October
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1 October – International Day of Older Persons.
1 October – World Vegetarian Day.
1 October 1867 – ‘Das Kapital‘ by Karl Marx first published.
1 October 1869 – The world’s first postcards are issued in Vienna, Austria.
1 October 1893 – birth of Yip Man, Wing Chun Kung Fu grand-master. Immortalised in the movie, Ip Man. Died 2 December 1972.
1 October 1908 – the Model T Ford rolls out.
1 October 1918 – Damascus captured by Arab forces under the direction of Lawrence of Arabia (T.E. Lawrence) in World War I.
1 October 1942 – Little Golden Books commences publishing.
1 October 1957 – United States commences printing ‘In God We Trust’ on its paper currency.
1 October 1958 – Britain transfers Christmas Island to Australia.
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2 October 1803 – death of Samuel Adams, American revolutionary and founding father. Born 27 September 1722.
2 October 1869 – birth of Mohandas Gandhi. Leader the campaign for Indian independence from British rule through non-violent disobedience. Assassinated 30 January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist opposed to the partitioning of India, who believed Gandhi was favouring the creation of the Muslim state of Pakistan.
2 October – International Day of Non-violence. This day was chosen because it is the anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi’s birth.
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3 October 1226 – death of St Francis of Assisi, Italian friar and founder of the men’s Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St Clare and the Third Order of St Francis. Although these are all Catholic Orders, he was never ordained as a Catholic priest. Born 26 September 1181.
3 October 1925 – birth of Gore Vidal, American author, playwright, essayist and political activist. Died 31 July 2012.
3 October 1942 – Nazi Germany becomes the first nation to reach space with the launch of the V2 rocket fuelled by alcohol and liquid oxygen, which travelled 190 kilometres, taking it into the Earth’s thermosphere. The V2 was the world’s first long-range ballistic missile which Hitler’s forces used to great effect against the Allied armies. The V2 was developed by Werner von Braun (the Father of Rocket Science), who later worked on the American rocket and space program. Following the war, the Soviet Union and the USA raced to develop rocket technology so head-hunted former Nazi rocket scientists and acquired samples of the V2.
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4 October 1669 – death of Rembrandt, famous Dutch painter. Born 15 July 1606.
4 October 1927 – commencement of Mt Rushmore sculptures near Keystone, South Dakota. It is a sculpture carved into the granite face of the mountain. The sculpture features the faces of four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Construction finished on 31 October 1941 because funding ran out. It was the brainchild of Doane Robinson. The carvings are 18m (60′) high and were carved by Gutzon Borglum and a team of 400 workers.
4 October 1931 – The comic strip, Dick Tracy, makes its debut in the Detroit Mirror and is distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News syndicate. The cartoon was created by Chester Gould who continued to draw it until 1977.
4 October 1970 – death of Janis Joplin. American singer-songwriter. She was 27. Born 19 January 1943.
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5 October 1902 – birth of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonalds … and the Big Mac … Died 14 January 1984.
5 October 1945 – Hollywood Black Friday – following a 6 month strike by set decorators, a violent riot breaks out at the gates of Warner Brothers studio. 300 police are called and 40 people are injured.
5 October 1945 – birth of Brian Connolly, Scottish rocker, lead singer of Sweet (Fox on the Run, Ballroom Blitz, Teenage Rampage, Action). Died 9 February 1997.
5 October 1947 – birth of Brian Johnson, English rocker, lead singer of AC/DC, replacing Bon Scott.
5 October 1951 – birth of Bob Geldoff, Irish singer for the Boomtown Rats.
5 October 1962 – the Beatle’s first single is released, ‘Love Me Do’. Although a Lennon-McCartney composition, it was primarily written by Paul in 1958-9 while he was wagging school. The song reached # 17 in the UK and was the # 1 hit in the U.S.A. in 1964.
5 October 1969 – Monty Python’s Flying Circus first broadcast on BBC-TV.
5 October 2011 – death of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple. Born 24 February 1955.
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6 October 1961 – President John F. Kennedy advises Americans to build fall-out shelters, as Cold War paranoia continues to grow.
6 October 1966 – LSD, a synthetic hallucinogenic drug, is declared illegal in the United States.
6 October 1978 – death of Johnny O’Keefe, Australian rock and roll legend. Known as J.O.K. or ‘The Wild One’. Born 19 January 1935.
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7 October 1849 – death of Edgar Allan Poe, American poet and novelist, The Raven. Born 19 January 1809.
7 October 1913 – Henry Ford implements the moving assembly line … changing the face of manufacturing forever.
7 October 1931 – birth of Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop of South Africa. Won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
7 October 2001 – United States invades Afghanistan as they hunt for Osama Bin Laden and to take down the Taliban government for allowing him to live there. It was nearly 10 years later, in 2011, that US Special Forces captured and killed Bin Laden in Pakistan.
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8 October 1769 – Captain James Cook lands at Poverty Bay, New Zealand.
8 October 1939 – birth of Paul Hogan, Australian actor.
8 October 1970 – Soviet dissident author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wins Nobel Price for Literature. Author of ‘The Gulag Archipelago‘.
8 October 1971 – John Lennon releases the iconic song, ‘Imagine’.
8 October 1980 – Bob Marley collapses on stage in New York. The following day he collapses while jogging in Central Park. He is diagnosed with a brain tumour, which developed from a melanoma that had spread from his toe. He died on 11 May 1981.
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9 October 1940 – birth of John Lennon. English guitarist and singer-songwriter for the Beatles. Murdered 8 December 1980.
9 October 1967 – death of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Argentinian Marxist revolutionary, physician, author. Executed in Bolivia. Born 14 June 1928.
9 October 1969 – birth of P.J. Harvey, English musician.
9 October 1973 – death of Sister Rosetta Tharpe (born Rosetta Nubin), gospel singer and the God Mother and inventor of rock and roll. In 1938 she released a hit record called ‘Rock Me’, which fused gospel and what would later became known as rock and roll. She became a sensation, playing sell-out concerts to audiences cheering on as she howled and stamped her way through tunes on her driving electric guitar and singing about faith, love and sexuality. Audiences of the 1930s and 40s, had never seen an act like Sister Rosetta, a gay, black woman punching out energetic songs that fused blues, jazz and gospel. In 1947, she brought to the stage a 14 year old boy named Richard Pennimen. He immediately decided he wanted a career as a musician. Ten years later he was releasing hits under the name, Little Richard. Pioneer rock musicians were inspired by Sister Rosetta, including Elvis Presley, Johnny Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. From 1957 and through the 1960s, Tharpe toured Europe and Britain. Born 20 March 1915.
9 October 1975 – Andrei Sakharov, Soviet dissident, wins Nobel Peace Prize.
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10 October – World Day Against the Death Penalty.
10 October 1963 – death of Roy Cazaly, Australian Rules football legend, known for his high marks and ruck-work. Immortalised in the song, ‘Up there Cazaly‘, by The Two Man Band (Mike Brady & Peter Sullivan). Born 13 January 1893.
10 October 1963 – death of Édith Piaf, French singer. Born Édith Giovanna Gassion, born 19 December 1915.
10 October 1965 – the ‘Vinland Map’, is presented by Yale University, which claims it was the first known map of America, drawn in 1440 and based on Norseman Leif Eriksson’s discovery of the Americas 500 years before Columbus.
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11 October – International Day of the Girl.
11 October 1844 – birth of Henry John Heinz, founder of Heinz Company, responsible for canned baked beans. Died 14 May 1919.
11 October 1935 – death of Steele Rudd, Australian author, (pen-name for Arthur Hoey Davis). Wrote ‘On Our Selection‘, which introduced Australia to ‘Dad and Dave’. Born 14 November 1868.
11 October 1930 – Australian Rules football club, Collingwood, win the VFL premiership for the fourth consecutive year.
11 October 1939 – German theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein explains to the United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the possibility of building an atomic bomb.
11 October 1967 – premier of the childrens’ TV series, ‘Johnny Sokko and his flying robot‘.
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12 October 1492 – Christopher Columbus lands on an island in the Bahamas, claiming ‘East Asia’ for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.
12 October 1810 – world’s first Oktoberfest when the people of Munich are invited to celebrate a Bavarian royal wedding.
12 October 1823 – Charles MacIntosh, Scottish inventor, sells his first water-proof ‘rubber raincoat’, which became known as the ‘MacIntosh’ or ‘Mac’.
12 October 1944 – ‘Columbus Day Riot’ in which 35,000 hysterical teenage girls dressed in bobby socks, descend on Times Square, New York City, in anticipation of Frank Sinatra appearing.
12 October 1979 – ‘Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams is first published. He eventually wrote a total of 5 books in the series, with a sixth one being written by Eoin Colfer.
12 October 1994 – A 1,200-seat stand at a Pink Floyd concert in Earl’s Court collapses, injuring 90 people.
12 October 2002 – Terrorist bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy’s Bar in Kuta, Bali, kill 202 people and injure 209. Members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group linked with Al Qaeda, are convicted of the crime and on 9 November 2006, three of them are executed by firing squad.
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13 October 54AD – death of Claudius, Roman Emperor. He was treated as an imbecile because he’d been born with a limp and slight deafness. As a result he was not seen as a threat by others and therefore survived the purges by Caligula and Tiberius. He was the last surviving man in his family following Caligula’s assassination, leading to him being declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard. He proved himself to be an able administrator and constructed many roads, aqueducts and canals across the empire. He successfully invaded Britain, something that previous emperors, including Caligula, had failed to achieve. He was assassinated by poisoning, many believe by his wife. He was succeeded by his grand-nephew, Nero. Born 1 August 10BC.
13 October 1307 – Pope Clement V orders the overthrow, arrest and torture of Knights Templar in France. This is believed to be the origin of Black Friday or Friday the 13th being unlucky.
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14 October 1066 – Battle of Hastings. When King Edward of England died, William the Duke of Normandy felt the throne should go to him. Meanwhile, Earl Harold Godwinson (cousin of King Edward) felt the throne was his. The two went to battle with William decisively defeating Harold. The battle changed history as William brought England under Norman rule and stripped the Saxons of their rights. King William I introduced three major changes, firstly, he made himself the principal authority, having executive, judicial and legislative power. (This was replaced centuries later by the Westminster System, which separates these three powers). Secondly, William introduced a new language and culture, by replacing 300 years of Anglo-Saxon culture with a French dialect. Thirdly, he introduced the feudal system in which a plot of land (called a fief) would be given to loyal followers. In 1086, William commissioned a survey of land ownership and taxes owing throughout much of England. The survey listed 13,418 places. While the book originally had no formal title, in the 12th century, William’s great survey became known as the Domesday Book, and later as the Doomsday Book, in light of its comparison to the Final Judgement written of in the Bible. At that time, ‘Doom’ meant law, not ruin or death). William was also known as William the Conqueror and William the Bastard. He stated, ‘I have persecuted its native inhabitants beyond all reason. Whether gentle or simple, I have cruelly oppressed them; many I unjustly inherited; Innumerable multitudes, especially in the county of York, perished through me by famine or the sword‘.
14 October 1322 – Scotland forces led by Robert the Bruce defeat England at Byland, forcing King Edward II to grant Scotland’s independence.
14 October 1947 – American pilot, Chuck Yeager, breaks the speed of sound in the experimental jet, Bell X-1, travelling at Mach 1 and at 45,000 feet.
14 October 1959 – death of Errol Flynn, Australian-born American actor. Born 20 June 1909.
14 October 2012 – Felix Baumgarten, Austrian adventurer, becomes the first man to break the speed of sound while in freefall after jumping from a helium balloon at the edge of space, 39km above the surface of the earth. He reached a speed of 1,342 km/hr (1.24 times the speed of sound). He also broke the record for the highest altitude reached in a manned balloon flight.
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15 October 1917 – death of Mata Hari, (born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle), Dutch dancer, courtesan and spy. She was charged with espionage and executed by firing squad in France, after being accused of spying for Germany during World War I. Born 7 August 1876.
15 October 1970 – A 120 metre span of Melbourne’s then-under-construction West Gate Bridge collapses into the Yarra River, killing 35 workers. A Royal Commission identified a number of issues that contributed to the collapse, including structural design and method of construction.
