Events in History
- Oct 1 Comoros adopts constitution
- Oct 1 The Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party is founded.
- Oct 1 Tuvalu (formerly Ellice Islands) declares independence from UK
- Oct 2 Syrian & Palestinians shoot in East Beirut, 1,300 killed
- Oct 3 Gold hits record $223.50 an ounce in London
- Oct 4 Funeral services held for Pope John Paul I
- Oct 4 Pier 39 opens in San Francisco
- Oct 5 Isaac Bashevis Singer wins the Nobel Prize for literature
- Oct 5 Over 30 major nations ratify the Environmental Modification Convention which prohibits weather warfare that has widespread, long-lasting or severe effects
- Oct 5 Sweden's Fälldin government falls
- Oct 6 Hannah H Gray inaugurated as 1st female head of a US university (Chicago)
Event of Interest
Oct 6 Iraq declares Ayatollah Khomeini an undesirable person
Event of Interest
Oct 9 P.W. Botha succeeds John Vorster as Prime Minister of South Africa
Event of Interest
Oct 10 Daniel Arap Moi succeeds Jomo Kenyatta as President of Kenya, rules for 24 years
- Oct 10 Steve Perry joins Journey
Event of Interest
Oct 10 US Congress approves dollar coin honoring women's suffrage campaigner Susan B. Anthony
- Oct 11 Aristides Royo elected president of Panama
- Oct 11 Belgium government of Tindemans resigns
- Oct 12 Representatives of Israel & Egypt open talks in Washington
- Oct 13 Swaziland's new constitution promulgated bans political parties
- Oct 13 Tiros N, US's 1st third generation weather satellite, is launched
Radio History
Oct 13 US President Jimmy Carter answers callers' questions on National Public Radio
Nobel Prize
Oct 16 Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to American political scientist Herbert A. Simon [1]
Papal Inauguration
Oct 16 Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla elected Pope John Paul II
- Oct 17 President Jimmy Carter signs bill restoring US citizenship to Jefferson Davis
- Oct 17 USSR performs underground nuclear test
- Oct 18 US 1st daughter Susan Ford announces engagement to Charles F Vance
- Oct 20 Paul Vanden Boeynants forms Belgium government
- Oct 20 US dollar devalued below Dutch Ÿ2
- Oct 21 Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
- Oct 22 Laugh-in's Judy Carne arrested at Gatwick Airport for drug possession
- Oct 22 Pope John Paul II is inaugurated as Pope
- Oct 23 China & Japan formally ends 4 decades of dissension
- Oct 25 Israeli government approves "in principle", a draft compromise peace
- Oct 26 Independent Counsel Act is signed into law.
Nobel Prize
Oct 26 Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat named joint winners of 1978 Nobel Peace Prize
- Oct 27 US President Jimmy Carter signs Hawkins-Humphrey full employment bill
- Oct 28 Don Ritchie runs world record 100k (6:10:20)
- Oct 30 Laura Nickel & Curt Noll find 25th Mersenne prime, 2 ^ 21701-1
- Oct 30 Uganda troops attack Tanzania
- Oct 31 Iranian oil workers go on strike
- Oct 31 People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) adopts constitution
Birthdays in History
Weddings in History
James Earl Ray
Oct 13 James Earl Ray, assassin of Martin Luther King weds Anna Sandhu
Ben Bradlee
Oct 20 Journalist Ben Bradlee (57) weds fellow journalist Sally Quinn (37)
Deaths in History
- Oct 9 Pavel Antokolsky, Russian poet and theatre director (Syn), dies at 82
- Oct 10 Gesina Van der Molen, Dutch WWII resistance fighter/lawyer, dies at 86
- Oct 12 Nancy Spungen, killed by boyfriend Sid Vicious in NYC
- Oct 15 W. Eugene Smith, American photojournalist (Saipan, Walk to Paradise Garden), dies of a stroke at 59
- Oct 18 Jacques Mornard [Ramon Mercader], Spanish communist (murdered Trotsky in Mexico with an ice axe), dies at 64
- Oct 21 Anastas Mikoyan, Armenian revolutionary, politician (First Deputy Premier of Supreme Soviet, 1855-64), diplomat, and cookbook publisher (The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food), dies at 83
- Oct 22 John Riley, English poet (murdered) (b. 1937)
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists