October 3, 1942: A German V-2 rocket reaches a record 85 km (46 nm) in altitude.
October 3, 1949: WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta.
October 4, 1957: Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
October 5, 1982: Tylenol products are recalled after bottles in Chicago laced with cyanide cause seven deaths
October 5, 1829: Chester A. Arthur, American general, lawyer, and politician, the 21st President of the United States, was born in Fairfield, Vt.
October 6, 1927: The first “talkie,” The Jazz Singer, opens with popular entertainer Al Jolson singing and dancing in black-face. By 1930, silent movies were a thing of the past.
October 8, 1956: New York Yankees’ Don Larsen pitches the only perfect game in a World Series.
October 8, 1838: John Hay, one of President Abraham Lincoln’s two personal aides, was born in Salem, Indiana. He would later serve as a diplomat, biographer and Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.
October 9, 1582: Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
October 10, 1846: British astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune.
October 10, 1971: Sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, the London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
October 12, 1998: Matthew Shepard, a gay student at University of Wyoming, dies five days after he was beaten, robbed and left tied to a wooden fence post outside of Laramie, Wyoming.
October 12, 1945: Desmond Doss is the first U.S. armed forces conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor.
October 15, 1951: The first episode of I Love Lucy airs on CBS.
October 16, 1793: After a two-day trial, Marie Antoinette was convicted of high treason and executed by guillotine on the Place de la Révolution. Her last words are recorded as, “Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l’ai pas fait exprès.” or “Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose.”, after accidentally stepping on her executioner’s shoe.
October 17, 1781: British General Charles, Earl Cornwallis surrenders at the Siege of Yorktown.
October 17, 1931: Al Capone is convicted of income tax evasion.
October 17, 1933: Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.
October 17, 1814: Eight people die in the London Beer Flood. A huge vat containing over 135,000 imperial gallons (610,000 L) of beer ruptures, causing other vats in the same building to succumb in a domino effect. As a result, more than 323,000 imperial gallons (1,470,000 L) of beer bursts out and gushes into the streets.
October 18, 1963: “Félicette,” a black and white female Parisian stray cat, becomes the first cat launched into space, by France. The mission was a sub-orbital flight, and lasted 13 minutes, reaching a height of 157 kilometers, and included 5 minutes of weightlessness. Félicette was recovered safely after the capsule parachuted to Earth; she was euthanized three months later so that scientists could examine her brain.
18 October 1898. The final contingent of Spanish troops embark and the US flag is raised over Santa Catalina Palace in San Juan, marking the official transfer of governing control of Puerto Rico to the occupying USA forces at the end of the Spanish-American War.
October 19, 1900: Max Planck discovers the law of black-body radiation (Planck’s law).
October 20, 1973: The “Saturday Night Massacre”: United States President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.