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16 October – Dictionary Day (in the U.S.A), coinciding with the birth of Noah Webster (born 1758), creator of Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language and known as the ‘Father of American Scholarship and Education’.
16 October 1834 – London’s House of Lords and House of Commons damaged by fire caused by an over-heating chimney flue during the destruction of tally sticks.
16 October 1854 – birth of Oscar Wilde, Irish writer and poet. Wilde wrote a number of plays, poems and epigrams. His only novel was ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. His plays included ‘The Importance of Being Ernest’, and ‘Salome’. In addition to English, he was fluent in German and French. In 1895, Wilde was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ which related to some of his homosexual relationships. He received the maximum sentence of two years hard labour. On his release from prison in 1897, Wilde moved to Paris, living in exile and poverty. He died on 30 November 1900 from cerebral meningitis. He was buried at Cimetière de Bagneux, but in 1909 his remains were transferred to Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.
16 October 1962 – start of the Cuban Missile Crisis, known in Cuba as the October Crisis and in Russia as Kарибский кризис (Caribbean Crisis), one of the major events of the Cold War as it brought the world to the brink of nuclear conflict. It started when a USAF U-2 plane photographed evidence of Soviet air bases being constructed in Cuba on 14 October 1962. The U.S. considered bombing the bases, but ended up blockading Cuba, preventing Soviet weapons being delivered. Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev wrote to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, stating the blockade constituted an act of war. For 13 days, the Americans and Soviets conducted talks to resolve the crisis. On 28 October 1962, Kennedy and UN Secretary General U. Thant reached a public and secret agreement with Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets agreed to dismantle their weapons in Cuba, while the U.S. gave an agreement to never invade Cuba. Secretly, the U.S. agreed to dismantle its ballistic missiles in Turkey.
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17 October 1814 – London Beer Flood causes the deaths of 8 people. The flood occurred when a vat containing 610,000 litres (135,000 gallons) of beer ruptured, causing other vats in the building to also rupture, resulting in a total of 1,470,000 litres (323,000 gallons) to flood nearby streets, destroying two homes and the wall of a pub. Those killed were living in the basement of houses which filled with the beer. The brewery was sued, however, the court ruled the event an ‘Act of God’.
17 October 1901 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt issues an Executive Order changing name of the ‘Executive Mansion’ to the ‘White House’.
17 October 1938 – birth of U.S. daredevil, Evel Knievel (Robert Craig Knievel). Knievel was best known for his failed attempt to jump over the Grand Canyon on a rocket-propelled motor-bike. He also successfully, and often unsuccessfully, attempted long distance motor-bike jumps, such as jumping 14 buses. Through his career, Knievel broke 35 bones. Died 30 November 2007.
17 October 1989 – Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
17 October 2010 – Mary McKillop is canonised by Pope Benedict XVI, becoming Australia’s first saint.
17 October 2011 – Richard Branson, of Virgin Group, opens the world’s first commercial space-port, which he has based in Mexico. Although there have been a number of sub-space test flights, to date there have been no commercial space flights.
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18 October – Anti-slavery day, created by an act of the U.K. Parliament in 2010. It defines modern day slavery as child trafficking, forced labour, domestic servitude and trafficking for sexual exploitation. It provides an opportunity to draw attention to the subject and to pressure government, local authorities, public institutions and private and public companies to address the scale and scope of human trafficking.
18 October 1776 – the ‘cocktail’ is invented when a customer requests a drink decorated with a bird-tail, in a New York bar.
18 October 1867 – Formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States. Every year, 18 October is celebrated as Alaska Day.
18 October 1926 – birth of Chuck Berry, legendary American musician and pioneer of rock and roll and famous for songs such as ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ and ‘Johnny B. Goode’. Died 18 March 2017.
18 October 1931 – death of Thomas Edison, U.S. inventor. Born 11 February 1847.
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19 October 1924 – Leon Trotsky, one of the founders of the Soviet Union and founder of the Red Army, is thrown out of the Soviet Politburo and his followers persecuted after he opposed Stalin. Trotsky was eventually expelled from the Communist Party and in 1929 was deported from the Soviet Union. He continued his opposition to Stalinism from his base in Mexico.
19 October 1944 – birth of Peter Tosh, Jamaican reggae singer and musician. From 1963 to 1974, Tosh was a member of Bob Marley and Wailers until going solo. His most famous song is ‘Legalize It’, about legalising marijuana. Tosh’s album, ‘Bush Doctor’, included a duet with Mick Jagger in the song, ‘Don’t Look Back’. Tosh was a Rastafarian. He campaigned against apartheid, which he sang about on his album ‘Equal Rights’. Tosh was murdered on 11 September 1987, after three men broke into his house and tortured him in an effort to extort money. After several hours, one of the men shot Tosh in the head, killing him. Two other friends of Tosh’s were also killed.
19 October 2001 – 353 asylum seekers drown when the boat they are on sinks 70km south of Java. The victims included 146 children, 142 women and 65 men. They were travelling from Indonesia to Australia and were predominantly Iraqi. Australian authorities labelled the boat SIEV-X (SIEV is short for ‘Suspected Illegal Entry Vehicle’). The incident became a major political issue and coupled with other incidents, such as the ‘Tampa crisis’ and the ‘Children Overboard affair’, resulted in major changes to Australia’s migration laws, including excising 4,600 islands from Australia’s migration zone and introduction of the controversial ‘Pacific Solution’.
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20 October 1949 – Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver apply for a patent on their new design for capturing product information: the bar code. Woodland and Silver had been considering this since overhearing a supermarket executive asking the Dean of Engineering at Drexel Institute how to solve the problem of capturing product information automatically at the checkout. While sitting on the beach, Woodland drew out dots and dashes based on Morse code. He then dragged his fingers through the sand to convert them into lines: thin lines for the dots and thick lines for the dashes, thus inventing a two dimensional, linear Morse code which he and Silver then adapted optical sound film technology with. The patent for bar codes was issued on 7 October 1952, almost three years after they applied for it.
20 October 1977 – Plane crash in Mississippi kills 3 members of rock band, Lynyrd Skynyrd (Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, along with their Assistant Road Manager (Dean Kilpatrick), the pilot (Walter McCreary and co-pilot (William Gray).
20 October 2011 – death of Muammar Gaddafi, former leader of Libya. He had been shot to death by rebel fighters following the overthrow of his government. Born 7 June 1942.
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21 October 1492 – Christopher Columbus discovers America.
21 October 1772 – birth of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet. Died 25 July 1834.
21 October 1833 – birth of Alfred Bernhard Nobel, Swedish chemist and armaments manufacturer, inventor of dynamite and the Nobel Prizes. Was known as the ‘Merchant of Death’. A newspaper stated that he ‘became rich by finding ways to kill people faster than ever before‘. As a result, he decided to leave a better legacy than that and used his estate to establish and fund the Nobel Prizes, which included the Nobel Peace Prize. Died 10 December 1896.
21 October 1966 – The Aberfan disaster in which the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip in the Welsh village of Aberfan, killed 116 children and 28 adults.
21 October 1967 – Thousands of anti-Vietnam-war protestors attempt to storm the Pentagon.
21 October 1969 – death of Jack Kerouac, American beat-generation writer, ‘On the road‘. Born 12 March 1922.
21 October 2015 – Back to the Future Day. At 4.29pm on 21 October 2015, Doc Emmett Brown and Marty McFly arrived from the year 1955 in a time machine made from a Delorean in the hit 1989 film, Back to the Future 2. Apart from the time machine, the most famous invention featured in the movie was the hoverboard.
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22 October 1797 – Andre-Jacques Garnerin becomes the world’s first sky-diver after jumping out of a balloon above Paris.
22 October 1920 – birth of Timothy Leary, American psychologist and author. Leary was a major proponent of the use of pscyhedelic drugs, particularly LSD and psilocybin (mushrooms). He conducted numerous psychiatric experiments using psychedelics, particularly during the 1950s and and 1960s, when the drugs were legal. LSD was banned by the USA in 1966. Leary popularised 1960′s catch-phrases such as ‘turn on, tune in and drop out’, ‘set and setting’, and ‘think for yourself and question authority’. He was friends with beat generation poets, such as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Leary was arrested numerous times over his possession and use of drugs. He wrote a number of books on the benefits of psychedelic drugs. Leary became fascinated with computers, declaring that ‘the PC is the LSD of the 1990s’. He encouraged bohemians to ‘turn on, boot up, jack in’. Leary was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995. He chose to stream his dying moments over the internet. Seven grams of Leary’s ashes were placed aboard a Pegasus rocket, launched on 21 April 1997. It remained in orbit around the Earth for six years until it burned up in atmosphere. Died 31 May 1996.
22 October 1934 – Notorious gangster, Pretty Boy Floyd, shot to death by FBI agents in Ohio. Born 3 February 1904.
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23 October 4004BC – The day the world was created, according to Archbishop James Ussher.
23 October 42BC – death of Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, for a while known as Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus before returning to his original name. He is more commonly known as Brutus, Roman senator. He led a group who assassinated then Emperor Julius Caesar. Brutus suicided after his Army was defeated during the Roman civil wars at the Second Battle of Philippi, by Mark Antony and Octavian.
23 October 1959 – birth of ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic, American parody singer-songwriter.
23 October 1998 – Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, establish a ‘Land for Peace’ deal regarding the West Bank, after a marathon 21 hour negotiation.
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24 October 1648 – signing of the Treaty of Munster, between the Holy Roman Emperor, France and their respective allies. This treaty was the second in a series of peace treaties known as the Peace of Westphalia which paved the way for the modern sovereign state. The first was the Peace of Munster, signed on 30 January 1648, the third being the Treaty of Osnabruck, signed on 24 October 1648.
24 October 1648 – signing of the Treaty of Osnabruck, between the Holy Roman Emperor, the empire, Sweden and their respective allies. This treaty was the third in a series of peace treaties known as the Peace of Westphalia which paved the way for the modern sovereign state. The first was the Peace of Munster, signed on 30 January 1648, the second being the Treaty of Munster signed on 24 October 1648.
24 October 1929 – Black Thursday, one week before Wall Street’s infamous Black Tuesday and in a harbinger of the impending crash, investors dumped 13 million shares and the market lost 11% in value.
24 October 1930 – birth of Jiles Perry ‘J.P.’ Richardson Jr, otherwise known as the Big Bopper. 1950s rock and roll star, famous for songs such as ‘Chantilly Lace’ and ‘Running Bear’. Died in a plane crash on 3 February 1959 with other musicians, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the pilot, Roger Peterson. Their deaths were immortalised in the Don McLean song, ‘American Pie’, when he sang about the day the music died.
24 October 1945 – UN Day. The Charter of the United Nations took effect and the United Nations General Assembly declared that it ‘shall be devoted to making known to the peoples of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations and to gaining their support for its work’.
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25 October 1854 – Charge of the Light Brigade. A famous cavalry charge led by Lord Cardigan of Britain, against the Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War. The Russians were victorious. The charge was immortalised in the poem of the same name by poet laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The poem can be read here: http://www.ram.org/contrib/the_charge_of_the_light_brigade.html
25 October 1917 – October Revolution. This is the traditional date (old style Julian calendar) for the October Revolution, which corresponds with 7 – 8 November 1917 (new style Gregorian calendar) for the October Revolution. Part of the Russian Revolution which commenced with the February Revolution (8-12 March 1917) and which overthrew the Russian Provisional Government and replaced it with the Soviet government.
25 October 1923 – the first jar of vegemite rolls off the production lines. It was developed by a chemist named Dr Cyril P. Calister, under direction of the Fred Walker Company (which later became Kraft). Australia’s iconic vegemite is a yeast extract spread, great for toast, crumpets, pikelets, gravy, stews, soups and anything else.
25 October 1941 – birth of Helen Reddy, legendary 1970’s Australian singer, with hit songs such as I Am Woman, and Delta Dawn.
25 October 1964 – Zambian Independence. Formerly, Northern Rhodesia, the British government grants independence. The first president is Kenneth Kaunda of the United National Independence Party.
