Music History
Oct 1 Dmitri Shostakovich evacuated by plane to Moscow
Historic Event
Oct 3 Adolf Hitler says Russia is "already broken and will never rise again" in a broadcast to the German people
Film Premiere
Oct 3 "The Maltese Falcon" directed by John Huston and based on Dashiell Hammett's 1929 novel of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, premieres in New York City
- Oct 5 Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Mickey Owens drops a 3rd strike and Tom Hendrick reaches 1st safely for Yankees for a famous Baseball World Series error; would have been last out, instead Yankees score 4 and win 7-4; win series, 4-1
- Oct 6 German army occupies Briansk, USSR
- Oct 6 Baseball World Series: NY Yankees beat Brooklyn Dodgers, 3-1 at Ebetts Field for a 4 games to 1 series win; Yankees 5th title in 6 years and 9th overall
- Oct 7 German army occupies Viarma, USSR
- Oct 8 Building at Concentration Camp Birkenau begins
Manhattan Project
Oct 9 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt approves an atomic program that would become the Manhattan Project
- Oct 9 Coup in Panama declares Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango the new president.
- Oct 10 RAF bombs Piraeus to prevent German heavy armor advancing
- Oct 11 1st NSB-battalion departures to Eastern front
- Oct 12 Soviet government moves from Moscow to Volga as Nazis forces close in on Moscow
- Oct 13 Nazis kill 11,000 Jewish children and old people
- Oct 14 1st mass deportation of Kowno, Lodz, Minsk & Riga
- Oct 15 1st mass deportation of German Jews to Eastern Europe
Appointment of Interest
Oct 15 Hideki Tojo appointed Prime Minister of Imperial Japan
Historic Siege
Oct 16 Romanian Legionnaires enter Odessa, Russia during the Siege of Odessa, part of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union
- Oct 17 USS Kearney becomes the 1st US destroyer torpedoed in World War II, while the country is still officially neutral
- Oct 18 Soviet spy Richard Sorge arrested in Tokyo
- Oct 19 1st woman jockey in North America, Anna Lee Wiley in Mexico
- Oct 20 Nazi occupiers murder 500 inhabitants of Kragujevac Serbia
Theater Premiere
Oct 22 Maxwell Anderson's play "Candle in the Wind" premieres in NYC
Film Release
Oct 23 Walt Disney's animated film "Dumbo" released
Historic Event
Oct 25 Winston Churchill routes "Forces South" to SE Asia
- Oct 27 Chicago Daily Tribune editorialize there will not be war with Japan
Film Premiere
Oct 28 "How Green Was My Valley" based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn, directed by John Ford and starring Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O'Hara premieres in New York (Best Picture 1942)
Music Premiere
Oct 29 Cole Porter's musical "Let's Face It" opens at the Imperial Theatre, NYC; runs 547 performances