Events in History
- Oct 2 US scientists Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young awarded Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for work on the body clock
- Oct 3 King Felipe of Spain speaks out against the Catalan referendum saying organizers have "broken the rule of law"
- Oct 3 Nobel Prize for Physics awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves"
Event of Interest
Oct 3 US President Donald Trump visits Puerto Rico after it was devastated by hurricane Maria
- Oct 4 Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson for their work on cryo-electron microscopy
Conference of Interest
Oct 4 UK Prime Minister Theresa May suffers a nightmare speech at Conservative National Conference as her voice fails, a prankster interrupts and the set collapses
- Oct 5 Iraqi forces claim victory and control over Islamic State's last urban stronghold Hawija, Northern Iraq
- Oct 5 Spanish constitutional court suspends Catalan parliament to prevent declaration of independence
- Oct 6 British writer Kazuo Ishiguro is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
- Oct 6 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
- Oct 6 Storm Nate kills at least 22 people passing through Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras
- Oct 8 Wildfires ignite in Northern Californian wine country, killing at least 41 over the next week, with 20,000 evacutated
- Oct 9 American economist Richard Thaler is awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics
- Oct 11 TripAdvisor customer poll names The Black Swan in Oldstead, North Yorkshire, world's best restaurant
Event of Interest
Oct 12 Long-lost bust of Napoleon by Auguste Rodin confirmed found in Madison borough hall, New Jersey, worth at least $4m
- Oct 12 Plague outbreak in Madagascar kills 57, with 684 cases so far reported by WHO
- Oct 13 Archaeologists announce the discovery of Arabic characters "Allah” and “Ali” on Viking funeral costumes from a grave in Gamla Uppsala, Sweden
- Oct 13 Hungry bear crisis due to over-fishing leaves 2 people dead and 83 hostile bears shot on Sakhalin Island, Eastern Russia
- Oct 14 Spanish government says it will impose direct rule on Catalonia after the region voted for independence in a referendum
- Oct 14 Terrorist bomb attack in a truck in Mogadishu, Somalia leaves at more than 300 dead and hundreds injured
- Oct 15 500 wildfires occur in Portugal and Northern Spain fanned by winds from Hurricane Ophelia, killing at least 35
Election of Interest
Oct 15 Austrian legislative elections: Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) win most seats (62), led by Sebastian Kurz (31)
- Oct 16 Findings published of neutron star collision that occurred two months prior on August 17, the first cosmic event seen in gravitational waves and light. Confirms heavy elements such as gold the result of such collisions
- Oct 16 Iraqi army seizes control of oil-rich Kirkuk, from Kurdish peshmerga
- Oct 16 Panama Papers Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia killed in a suspicious car bomb in Malta
- Oct 16 Storm formed from Hurricane Ophelia lashes Ireland, killing 3 people
- Oct 17 American short-story writer George Saunders wins the Man Booker Prize for his first novel "Lincoln in the Bardo"
Event of Interest
Oct 17 George Soros announces he has donated $18 billion to his grantmaking network the Open Society Foundations
- Oct 17 Islamic State headquarters Raqqa declared under full control of US-led alliance by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman Talal Sello after 4 months of fighting
Event of Interest
Oct 17 Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declares city of Marawi "liberated" from militants
Conference of Interest
Oct 18 19th Chinese Communist Party congress opens in Beijing with President Xi Jinping delivering 3hr 23min speech heralding “new era”
- Oct 18 US congresswoman Frederica Wilson says President Donald Trump said to bereaved army family of Sgt. La David Johnson "He knew what he was signing up for, but I guess it hurts anyway"
Election of Interest
Oct 19 New Zealand Labour Party forms a coalition government led by Jacinda Ardern (37), youngest NZ leader in 161 years
- Oct 19 Outbreak of the Marburg virus declared by Uganda's Ministry of Health
- Oct 20 Pollution linked to 1 in 6 deaths worldwide or 9 million in 2015 in report published in "The Lancet"
- Oct 21 Spanish government suspends Catalonia's autonomy in the face of a deepening political crisis over the region's push for independence
Event of Interest
Oct 24 Albert Einstein's "Theory of Happiness", written as a note for a bellboy instead of a tip in Tokyo in 1922 sells for $1.56 million
Event of Interest
Oct 24 Crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman vows to return Saudi Arabia to moderate Islam after announcing 500bn independent economic zone
- Oct 24 Dog doping scandal confirmed by officials of Iditarod, Alaskan dog sled race after dogs test positive for a banned substance
- Oct 25 Chinese Premier Xi Jinping unveils his new ruling council in the Great Hall of the People, none of the five are young enough to succeed him
- Oct 25 First fossil of a ichthyosaur (marine reptile, 152 million years old) found in India. Reports published in "Plos One" science journal.
Event of Interest
Oct 26 Cremation ceremony for King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand held in Bangkok, a year after his death
- Oct 26 Explosion and fire at a fireworks factory in Tangerang, Indonesia kills 47 and injuries dozens
- Oct 26 Jacinda Ardern is sworn in as Prime Minister of New Zealand, becoming the world’s youngest female head of government
- Oct 26 Oldest-known tsunami victim revealed by sediment discovered in 6,000 year-old skull by scientists near Aitape, Papua New Guinea
- Oct 26 US President Donald Trump declares the opioid crisis a public health emergency
- Oct 27 Catalan parliament meets and unilaterally declares independence from Spain
- Oct 27 First operation to separate conjoined twins joined at the head in India completed in New Delhi
- Oct 28 Spain's central government imposes direct rule on Catalonia, dismisses its government and calls for new elections in December
- Oct 28 Twin car bomb attacks in Mogadishu, Somalia, kill at least 27, Islamist militant group al-Shabab claim responsibility
Election of Interest
Oct 30 Kenyan election rerun, President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the winner with 38% turnout
- Oct 30 President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort and associate Rick Gates are indicted on fraud charges, advisor George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI
- Oct 30 US federal judge blocks President Trump's ban on transgender people in the military
- Oct 31 John Kelly, White House Chief of Staff comments in TV interview that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War", draws criticism
- Oct 31 Judge on Maui, Hawaii orders man to write ex-girlfriend 144 compliments after violating protection order to send 144 nasty text messages
- Oct 31 Takahiro Shiraishi arrested in Zama, Japan, a day after nine dismembered bodies found in his apartment
- Oct 31 Terrorist attack in New York when a truck mows down people on a cycle lane, killing 8, injuring 10
- Oct 31 Two men convicted of raping and impregnating their 10 year old niece in Chandigarh, India
Deaths in History
- Oct 1 Arthur "Art" Janov, American psychologist and psychotherapist notable for creating primal therapy (The Primal Scream), dies of natural causes at 93
- Oct 1 Robert D. Hales, American LDS Church apostle, dies at 85
- Oct 1 Samuel I Newhouse Jr., American magazine publisher (Parade, Vogue, Vanity Fair), dies at 89
- Oct 3 Isabella Karle, American scientist who was instrumental in developing techniques to extract plutonium chloride, dies from a brain tumor at 95
Jalal Talabani (1933-2017)
Oct 3 Iraqi-Kurdish politician and President of Iraq (2005-2014), dies at 83
- Oct 3 Michel Jouvet, French neuroscientist and medical researcher who discovered the region of the brain that controls rapid eye movement (REM sleep), dies at 91
- Oct 4 John Miller, American politician (Rep-R-WA, 1985-93), dies at 79
- Oct 4 Liam Cosgrave, Irish politician (Fine Gael Party), dies at 97
- Oct 8 Jerry Kleczka, American politician (Rep-D-WI, 1984-2005), dies at 73
- Oct 9 Hervé Leroux, French fashion designer and founder of Hervé Léger fashion house, dies from a ruptured aneurysm at 60
- Oct 12 Grape-kun, a Humbolt penguin from Tobu Zoo, who gained fame from the anime series "Kemono Friends", dies aged 21 (Miyashiro, Saitama Prefecture, Japan).
- Oct 16 Daphne Caruana Galizia, Maltese journalist (Panama Papers), killed by a car bomb at 53
- Oct 17 Julian May, American sci-fi author (Golden Torc, Magnificat), dies at 86
- Oct 22 Paul J. Weitz, American test pilot and NASA astronaut (Skylab 2, STS-6), dies at 85
- Oct 27 Jack Levy, English mechanical engineer, dies at 91
- Oct 29 Dennis Banks, American activist (leader of the American Indian Movement), dies at 80
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists