Music Concert
Oct 1 Rock singer David Lee Roth announces his retirement will follow a five-concert residency in Las Vegas in January 2022
- Oct 1 US COVID-19 death toll passes 700,000, with daily deaths averaging 1,900 a day [1]
- Oct 2 Massive oil slick from a pipeline discovered off California, along Orange County coast covering 13 square miles
- Oct 3 MLB Cleveland win their last game under the Indians name, beating Texas Rangers 6-0
- Oct 3 MLB Philadelphia Phillies relief pitcher Hector Neris strikes out three Florida Marlins, setting new franchise record of 520, in his last game before becoming a free agent
Pandora Papers
Oct 3 Pandora Papers investigation reveals secret wealth of 30 current and former world leaders including Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Czech PM Andrej Babis and former UK PM Tony Blair
- Oct 3 Record rainfall in Europe when 36 inches (925 mm) of rain begins falling in northern Italian town of Rossiglione [1]
- Oct 3 Tropical Cyclone Shaheen makes landfall in Oman and Iran, killing at least nine people
Event of Interest
Oct 4 Fumio Kishida takes office as Japan's new Prime Minister after taking over as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party
- Oct 4 Global outage of Facebook and its apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, for six hours
- Oct 4 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine awarded to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for discovering receptors for temperature and touch
- Oct 4 Three years worth of rain (14 inches or 300 mm) falls in 12 hours in city of Al Khaburah, Oman, in the wake of tropical cyclone Shaheen [1]
- Oct 5 480 Otis wins Alaska's Fat Bear Week for pre-hibernation weight gain for the third year in a row
- Oct 5 Major French investigation finds clergy sexually abused more than 200,000 children over 70 years, most of the victims boys [1]
- Oct 5 Nobel Prize for Physics awarded to Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi for pioneering work that warned of climate change
- Oct 5 Russia launches an actor and director to the International Space Station to make the first film in orbit
- Oct 6 Carnegie Hall in NYC re-opens after 18 month pandemic shutdown with a concert by The Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin
- Oct 6 Los Angeles votes in some of the strictest COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the country, requiring vaccinations before people can enter indoor businesses and events
- Oct 6 Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan for development of asymmetric organocatalysis (tool for building molecules)
Event of Interest
Oct 6 WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recommends world's first Malaria vaccine (Mosquirix) for children after a pilot program was effective in Africa [1]
Nobel Peace Prize
Oct 8 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression" [1]
Election of Interest
Oct 9 Czech populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis narrowly defeated in nation elections by a coalition of opposition parties
Event of Interest
Oct 10 Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen says country won't bow to Chinese pressure in defiant speech on Taiwanese National Day, day after Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to "fulfil reunification"
- Oct 11 Australia's largest city Sydney ends its 107-day lockdown, with restrictions easing for fully vaccinated people
- Oct 11 Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden steps down after The NY Times details emails in which he made homophobic and misogynistic remarks; earlier reports alleged racist statements about a union leader
- Oct 11 Nobel Prize for Economics awarded to David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens for their work on "natural experiments" [1]
- Oct 13 24-year-old Rumeysa Gelgi from Turkey confirmed as World's tallest living woman by Guinness World Records at 215.16 centimeters 215.16cm (7ft 0.7in) [1]
- Oct 13 Bow and arrow terrorist attack kills five and injuries two in Kongsberg, Norway
Film & TV History
Oct 13 William Shatner becomes the oldest person to reach space, travelling aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket on a 10 minute flight
- Oct 14 Record price for a Banksy artwork paid of 18.5 million pounds ($25.4 million) for "Love is in the Bin", that was famously shredded on purchase in 2018 [1]
- Oct 15 British MP Sir David Amess stabbed to death at a meeting of constituents in Essex in Leigh-on-Sea, England in probable terror attack
- Oct 15 IPL Cricket Final, Dubai International Stadium: Chennai Super Kings win their 4th IPL title beating Kolkata Knight Riders by 27 runs; Faf du Plessis scores 86 off 59 balls for Player of the Match
Sports History
Oct 16 Camden County Commissioners unveil Statue of boxing champion Jersey Joe Walcott at Wiggins Waterfront Park in Camden, New Jersey
- Oct 16 NASA probe Lucy launched on mission to fly-by eight Trojan asteroids circling the sun [1]
- Oct 17 Return engagement of David Byrne's musical revue "American Utopia" opens at St. James Theatre, NYC; runs for 134 performances
- Oct 18 Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso declares 60-day state of emergency in response to a violent crime wave caused by power struggle between drug cartels
- Oct 18 Flash foods and heavy rain in northern Indian state of Uttarakhand and Nepal kill over 100 people after 328mm falls in 24 hrs [1]
Eternals
Oct 18 Marvel film "Eternals" directed by Chloé Zhao, starring an ensemble cast including Gemma Chan, Richard Madden and Angelina Jolie premieres in Los Angeles
COVID-19 Pandemic
Oct 20 Brazilian Senate inquiry finds President Bolsonaro should face series of criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic [1]
- Oct 20 Confirmation that Vikings established settlement first in 1021 AD in the New World at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, provided by new dating technique using solar storms [1]
Film & TV History
Oct 21 Actor Alec Baldwin shots cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead and injures director Joel Souza with a prop gun in rehearsal on a film set at Bonanza Ranch, New Mexico
- Oct 21 Syria's government says it has executed 24 people for starting devastating wildfires in 2020 that killed three [1]
- Oct 22 Australian city of Melbourne "world's most locked down city" exits its sixth lockdown after a total of 260 days
- Oct 23 Capture of Colombia's most-wanted drug lord, Dairo Antonio Usuga 'Otoniel', in Colombia's Uraba region, announced live on TV [1]
- Oct 24 COVID-19 cases in Eastern Europe pass 20 million with Russia, Ukraine and Romania in top five countries reporting deaths globally [1]
Air Jordans Sneaker Record
Oct 24 Michael Jordan's 1984 Nike Air Ships sell for $1.472 million at Sotheby's, a new record for sneakers at auction [1]
- Oct 24 Strongest storm to ever hit the West Coast of the US, with California recording barometric pressure of 945.2 mb, and San Francisco its wettest October day [1]
- Oct 24 Tom Brady becomes first quarterback in NFL history to record 600 touchdown passes when he hits Mike Evans in 1st quarter of the Buccaneers 38-3 rout of the Chicago Bears in Tampa Bay
- Oct 25 Afghanistan to become world's worst humanitarian crisis as nearly 23 million people face acute hunger over winter according to the World Food Program [1]
- Oct 25 NASA scientists announce they may have detected the first planet outside our galaxy, in Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), 28 million light-years away [1]
- Oct 25 Sudan's military takes control of the country, dissolving the power-sharing government and declaring a state of emergency
- Oct 26 UN report says current climate pledges put world on course for "catastrophic" average 2.7-degree Celsius temperature rise this century ahead of Glasgow climate summit [1]
- Oct 27 Cleveland Guardians men's roller derby team files lawsuit seeking to block MLB baseball Cleveland Indians name change
- Oct 27 More than one million people in southern Madagascar are on the brink of famine according to Amnesty International, who urges world to provide relief
- Oct 28 Largest-ever drug bust in Asia made by police in Laos with 55 million methamphetamine tablets and 1.5 tonnes of crystal meth discovered in beer crates [1]
Event of Interest
Oct 28 Mark Zuckerberg announces Facebook will change its corporate name to Meta amid increased public scrutiny over leaked internal documents
- Oct 28 One of world's largest floor mosaics unveiled after restoration at Hisham's Palace (660-750 AD) by Palestinian authorities in Jericho, West Bank [1]
- Oct 28 Researchers announce name of a new human ancestor, Homo bodoensis, from Africa during the Middle Pleistocene, about half a million years ago, the direct ancestor of modern humans [1]
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Oct 30 36th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: Foo Fighters; The Go-Go's; Jay-Z; Carole King; Todd Rundgren; Tina Turner; Kraftwerk; Gil Scott-Heron; Charley Patton; LL Cool J; Billy Preston; Randy Rhodes; and Clarence Avant
- Oct 30 Grand Ole Opry broadcasts its 5000th Saturday night radio program, from Nashville, Tennessee [1]
- Oct 30 World Leader agree historic corporate tax agreement of at least 15% at G20 summit in Rome
- Oct 31 World's largest solar farm goes live in Sirindhorn reservoir, Thailand, as a hydro-floating solar hybrid system the size of 70 football fields [1]
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists