Historical Events
- Oct 1 American jockey Johnny Heckmann becomes first to ride 7 winners at Hawthorne Race Course at Stickney/Cicero near Chicago, Illinois
- Oct 1 Zestienhoven airport at Rotterdam official opens
- Oct 2 1st atomic power clock exhibited-NYC
- Oct 3 Sal Maglie pitches a complete game as Brooklyn Dodgers beat NY Yankees, 6-3 in Game 1 of Baseball World Series at Ebbets Field; Yankees win series, 4-3
- Oct 4 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Maralinga Australia
Event of Interest
Oct 5 Catcher Yogi Berra becomes 4th NY Yankee to hit a Baseball World Series grand slam in Game 2 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn; Dodgers win, 13-8 but lose series, 4-3
Yogi Berra
Film Release
Oct 5 "The Ten Commandments", directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner opens in the US
Event of Interest
Oct 6 Dmitri Shostakovich's 6th Iron quartet premieres in Leningrad
Dmitri Shostakovich
- Oct 6 Dr Albert Sabin discovers oral polio vaccine
- Oct 8 Don Larsen (NY Yankees) pitches only perfect World Series game vs Brooklyn
- Oct 9 10th NHL All-Star Game, Montreal Forum, Montreal, QC: All-Stars tie Montreal Canadiens, 1-1
- Oct 10 Fazal Mahmood takes 13-114 for match v Australia in Karachi
- Oct 10 On Skowron's grand slammer NY Yanks beat Dodgers 9-0 in series game 7
Film Premier
Oct 10 "Giant", directed by George Stevens, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean in his last role, premieres in NYC
Elizabeth Taylor
James Dean
- Oct 11 1st Pakistan v Australia Test 95 runs scored on 1st day
- Oct 11 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Maralinga, Australia
- Oct 11 AL President Will Harridge bars Washington Senators move to West Coast, unless unanimously approved by the other AL owners
- Oct 12 Marga Klompe becomes first Dutch women elected minister
- Oct 13 WAGM TV channel 8 in Presque Isle, ME (CBS/NBC/ABC) begins
- Oct 14 Charles Ives' overture "Robert Browning" premieres in NYC
Event of Interest
Oct 14 Indian social reformer B.R. Ambedkar and 500,000 supporters convert to Buddhism in Nagpur
B.R. Ambedkar
- Oct 15 Pyotr Bolotnikov runs world record 10k (28:42.8)
- Oct 15 William J. Brennan, Jr. is appointed to US Supreme Court
- Oct 15 Yankees Enos Slaughter scores from 1st on a single in World Series
- Oct 15 First plane to land safely on water - Pan Am Flight 6 San Francisco to Honolulu, all 24 passengers and 7 crew survive
- Oct 17 England's 1st large scale nuclear power station opens
- Oct 17 Pakistan defeat Australia by nine wickets at 1st attempt
Film Premier
Oct 17 "Around the World in 80 Days", based on the book by Jules Verne, directed by Michael Anderson and starring David Nivon and Cantinflas, premieres in New York
Jules Verne
- Oct 20 58°F (15°C), Esperanza Station, Antarctica (Antarctic record high)
- Oct 20 Hannes Lindemann begins journey across Atlantic in a 17' craft
- Oct 22 France intercept Moroccan plane, arrest Ben Bella
- Oct 22 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Maralinga Australia
- Oct 22 A concrete girder weighing 200 tons kills 48 in Karachi, Pakistan.
- Oct 23 First video recording on magnetic tape televised coast-to-coast
- Oct 23 Thousands of Hungarians protest against the government and Soviet occupation. (The Hungarian Revolution is crushed on November 4).
- Oct 24 AP names Cin manager Birdie Tebbets as NL Manager of the Year
- Oct 24 Soviet troops invade Hungary, Imre Nagy becomes PM of Hungary
- Oct 24 Margaret Towner becomes first woman to be ordained into the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA)
- Oct 25 White Sox manager Marty Marion resigns. AL Lopez replaces him
- Oct 26 UN's International Atomic Energy Agency statute approved
- Oct 26 Vietnam promulgates its constitution
- Oct 28 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Luctuosissimi eventus
- Oct 29 NBC anchors Chet Huntley and David Brinkley first team up in "The Huntley–Brinkley Report"
- Oct 29 International zone of Tangier returns to Morocco
- Oct 29 Israeli paratroopers drop into Sinai to open Straits of Tiran
- Oct 30 Israel captures Egyptian military post at El-Thamad
- Oct 30 Dodgers sell Ebbets Field to a real estate group. They agree to stay until 1959, with an option to stay until 1961
- Oct 31 Rear Adm GJ Dufek becomes 1st American to land an airplane at South Pole
- Oct 31 Britain and France join Israeli forces in Egypt and begin to bomb Egypt to reopen Suez Canal
- Oct 31 Brooklyn, NY ends streetcar service
Famous Birthdays
- Oct 1 Leslie Burr-Howard, equestrian show jumper (Olympic silver 1996)
Theresa May
Oct 1 Theresa May, British Prime Minister (Conservative: 2016-), born in Eastbourne, England
Theresa May
- Oct 1 Gina Haspel, American intelligence officer, First female director of the US CIA, born in Ashland, Kentucky
- Oct 2 Freddie Jackson, American R&B singer and songwriter (Rock Me Tonight), born in Harlem, New York
- Oct 2 Murphy Morobe, South Afr UDF leader (spent 3 yrs in Robbeneiland Jail)
- Oct 3 Hart Bochner, actor (Aron-East of Eden, Supergirl, Die Hard), born in Toronto, Ontario
- Oct 3 Peter Frechette, American actor (Paint it Black, George-Profiler), born in Warwick, Rhode Island
- Oct 4 Hans van Breukelen, Dutch soccer goaltender (PSV)
Sherri Turner
Oct 4 Sherri Turner, LPGA golfer (1988 Mazda LPGA Champ), born in Greenville, South Carolina
Sherri Turner
- Oct 4 Christoph Waltz, German Austrian actor (Django Unchained), born in Vienna, Austria
- Oct 6 Kathleen Webb, American comic book writer and artist
- Oct 7 James Van Patten, American actor (Bo-Chisholms), born in Brooklyn, New York
- Oct 7 Julio Pezua, Pervian-American jockey
- Oct 7 Mike Shipley, Australian audio engineer (Paper Airplane), born in Sydney, Australia (d. 2013)
- Oct 8 Stephanie Zimbalist, American actress (Remington Steele, Centennial), born in NYC, New York
- Oct 8 Scott Michael Pellaton, barefoot water ski champ
- Oct 8 Jeff Lahti, American baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals), born in Oregon City, Oregon
- Oct 8 Janice Voss, American astronaut (shuttle radar topography mission), born in South Bend, Indiana (d. 2012)
- Oct 8 Larry Crane, American rocker (John Mellencamp band), born in Seymour, Indiana
- Oct 10 Mark Gordon, American film producer (Saving Private Ryan), born in Newport News, Virginia
- Oct 11 Nicanor Frutos, 47th President of Paraguay (2003-08), born in Coronel Oviedo, Paraguay
- Oct 12 David Vanian, British singer (The Damned), born in Hemel Hempstead, England
- Oct 13 Anura Ranasinghe, Sri Lankan cricketer (Sri Lankan batsman in 3 Tests 1982), born in Kalatura, Sri Lanka
- Oct 13 Chris Carter, American television producer (The X-Files), born in Bellflower, California
Beth Daniel
Oct 14 Beth Daniel, American golfer (Women's PGA Championship 1990), born in Charleston, South Carolina
Beth Daniel
Mae Jemison
Oct 17 Mae Jemison, 1st African American woman in space (STS 47), born in Decatur, Alabama
Mae Jemison
- Oct 17 Robin LO Linschoten, Dutch ass. secretary of Social Affairs (VVD)
Martina Navratilova
Oct 18 Martina Navratilova, Czech/American tennis player (18 Grand Slam singles titles), born in Prague, Czech Republic
Martina Navratilova
- Oct 18 Craig Bartlett, American animator
