Hope Hicks Positive
Oct 1 US White House aide Hope Hicks tests positive for COVID-19
Trump Tests Positive
Oct 2 US President Donald Trump announces via twitter that he and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19, President hospitalized later that day
- Oct 3 The UK's wettest day on record, with average of 31.7mm (1.24ins) across the country in wake of Storm Alex
- Oct 5 At least 14m tonnes of plastic pieces are at the bottom of the ocean, 30 times more than on the surface according to new research [1]
- Oct 5 India COVID-19 death toll passes 100,000, with 6.6 million known cases, 3rd highest death toll in the world behind the US and Brazil
- Oct 5 Nobel Prize for Medicine awarded jointly to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for the discovery of hepatitis C virus [1]
- Oct 5 US President Donald Trump leaves Walter Reed National Military Medical Center while still infectious with COVID-19 and returns to the White House
- Oct 5 WHO estimates 10% of world's population may have been infected with COVID-19, more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases
- Oct 6 Nobel Prize for Physics awarded to Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea M. Ghez for work on black holes
- Oct 7 Hurricane Delta makes landfall on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, with 100-mph winds, the 25th named storm for 2020
- Oct 7 Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier, and Jennifer A. Doudna “for the development of a method for genome editing”
- Oct 8 American poet Louise Glück is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
- Oct 8 FBI charge 13 men with plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and storm the Michigan Capitol
- Oct 9 The UN's World Food Programme is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
- Oct 10 French Open Women's Tennis: 19-year-old Iga Świątek of Poland wins her country's first singles major title; beats American Sofia Kenin 6-4, 6-1
- Oct 10 Italian teenage computer genius Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia at 15, beatified by the Catholic Church in Assisi, Italy
Sports History
Oct 11 British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins Eifel Grand Prix at Germany's Nürburgring to equal Michael Schumacher's record of 91 Formula 1 victories
French Open Men's Tennis
Oct 11 French Open Men's Tennis: Rafael Nadal beats Novak Đoković 6-0, 6-2, 7-5; 20th Grand Slam singles title; record 13th French singles title
- Oct 11 India records more than 7 million cases of COVID-19
NBA Finals
Oct 11 NBA Finals: LA Lakers beat Miami Heat 106-93 in Game 6 to win record equalling 17th title; MVP: LeBron James; first to win the award with 3 different teams
PGA Championship
Oct 11 Women's PGA Championship, Aronimink GC: Sei Young KIm wins her first major title by 5 strokes from fellow South Korean Inbee Park; shoots tournament record total 266
- Oct 12 China announces it will test entire city of Qingdao, 9 million people, for COVID-19 within five days after a dozen cases discovered
- Oct 12 Nobel Prize for Economics awarded to Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson for their contributions to auction theory
COVID-19 Pandemic
Oct 12 UK PM Boris Johnson announces a new three-tier system for COVID-19 restrictions as cases surge
Billboard Music Awards
Oct 14 27th Billboard Music Awards: Post Malone wins 6; Billie Eilish wins 2
Event of Interest
Oct 14 A copy of William Shakespeare's First Folio sells for a record $9.98 million at auction in New York
- Oct 14 Details of the world's first room-temperature superconductor created by scientists at the University of Rochester, NY, published in "Nature" [1]
COVID-19 Pandemic
Oct 14 French president Emmanuel Macron announces a public health emergency and a curfew of 9 pm for nine cities due to surge in COVID-19 cases
- Oct 14 NFL cancels Pro Bowl game scheduled for 31 January, 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Oct 15 Thai government issues emergency decree banning public gatherings amid increasing pro-democracy protests and criticism of the king
- Oct 16 French teacher Samuel Paty beheaded by 18-year-old Islamist militant in Paris suburb of Éragny
- Oct 17 Chicago declared the 'rattiest city' in America for the sixth year in a row by pest control service Orkin
Election of Interest
Oct 17 Labour Party headed by Jacinda Ardern re-elected in a landslide in New Zealand's general election
- Oct 18 Bolivia elects Luis Arce President and his party, Movement for Socialism back into government
- Oct 19 Belgium officials say country facing a "tsunami" of COVID-19 cases amid new restrictions and figures it has third-highest number of Covid-related deaths per 100,000 people globally
- Oct 19 Irish government moves country to highest level of COVID-19 restrictions amid rising cases
- Oct 19 Ming handscroll painting “Ten Views of Lingbi Rock” by Wu Bin sells for 512.9 million yuan ($77 million) at auction in Beijing, a new world record for a classical Chinese work
- Oct 19 Peru announces rediscovered 37m figure of a cat, completed 500 BC to 200 AD, a geoglyph outline in the Nazca Desert
- Oct 19 US charges six Russian military officers with massive cyber-attack meant to disrupt 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 2017 French presidential election, and Ukraine's power grid
- Oct 20 Argentina becomes the fifth country in the world to record over 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases with the death toll at 26,716
- Oct 20 Nigerian police open fire on protesters in Lagos amid escalating protests against police violence around the country
- Oct 20 US Justice Department sues Google for illegal monopoly over search and search advertising
- Oct 20 Vietnam suffers its worst floods in decades with over 100 people killed according to the Red Cross
CMT Music Awards
Oct 21 19th CMT Video Music Awards: Carrie Underwood, and Luke Bryan win
- Oct 21 FBI says Iran and Russia have US voter information and are trying to influence outcome of US election
- Oct 21 Nasa Osiris-Rex spacecraft lands briefly on asteroid Bennu on mission to collect dust, largest sample from space since Apollo
- Oct 21 Parents of 545 children cannot be found that were separated at the US-Mexico border according to American Civil Liberties Union
Film & TV History
Oct 21 Pope Francis backs same-sex civil unions in interview in documentary film "Francesco"
- Oct 21 Spain becomes the first European country to record more than 1 million COVID-19 cases with the death toll at 34,366
- Oct 22 Goldman Sachs agrees to pay record $3 billion to end probe into its role in 1MDB corruption scandal to regulators in the US, UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia
- Oct 22 The National Hockey League announces the annual NHL All Star Game and the NHL All-Star Skills Competition would be postponed to no earlier than 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Letter To You
Oct 23 Columbia Records releases Bruce Springsteen's 20th studio album "Letter To You", recorded with the E Street Band
Sports History
Oct 23 Duhan van der Merwe makes his international debut for Scotland against Georgia, scoring a try
Film & TV History
Oct 23 Netflix releases miniseries "The Queen's Gambit" starring Anya Taylor-Joy - 1st streaming show to win Emmy for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series
- Oct 24 Colombia records more than 1 million cases of COVID-19, the 8th globally and 3rd in Latin America
- Oct 24 Deadliest shipwreck of the year claims 140 lives on a ship that sank with 200 migrants on board off the coast of Senegal [1]
- Oct 25 British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins Portuguese Grand Prix at Autódromo Internacional Do Algarve for his 92nd career victory; moves 1 win clear of Michael Schumacher in all-time F1 victories list
Event of Interest
Oct 25 Chile overwhelmingly votes to scrap their constitution, drafted during dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet
- Oct 25 Pope Francis announces appointment of 13 new cardinals including 1st African American Wilton Daniel Gregory
Carbon Neutral Goal
Oct 26 Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga says the country will becomes carbon neutral by 2050
- Oct 26 Melbourne officials announce end to their three-month lockdown as city records no new cases of COVID-19 for 1st time since June
- Oct 26 NASA announces there is more water on the Moon than previously thought, in sunlit as well as shadowed regions [1]
- Oct 26 Pakistan's first metro line, the Orange Line, opens in Lahore
- Oct 26 Police officers in Philadelphia shoot and kill black man Walter Wallace Jr. armed with a knife, prompting protests and the city to impose a curfew
- Oct 26 Silverado wildfire breaks out in Orange County, California forcing 60,000 people to evacuate
- Oct 26 US Senate confirms Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court sealing a conservative 6-3 majority
- Oct 27 A record 69.5 million Americans have already voted, a week before election day, 50.4% of 2016 total vote [1]
- Oct 27 Baseball World Series: LA Dodgers beat Tampa Bay Rays, 3-1 in Game 6 at Globe Life Field, Arlington to win first title in 32 years; MVP: Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager
- Oct 27 Leader of the NXIVM cult Keith Raniere (60) sentenced to 120 years in prison for sex trafficking, racketeering, fraud and other crimes
- Oct 27 Organizers of 96th East-West Shrine Bowl college football all-star game, benefiting Shriners Hospitals for Children, announce cancellation of game scheduled for January 23, 2021, in St. Petersburg, Florida, due to COVID-19 issues. The
- Oct 27 WHO confirms Europe is in the midst of a 2nd COVID-19 wave with cases rising rapidly, 30% in a week, deaths rising 40%
- Oct 28 15th-century medieval manuscript "The Book of Lismore", returns to Ireland after donated by Chatsworth Settlement to University College Cork
- Oct 28 French President Emmanuel Macron announces France will enter a new 4-week lockdown October 30 in televised address
- Oct 28 Global COVID-19 cases record one-day increase of more than 500,000 for the first time, rising 25% in under two weeks according to Reuters
- Oct 28 Hurricane Zeta makes landfall in the US near Cocodrie, Louisiana, as category 2 storm
- Oct 28 New coral reef 500m (1,640ft) high, taller than the Empire State Building, discovered north of Australia's Great Barrier Reef
- Oct 28 Tanzania reelects President John Magufuli, with opposition parties calling the vote fraudulent
- Oct 28 Typhoon Molave strikes Vietnam triggering heavy rain and landslides, leaving more than 60 people dead
- Oct 29 Former leader Jeremy Corbyn is suspended from the British Labour Party after saying a report into antisemitism in the party was "overstated"
- Oct 29 India records more than 8 million COVID-19 cases, the second country after the US, with a death toll of 120,527
- Oct 29 South Australian government axes the Adelaide 500 from 2021 Supercars Championship due to COVID-19 and falling revenue
- Oct 29 Three people stabbed to death in church in Nice, France, in an terrorist attack, after similar attack and President Macron's defense of right to publish cartoons of Prophet Muhammad
- Oct 30 7.0 magnitude earthquake in the Aegean Sea kills at least 64 in Turkish city of Izmir and Greek Island of Samos
- Oct 30 New DNA study of dogs suggests they were human's first domesticated animal, 11,000 years ago at end of the Bronze Age [1]
- Oct 30 UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces a second four-week lockdown for England
- Oct 31 England beats Italy 34-5 in Rome to clinch 29th Six-Nations Rugby Championship; halfback Ben Youngs becomes second England player to earn 100th test cap
- Oct 31 New Zealand Rugby Union team routs Australia, 43-5 in Sydney to retain Bledisloe Cup (2-1) for 18th straight series; Wallabies' largest ever defeat by All Blacks
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists