- Oct 1 California Supreme Court voids state statute banning interracial marriages, in Perez v. Sharp case
- Oct 1 Radio Denmark begins transmitting
- Oct 2 Burton Lane and Yip Harburg's musical "Finian's Rainbow" closes at 46th St Theater, NYC, after 725 performances and 3 Tony Award wins
- Oct 3 Columbia University reports discovery of uranium in Belgian Congo
- Oct 4 Cleveland Indians beat Boston Red Sox, 8 - 3, in a one-game playoff to decide the AL pennant; keys are the pitching of Gene Bearden and hitting of Lou Boudreau
- Oct 4 World Council of Churches forms under W Fisherman It Hooft
- Oct 6 Earthquake in Ashgabat kills 100,000 in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic
- Oct 6 KHJ TV channel 9 in Los Angeles, CA (IND) begins broadcasting
Proconsul africanus
Oct 6 Paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey finds the first partial fossil skull of Proconsul africanus, an ancestor of apes and humans on Rusinga Island, Kenya
- Oct 9 WXYZ TV channel 7 in Detroit, MI (ABC) begins broadcasting
- Oct 10 Then record 86,288 see game 5 of World Series in Cleveland
- Oct 11 "Love Life" opens at 46th St Theater, NYC; runs for 252 performances
- Oct 11 Baseball World Series: Cleveland Indians beat Boston Braves, 4-3 at Braves Field to clinch series, 4 games to 2; Indians second championship in team history
- Oct 11 Frank Loesser's musical "Where's Charley?", starring Ray Bolger, and directed by George Abbott, opens at St James Theater, NYC; runs for 792 performances and wins a Tony Award
Stengel Manages Yankees
Oct 12 Casey Stengel takes over as Yankee manager
Jewish Demonstration
Oct 16 Demonstration by Moscow Jews honoring Israeli ambassador Golda Meir
- Oct 16 Revival of Victor Herbert and Henry Blossom's operetta "The Red Mill" opens at Ziegfeld Theater, NYC; rums for 831 performances
- Oct 18 Operation 10 Plagues - Israeli offensive against Egyptian army
- Oct 19 "My Romance" opens at Shubert Theater NYC for 95 performances
- Oct 21 Beersheba liberated by Israeli army
- Oct 21 Dutch Constellation crashes at Prestwick Scotland (40 murder)
- Oct 21 Facsimile high-speed radio transmission demonstrated (Washington, D.C.)
- Oct 21 UN rejects Russian proposal to destroy atomic weapons
- Oct 22 First Arab–Israeli War: Israeli Navy sinks Egyptian Navy flagship 'King Farouk' using explosive-laden motorboat in the Mediterranean Sea near Gaza
- Oct 24 Bernard Baruch introduces the term "Cold War"
- Oct 24 Francis Poulenc's "Sinfonietta" premieres
- Oct 24 WJBK TV channel 2 in Detroit, MI (CBS) begins broadcasting
- Oct 25 Special Council of Annulment convicts writer Friedrich Weinreb for collaboration with the Nazis
The State of Siege
Oct 27 Albert Camus' play "The State of Siege (L'État de siège)" premieres in Paris
- Oct 27 Israel recaptures Nizzanim in Negev
Senegalese Democratic Bloc
Oct 27 Léopold Sédar Senghor founds the Senegalese Democratic Bloc (BDS).
- Oct 28 Flag of Israel is adopted
- Oct 29 Israeli forces liberate Meron & Gush-Halev
- Oct 29 Safsaf massacre, Israeli defence forces attack Palestinian village of Safsaf in the Galilee
- Oct 30 20 die & 6,000 made ill by smog in Donora, Pennsylvania
- Oct 30 Operation Hiram: Israelis take control of Galilee
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists