Events in History
Event of Interest
Oct 3 The $700 billion bailout bill for the US financial system is signed by President George W. Bush
Appointment of Interest
Oct 4 Mark Zuckerberg announces the appointment of Google executive Sheryl Sandberg as Facebook COO
- Oct 4 On This Day (then HistoryOrb.com) receives its first major overhaul and redesign
- Oct 6 MESSENGER spacecraft performs a second Mercury flyby
- Oct 8 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology awarded jointly to Harald zur Hausen (cause of cervical cancer) and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Luc Montagnier (discovery of HIV)
- Oct 10 Singapore becomes the first Asian country to slip into a recession since the credit crisis began: growth has faltered as a result of less demand for exports, a reduction in tourism, and the end of the real-estate boom
- Oct 13 HM Treasury infused £37 billion ($64 billion, 47 billion euros) of new capital-bailout into Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Lloyds TSB and HBOS Plc, to avert a financial sector collapse.
- Oct 17 Iran's attempt to create the world's largest sandwich (1,500 metres) fails when crowds eat it before it can be measured
- Oct 22 Google Play is launched, the official app store for the Android operating system
- Oct 22 India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.
- Oct 24 "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.
- Oct 24 Iceland receives a £1.3 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 1st European country to require an emergency loan as a result of the financial crisis
- Oct 27 The banking group BNP Paribas states that Australia is in a risky position with regards to the global financial crisis as foreign liabilities accounted for 60% of the nation's GDP
- Oct 28 In the UK, 500,000 mortgage holders are left in negative equity after house prices drop 15% since the previous summer
Event of Interest
Oct 29 10th century Archimedes Palimpsest, featuring lost works of Archimedes, made freely available on the web, 10 years after bought by unknown tech figure
- Oct 29 Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to 5.
- Oct 31 Whitepaper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" is published by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. It describes a decentralized peer-to-peer network that could track and verify transactions while producing a transparent, verifiable record.
Weddings in History
Deaths in History
- Oct 2 Rob Guest, New Zealand entertainer (b. 1950)
- Oct 3 Karam ud Din, Pakistani Navy officer (b. 1941)
- Oct 7 Leslie Hardman, Jewish Orthodox rabbi (b. 1913)
- Oct 8 George E. Palade, Romanian-American cell biologist (ribosomen, Nobel 1974), dies at 95
- Oct 10 Kazuyoshi Miura, Japanese businessman (b. 1947)
- Oct 11 Jörg Haider, Austrian far-right politician (b. 1950)
- Oct 12 Karl Chircop, Maltese politician (b. 1965)
- Oct 12 Marta Pan, Hungarian-French sculptor (Great spiral), dies at 85
- Oct 13 Matthew J. Rinaldo, American politician (Rep-R-NJ, 1973-93), dies at 77
- Oct 14 Barrington J. Bayley, English sci-fi author (Collision Course), dies at 71
- Oct 14 Martin Peake, 2nd Viscount Ingleby, British peer and business man, dies at 82
- Oct 14 Richard Cooey, American murderer and rapist (executed) (b. 1967)
- Oct 15 Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca, Turkish poet, dies at 94
- Oct 19 Mr. Blackwell, American fashion critic, dies at 86
- Oct 20 Sœur Emmanuelle, Belgian-French religious sister, dies at 99
- Oct 25 Anne Pressly, American news anchor (b. 1982)
- Oct 26 Tony Hillerman, American writer (b. 1925)
- Oct 27 Bernard W. Rogers, United States Army general who served as the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, dies at 87
- Oct 29 Gerald Arpino, American dancer and choreographer (co-founder of Joffrey Ballet), dies from prostate cancer at 85
- Oct 30 Pedro Pompilio Argentinian businessman (b. 1950)
- Oct 31 Studs Terkel, American writer, historian and radio host (Stud's Place, Working), dies at 96
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists