka dies (b. 1370). Leader of the Hussites.
• 1521 - Pope Leo X names King Henry VIII of England "Defender of the Faith"
• 1531 - Huldrych Zwingli dies on Battle at Kappel (b. 1484). Swiss Protestant leader
• 1551 - The 13th Session of the Council of Trent opened, during which major decisions were reached regarding the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist.
• 1582 - Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
• 1611 - John Cowell dies (b. 1554). English jurist.
• 1614 - Adriaen Block and 12 Amsterdam merchants petition the States General for exclusive trading rights in the New Netherland colony.
• 1616 - Andreas Gryphius was born (d. 1664). German write.
• 1634 - the Burchardi flood — "the second Grote Mandrenke" killed around 15,000 men in North Friesland, Denmark and Germany.
• 1661 - Melchior de Polignac was born (d. 1742). French diplomat.
• 1671 - King Frederick IV of Denmark was born (d. 1730).
• 1671 - Richard Moungler was born (d. 1730).
• 1672 - Pylyp Orlyk was born (d. 1742). Ukrainian Zaporozhian Cossack starshina, diplomat.
• 1675 - Samuel Clarke was born (d. 1729). English philosopher.
• 1684 - James Tuchet, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven dies (b. 1617).
• 1689 - Peter the Great becomes tsar of Russia.
• 1705 - Guillaume Amontons dies (b. 1663). French physicist and instrument maker.
• 1708 - Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus dies (b. 1651). German mathematician.
• 1721 - Edward Colston dies (b. 1636). English merchant and philanthropist.
• 1725 - Hans Herr dies (b. 1639). Swiss-born Mennonite bishop.
• 1727 - George II of England crowned.
• 1738 - Arthur Phillip was born (d. 1814). British admiral, Governor of New South Wales.
• 1755 - Fausto de Elhuyar y de Suvisa was born. Spanish chemist and mineralogist.
• 1758 - Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers was born (d. 1840). German astronomer.
• 1759 - Mason Locke Weems was born (d. 1825) . Episcopalian clergyman and writer (Life of Washington).
• 1776 - American Revolution: Battle of Valcour Island - On Lake Champlain 15 American gunboats are defeated but give Patriot forces enough time to prepare defenses of New York City.
• 1778 - George Polgreen Bridgetower was born. English violinist.
• 1779 - Polish nobleman Kazimierz Pułaski (b. 1745) was killed while fighting for American independence during the Revolutionary War Battle of Savannah, Georgia.
• 1779 - Casimir Pulaski dies (b. 1745). Polish fighter for American independence.
• 1786 - Stevenson Archer was born (d. 1848). American Congressman.
• 1788 - Simon Sechter was born (d. 1867). Austrian music teacher.
• 1809 - Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances at an inn called Grinder's Stand.
• 1809 - Orson Squire Fowler was born (d. 1887). American phrenologist.
• 1809 - Meriwether Lewis dies ( suicide) (b. 1774). American explorer.
• 1811 - Inventor John Stevens' boat, the Juliana, begins operation as the first steam-powered ferry (service between New York, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey).
• 1811 - Johann Conrad Ammann dies (b. 1724). Swiss physician and naturalist.
• 1813 - Robert Kerr dies (b. 1755). Scotish naturalist and translator.
• 1814 - Jean Baptiste Lamy was born. First Archbishop of Santa Fe
• 1815 - Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte was born (d. 1881). Italian-born adventurer and politician.
• 1821 - George Williams was born (d. 1905). English founder of the YMCA.
• 1821 - John Ross Key dies (b. 1754). American judge and lawyer.
• 1830 - José de La Mar dies (b. 12 May 1776). President of Peru (1822-1823 and 1827-1829).
• 1837 - Samuel Wesley dies at 71. Composer (Exultate Deo).
• 1839 - Leonor de Almeida, marquesa de Alorna, dies at 88. Portuguese poet / D. Leonor de Almeida Portugal Lorena e Lencastre, Marquesa de Alorna, morre (n. 1750 em Lisboa). Escritora portuguesa.
• 1844 - Henry Heinz was born (d. 1916). American food manufacturer.
• 1846 - Carlos Pellegrini was born. President of Argentine (1890-1892).
• 1850 - The University of Sydney is established in Sydney, Australia, with a staff of three professors and 24 students as the nation's oldest university.
• 1852 - The University of Sydney, Australia's oldest university, is inaugurated in Sydney.
• 1852 - Ferdinand Eisenstein dies (b. 1823). German mathematician.
• 1858 - Nils Kreuger was born (d. 1930). Swedish artist.
• 1862 - American Civil War: In the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart and his men loot Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during a raid into the north.
• 1863 - Louis Cyr was born (d. 1912). Canadian strongman.
• 1864 - Campina Grande, Brazil was established as a city.
• 1865 - Paul Bogle led hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica, starting the Morant Bay rebellion.
• 1865 - Hans E. Kinck was born (d. 1926). Norwegian author and philologist.
• 1866 - Carlos Arniches Barrera was born in Alicante (d. 16 Apr 1943). Spanish dramatist.
• 1871 - Great Chicago Fire is finally extinguished after 3 days, 300 killed.
• 1871 - Johan Oscar Smith was born (d. 1943). Norweigian Christian leader and founder of Smith's Friends.
• 1872 - Harlan F. Stone was born (d. 1946). 12th Chief Justice of the United States.
• 1875 - Stefan O Iosif was born. Romanian poet (Beautiful Irine).
• 1876 - Sublevación del general Porfirio Díaz contra el presidente mexicano, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, al que sucedió.
• 1877 - Outlaw Wild Bill Longley, who killed at least a dozen men, is hanged, but it took two tries; on the first try, the rope slipped and his knees drug the ground.
• 1881 - Hans Kelsen was born. Austrian legal theorist.
• 1884 - Friedrich Bergius was born (d. 1949). German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1884 - Eleanor Roosevelt [Anna] was born (d. 1962). First Lady of the United States (1933-1945).
• 1884 - Sig Ruman was born (d. 1967). German-American actor.
• 1885 - François Mauriac was born (d. 1970). French writer (Nobel Prize laureate in 1952).
• 1889 - James Prescott Joule dies (b. 1818). English physicist.
• 1890 - In Washington, DC, the Daughters of the American Revolution is founded.
• 1890 - José Crisóstomo de Abreu e Sousa substitui António de Serpa Pimentel no cargo de ministro do reino de Portugal.
• 1895 - Jakov Gotovac was born (d. 1982). Croatian composer.
• 1896 - Portugal: É fundado o «Diário de Notícias» do Funchal.
• 1896 - Roman Jakobson was born (d. 1982). Russian lexicographer.
• 1896 - Anton Bruckner dies (b. 1824). Austrian composer.
• 1896 - Edward White Benson dies (b. 1829). Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 1897 - Nathan Twining was born (d. 1982). USAF general.
• 1899 - Second Boer War begins: In South Africa, a war between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State erupts.
• 1899 - Eddie Dyer was born (d. 1964). American baseball player.
• 1902 - 8th US Golf Open: Laurie Auchterlonie shoots a 307 at Garden City NY.
• 1902 - Jayaprakash Narayan was born (d. 1979). Indian freedom fighter and political leader.
• 1905 - Fred Trump was born (d. 1999). American real estate developer, father of Donald Trump.
• 1906 - San Francisco public school board sparks United States diplomatic crisis with Japan by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools.
• 1908 - Cartola was born (d. 1980). Brazilian composer, musician and sambist.
• 1910 - Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane. He flew for four minutes in a plane built by the Wright Brothers at Kinloch aviation field, St. Louis, Missouri.
• 1910 - Joseph Alsop was born. American journalist.
• 1911 - Manuel Teixeira Gomes apresenta credenciais de embaixador de Portugal no Reino Unido.
• 1915 - Despite international protests, Edith Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium, is executed by Germans for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners.
• 1918 - Jerome Robbins was born (d. 1998). American choreographer.
• 1919 - Art Blakey was born (d. 1990). American jazz drummer.
• 1919 - Jean Vander Pyl was born (d. 1999). American voice actress.
• 1924 - Mal Whitfield was born. American athlete.
• 1924 - Francisco Aguilar Barquero dies. Presidente of Costa Rica (1919-1920).
• 1925 - Elmore Leonard was born. American novelist.
• 1926 - Portugal: São João da Madeira torna-se um município (autónomo de Oliveira de Azeméis).
• 1926 - Neville Wran was born. Premier of New South Wales.
• 1926 - Thich Nhat Hanh was born. Religious leader.
• 1927 - Miguel II de Bragança dies (b. 1853) .
• 1928 - Alfonso de Portago was born (d. 1957). Spanish race car driver.
• 1929 - JC Penney open Store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 states.
• 1929 - Liselotte Pulver was born. Swiss actress.
• 1930 - Collingwood Football Club in Melbourne, Australia, won the premiership (football competition) for the fourth consecutive year.
• 1930 - Sam Johnson was born. American politician.
• 1930 - LaVell Edwards was born. Former college football coach.
• 1932 - Dottie West was born (d. 1991). American singer (Here Comes My Baby, Country Sunshine, Is this Me?, Would You Hold It Against Me, What are We Doin' in Love ).
• 1935 - Steele Rudd dies (b. 1868). Australian author.
• 1936 - Tom Zé was born. Brazilian composer.
• 1936 - Billy Higgins was born (d. 2001). American jazz drummer.
• 1937 - R. H. W. Dillard was born. American poet.
• 1937 - Bobby Charlton was born. English football player.
• 1937 - Ron_Leibman was born. American actor.
• 1939 - Manhattan Project: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt is presented with a letter signed by Albert Einstein urging the United States to rapidly develop an atomic bomb program.
• 1939 - Maria Bueno was born. Brazilian tennis player.
• 1939 - Austin Currie was born. Northern Irish politician.
• 1940 - Lluís Companys dies shot (b. 1882). President of Generalitat of Catalonia.
• 1940 - Vito Volterra dies (b. 1860). Italian mathematician and physicist.
• 1941 - Beginning of the National Liberation War of Macedonia.
• 1941 - Lester Bowie was born (d. 1999). American jazz trumpet player.
• 1942 - World War II: Battle of Cape Esperance - On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.
• 1942 - Amitabh Bachchan was born. Indian actor, singer, and producer
• 1943 - John Nettles was born. English actor.
• 1943 - Gene_Watson was born. American country singer.
• 1944 - Tuvinian People's Republic or formerly Tannu Tuva was annexed by the U.S.S.R
• 1944 - Mike Fiore was born. American baseball player.
• 1946 - Daryl Hall was born. American musician (Hall & Oates).
• 1946 - Gary Mallaber was born. American musician (The Steve Miller Band).
• 1946 - Sawao Kato was born. Japanese gymnast.
• 1947 - Al Atkins was born. English musician, vocalist.
• 1947 - Lucas Papademos was born. Greek economist, Vice President of the European Central Bank
• 1949 - Greg Douglas was born. Musician (The Steve Miller Band).
• 1950 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission issues the first license to broadcast television in color, to CBS (RCA will successfully dispute and block the license from taking effect, however).
• 1950 - Andrew Woolfolk was born. Rhythm-and-blues musician (Earth, Wind and Fire).
• 1950 - Catlin Adams was born. American film director.
• 1951 - Jean-Jacques Goldman was born. French singer and songwriter.
• 1953 - David Morse was born. American actor.
• 1953 - Pauline Robinson Robin Bush was born. Daughter of G.H.W. Bush.
• 1953 - Paulette Carlson was born. Country singer.
• 1954 - First Indochina War: The Viet Minh take control of North Vietnam.
• 1954 - Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Ad caeli Reginam.
• 1956 - Nicanor Duarte Frutos was born. President of Paraguay.
• 1957 - The Orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket carrying Sputnik I was first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer by teams at The M.I.T. Computation Center and Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 1957 - Space Race: M.I.T. scientists calculate Sputnik I's booster rocket's orbit.
• 1957 - Lobão was born. Brazilian musician.
• 1957 - Dawn French was born. Welsh comedian.
• 1958 - Pioneer program: NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 (the probe falls back to Earth and burns up).
• 1958 - Totia Meirelles was born in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian actress.
• 1959 - Wayne Gardner was born. Australian racing driver.
• 1960 - Curt Ford was born. Baseball player.
• 1961 - Amr Diab was born. Egyptian pop-star
• 1961 - Neil Buchanan was born.English television presenter.
• 1961 - Steve Young was born. American football (NFL) player.
• 1961 - Chico Marx dies (b. 1887). American comedian.
• 1962 - Nicola Bryant was born. British actress.
• 1962 - Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.
• 1962 - Joan Cusack was born. American actress and comedien.
• 1963 - Prince Faisal bin Al Hussein of Jordan was born.
• 1963 - Jean Cocteau dies (b. 1889). French writer.
• 1963 - Édith Piaf dies *official date, actually she died on 10 Oct (b. 1915). French singer and actress.
• 1964 - Michael J. Nelson was born. American actor/writer.
• 1965 - Luke Perry was born. American actor.
• 1965 - Sean Patrick Flanery was born. American actor.
• 1965 - Dorothea Lange dies (b. 1895). American photographer.
• 1965 - Walther Stampfli dies (b. 1884). Member of the Swiss Federal Council.
• 1965 - Anos de Chumbo: campus da Universidade de Brasília é invadido, por tropas e pela polícia.
• 1966 - Luke Perry was born. American actor.
• 1966 - Donita Dunes was born. American actress and porn star.
• 1966 - Solofa Fatu, aka Rikishi, was born. American professional wrestler.
• 1967 - Afghan Prime Minister Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal resigns for health reasons
• 1967 - Harold Wilson wins Moving apology: The Move pop group apologises in the High Court to the Prime Minister for a "violent and malicious personal attack".
• 1967 - Tony Chimel was born. American professional wrestling announcer.
• 1967 - Artie Lange was born. American actor/comedian.
• 1967 - David Starr was born. American race car driver.
• 1967 - Tazz was born. American professional wrestler/commentator.
• 1968 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.
• 1968 - Panamá: Un golpe de estado de la Guardia Nacional derroca al presidente Arnulfo Arias y se forma una Junta presidida por Omar Torrijos.
• 1968 - Jane Krakowski was born. American actress ("Ally McBeal").
• 1968 - Claude Lapointe was born. Canadian ice hockey player.
• 1969 - Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands was born.
• 1970 - U-God was born. American rapper.
• 1970 - Andy Marriott was born. English football player.
• 1970 - Chidi Ahanotu was born. American football player.
• 1971 - Petra Haden was born. American musician (The Rentals).
• 1971 - MC Lyte (Lana M. Moorer) was born. American rapper who was the first female Hip Hop artist to receive a Gold record (certifying over 500,000 units sold).
• 1971 - 60th Davis Cup: USA beats Romania in Charlotte (3-2).
• 1971 - Chesty Puller dies (b. 1898). The most decorated Marine in history.
• 1972 - Claudia Black was born. Australian actress.
• 1973 - Dmitri Young was born. American baseball player.
• 1973 - Takeshi Kaneshiro was born. Actor and model.
• 1973 - Steven Pressley was born. Scottish footballer.
• 1973 - Niki Xanthou was born. Greek long jumper.
• 1974 - Jason Arnott was born. Canadian ice hockey player.
• 1974 - Terje Haakonsen was born. Norwegian snowboarder.
• 1975 - The NBC sketch comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live debuts with George Carlin as the host and Janis Ian and Billy Preston as musical guests.
• 1975 - NeeNa Lee was born. Singer.
• 1976 - The so-called "Gang of Four," Chairman Mao Tse-tung's widow and three associates are arrested in Peking, setting in motion an extended period of turmoil in the Chinese Communist Party.
• 1976 - George Washington's appointment, posthumously, to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States by congressional joint resolution Public Law 94-479 was approved by President Gerald R. Ford.
• 1976 - Emily Deschanel was born. American actress.
• 1976 - Brent Bennett was born. American mercenary.
• 1976 - Alfredo Bracchi dies (b. 1897). Italian author.
• 1977 - Claudia Palacios was born. Colombian television journalist.
• 1977 - Ty Wigginton was born. American baseball player.
• 1977 - Desmond Mason was born. American basketball player.
• 1977 - Matthew Bomer was born. American actor.
• 1977 - MacKinlay Kantor dies (b. 1904). American author.
• 1978 - Carlos Alonso Kali was born. Angolan football player.
• 1979 - Andy Douglas was born. American professional wrestler.
• 1979 - Bae Doona was born. South Korean model and actress.
• 1979 - Gabe Saporta was born. Uruguayan-born musician/singer (Cobra Starship, Midtown)
• 1980 - Nyron Nosworthy was born. English footballer.
• 1982 - The Mary Rose, a Tudor gunship which sunk on July 18th 1545, is raised from the sea bed in the Solent Channel, near to Portsmouth.
• 1982 - 16th Country Music Assn Award: Willie Nelson and Ricky Skagg win.
• 1983 - Ruslan Ponomariov was born. Ukranian chess player.
• 1983 - William Sledd was born. American internet personality.
• 1984 - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American women to perform a space walk.
• 1984 - Sergio Hellings was born. Dutch footballer
• 1984 - Martha MacIsaac was born. Canadian actress
• 1985 - Arab-American activist Alex Odeh was killed by a bomb blast in Santa Ana, California.
• 1985 - Michelle Trachtenberg was born. American actress.
• 1986 - Cold War: US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe.
• 1987 - March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights attracts between 500,000 and 600,000 people to protest the Bowers v. Hardwick decision and the U.S. government's handling of the AIDS epidemic; first public display of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
• 1987 - Search ends for Loch Ness monster : A huge sonar exploration of Loch Ness fails to find the world famous monster known affectionately as Nessie.
• 1987 - Mike Conley, Jr. was born. American basketball player
• 1988 - Knut Eirik Kokkin was born. Norwegian singer (L8R)
• 1988 - Bonita Granville dies (b. 1923). American actress.
• 1989 - Michelle Wie was born. American golfer.
• 1989 - M. King Hubbert dies (b. 1904). American geophysicist.
• 1990 - Octavio Paz was named the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, the first Mexican writer so honored.
• 1991 - Chauncey Matthews was born. American Juniors singer.
• 1991 - Steven Jesse Bernstein dies (suicide) (b. 1950). American underground poet.
• 1991 - Redd Foxx dies in Los Angeles (b. 1922). American comedian and actor.
• 1991 - Álvaro Salema dies (b. 1914). Portuguese literary critic and essayst.
• 1991 - José Marmelo e Silva dies in Espinho (b. 7 May 1911). Portuguese writer, Comendador da Ordem de Mérito.
• 1991 - Jorge Trincheiras dies. Portuguese ballerino and coreographer.
• 1991 - Redd Foxx dies (b. 1922). American comedian and actor.
• 1991 - Steven Jesse Bernstein dies (suicide) (b. 1950). American underground poet.