- Oct 18 Jim Talent, Des Peres, Missouri, American politician (Rep-R-Missouri)
- Oct 19 Bruce Weber, American Basketball Coach, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Oct 19 Sunny Deol, Indian actor
- Oct 19 Didier Theys, Belgian racing driver
- Oct 20 Danny Boyle, English film director (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire), born in Manchester, England
Carrie Fisher
Oct 21 Carrie Fisher, American actress (Princess Leia in Star Wars, When Harry Met Sally...) and writer (Postcards from the Edge), born in Beverly Hills, California (d. 2016)
Carrie Fisher
- Oct 22 Frank DiPino, American baseball player
- Oct 23 Betsy Nagelsen, tennis star, born in St Petersburg, Florida
- Oct 23 Darrell Pace, archer (Olympic 2 gold/silver-1976, 84, 88), born in Cincinnati, Ohio
- Oct 23 Dwight Yoakam, country singer (Honky Tonk Man), born in Pikeville, Kentucky
- Oct 24 Dale Maharidge, American author
- Oct 25 Matthias Jabs, rock guitarist (Scorpions-Wind of Change)
- Oct 25 Danny Gans, American entertainer, born in Los Angeles, California (d. 2009)
- Oct 26 Stephen Gumley, Australian businessman
- Oct 26 Rita Wilson, American actress and singer, born in Los Angeles, California
- Oct 26 Regina Benjamin, 18th US Surgeon General (2009-13), born in Mobile, Alabama
Patty Sheehan
Oct 27 Patty Sheehan, American golfer (6 LPGA major titles incl. US Open 1992, 94), born in Middlebury, Vermont
Patty Sheehan
- Oct 27 Jaq D. Hawkins, British author, occultist and lecturer, born in California
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Oct 28 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran (2005-13), born in Aradan, Iran
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
- Oct 28 Dave Wyndorf, American singer (Monster Magnet)
- Oct 29 Wilfredo Gómez, Puerto Rican boxer
- Oct 30 Juliet Stevenson, Essex England, actress (Secret Rapture, Life Story)
- Oct 30 Leslie Webb, equestrian dressage (Olympics 1996)
- Oct 30 Tim Roemer, (Rep-D-Indiana)
- Oct 31 Anders Lago, Swedish Social Democratic politician, born in Jönköping, Sweden
Famous Weddings
- Oct 6 South African politician "Kobie" Coetsee marries Helena E Malan
Wedding of Interest
Oct 6 Tennis player champ Ken Rosewall (21) weds Wilma McIver at St John's Church of England Cathedral in Brisbane, Australia
Ken Rosewall
Wedding of Interest
Oct 13 MLB player Roger Maris (22) weds high school sweetheart Pat Carvell at St. Anthony Padua Church
Roger Maris
Famous Deaths
- Oct 1 Stan Ockers, Belgian world champ cyclist (1955), dies at 36
- Oct 2 George Bancroft, American actor (Texas, Stagecoach, Little Men), dies at 74
- Oct 2 Paul de Backer, Belgian radiologist, dies at 73
- Oct 6 Walter Herlihy, announcer (Music at Meadowbrook), dies at 42
- Oct 6 Charles E. Merrill, American investment banker (Merrill Lynch), dies at 70
Clarence Birdseye
Oct 7 Clarence Birdseye, American inventor and founder of the modern frozen food industry (Birdseye), dies of a heart attack at 69
Clarence Birdseye
- Oct 8 Dirk Koster, literary (New noises), dies at 69
- Oct 9 Marie Doro, American stage and film actress of the early silent film era (The Heart of Nora Flynn, The White Pearl), dies at 74
- Oct 16 Jules Rimet, French football administrator (3rd President of FIFA 1921-54), dies at 83
- Oct 17 Anne Crawford, British film actress (Knights of the Round Table), dies of leukaemia at 35
- Oct 19 Isham Jones, American musician, bandleader and songwriter (Star Dust, I'll See You in My Dreams), dies at 62
- Oct 24 Henry Nicholas Ridley, British botanist (Malay Peninsula rubber industry), dies at 100
- Oct 25 Risto Ryti, Finnish minister/premier/president, dies at 67
- Oct 26 Walter Gieseking, German pianist/composer, dies at 60
Pío Baroja
Oct 30 Pío Baroja y Nessi, Spanish Basque writer, author of over 100 novels (The Struggle for Life, Zalacain the Adventurer), dies at 83
Pío Baroja