• 1993 - Jess Thomas dies (b. 1927). American tenor.
• 1993 - William Nygaard, editor de norueguês do livro Versos Satânicos de Salman Rushdie escapa de uma tentativa de assassinato.
• 1994 - U.S. troops in Haiti took over the National Palace.
• 1994 - Iraqi troops began moving north, away from the Kuwaiti border.
• 1995 - Americans Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland and Dutch scientist Paul Crutzen won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their controversial work warning that gases once used in spray cans and other items are destroying Earth's protective ozone layer.
• 1995 - Princess Luisa Maria of Belgium, Archduchess of Austria-Este was born.
• 1996 - Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor won the Nobel Peace Prize for their pro-democracy efforts in troubled East Timor.
• 1996 - Lars Ahlfors dies (b. 1907). Finnish mathematician.
• 1996 - Renato Russo dies (b. 1960). Brazilian singer and composer.
• 1996 - William Vickrey dies (b. 1914). Canadian-born, US economist, who, three days earlier, was named co-winner, with the British James A. Mirrlees [05 Jul 1936~], of the 1996 Nobel economics prize, "for their fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information".
• 1997 - Authorities reported no survivors from the overnight crash of an Argentine jetliner in Uruguay which killed all 74 people on board.
• 1998 - A Congo Air Lines Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo killing 40
• 1998 - Edith Stein : Pope John Paul II decreed the first Jewish-born saint of the modern era: Edith Stein, a nun who died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
• 1998 - Richard Denning dies (b. 1914). American actor.
• 1999 - The Lord of the Rings movies begin principal photography.
• 1999 - Dr. Guenter Blobel of New York's Rockefeller University won the Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering how proteins find their rightful places in cells.
• 2000 - The 100th Space Shuttle mission (STS-92) is flown.
• 2000 - The Nobel Prize in Economics is awarded to James J. Heckman, University of Chicago, and Daniel L. McFadden, University of California.
• 2000 - Donald Dewar dies (b. 1937). First Minister of the Scottish Parliament.
• 2001 - The Polaroid Corporation files for federal bankruptcy protection.
• 2002 - A bomb attack in a shopping mall in Vantaa, Finland. See Myyrmanni bombing.
• 2002 - Former President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 2002 - Dina Pathak dies (b. 1922). Indian actress.
• 2004 - Finn E. Kydland, Norwegian and Edward Prescott, American won The Nobel Prize in Economics “for their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles”.
• 2004 - Fernando Sabino dies (b. 12 Oct 1923). Brazilian writer.
• 2004 - Keith Miller dies (b. 1919). Australian sportsman.
• 2005 - Sevendust releases its fifth album, Next.
• 2005 - Edward Szczepanik dies (b. 1915). Polish economist and Prime Minister in exile.
• 2005 - Shan-ul-Haq Haqqee dies (b. 1917). Pakistanese linguist and writer.
• 2006 - Cory Lidle dies (b. 1972). American baseball pitcher.
• 2006 - Howard Kerzner dies (b. 1964). Chief Executive Officer of Kerzner International.
• 2006 - Benito Martínez dies (b. 1880). Cuban who claimed to be the oldest person.
• 2007 - Werner von Trapp dies (b. 1915). Member of the Trapp Family Singers
• 2007 - David Lee "Tex" Hill dies (b. 1915). World War Two fighter pilot, flying ace, 1st American Volunteer Group.
• 2008 - Jörg Haider dies (b. 1950). Austrian far-right politician.
• Roman Empire - Meditrinalia is held in honor of Meditrina.
• RC Saints - memorial of the blessed Pope John XXIII; Saints Andronicus, Probus, and Tarachus; Alexander Sauli;
• United States - National Coming Out Day (not a federal holiday).
• World Sight Day (WSD) is an annual day of awareness held on the second Thursday of October, to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment.
• Republic of Macedonia - Revolution Day