25 October 1993 – death of Vincent Price, American actor, starred in a number of horror films, including House of Wax, House of Usher and The Raven. He also acted in the 1960s television series Batman, in which he played the evil mastermind, Egghead; a master criminal with a fixation on eggs. Price provided a voice-over on Alice Cooper’s 1975 album Welcome to My Nightmare. In 1976, Price recorded a cover version of Bobby Pickett song, Monster Mash. Born 27 May 1911.
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26 October 1863 – Football Association forms in England, standardising the rules of soccer.
26 October 1881 – Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, the most famous gunfight in the Wild West. It is believed the gunfight lasted around 30 seconds and was between outlaws Billy Clanton, Ike Clanton, Billy Claiborne, Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury and lawmen Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp, Doc Holliday. Three of the outlaws were killed, Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury. The gunfight has been immortalised in a number of movies and songs.
26 October 1917 – birth of Felix the Cat, legendary cartoon character.
26 October 1940 – Brisbane’s beer riot shuts down the CBD, with trams and traffic brought to a standstill as hundreds of soldiers and civilians take to the streets protesting against the 8pm hotel closing time. Although 8pm had been the closing time for years, it hadn’t been enforced until this time when temperance organisations pressured the government. As the hotels were forced to close by police, hundreds of drinkers poured out of the hotels and into the street attacking trams, traffic and kicking in doors and windows of nearby businesses. The angry mob stormed down Queen Street chanting ‘roll out the barrel, we want beer’. Some of them kicked in the doors of the Grand Central Hotel in Ann Street and stole a beer barrel, which they managed to crack open. Civilian and military police were brought in and the riot was finally quelled in the early hours of the next morning.
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27 October 1728 – birth of Captain James Cook, British explorer. Made three major voyages in which he discovered many of the islands of the south pacific, including the east coast of Australia. Cooktown, Queensland, is named after him. The house he grew up in was relocated from Yorkshire, England, to Melbourne, Australia and is open to visits (now known as Captain Cook’s Cottage and is situated in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne). Died 14 February 1779 after being stabbed by Hawaiians who credited their Chief Kalanimanokahoowaha (Kanaina) with the kill. Captain Cook’s body was then subjected to a funeral ritual that was normally reserved for a Chief.
27 October 1923 – birth of Roy Lichtenstein, American pop artist. Died 29 September 1997.
27 October 1927 – death of Joseph Theodore Leslie (Squizzy) Taylor, Australian gangster, earned money from sly-grog, two-up, illegal bookmaking, extortion, prostitution, cocaine dealing. Died from a gunshot wound inflicted by ‘Snowy’ Cutmore. Born 29 June 1888.
27 October 1932 – birth of Sylvia Plath, American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Boston, she travelled to the UK and studied at Cambridge University. It was here that she met British poet, Ted Hughes. In 1957 they married. For a while they lived in Boston, before returning to England and living in London and later Devon. Plath often wrote about her experiences, particularly with depression. She advanced the genre of ‘confessional poetry’. Plath struggled with the loneliness of Devon and returned to London, renting a unit in house in which the poet, William Butler Yeats once lived. The unit was owned by Assia and David Wevill. Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes, was captivated by Assia’s beauty. In September 1962, Plath left Hughes after discovering he’d been having an affair with Assia. Plath suffered bipolar disorder and had made numerous suicide attempts throughout her life. In February 1963, she suicided by turning the gas on in her oven and placing her head in it. She had sealed her children’s rooms with wet towels to avoid poisoning them. Plath had published a number of poetry collections and some were published post-humously. In 1982, she was awarded a post-humous Pulitzer Prize for her poetry. She is considered one of the great poets of the 20th century. Died 11 February 1963.
27 October 2013 – death of Lou Reed (Lewis Allan Reed), American glam rock musician, singer and song-writer. Was lead singer of 60s alternative band, Velvet Underground, before going solo and having hits such as ‘Walk on the Wild Side’, ‘Vicious’, ‘Satellite of Love’ and ‘Perfect Day’. His albums Transformer and Berlin are considered among the most influential albums of the 20th century. Reed coined the term ‘Ostrich tuning’ in relation to a type of trivial tuning of strings. The six strings of a guitar are normally tuned to EADGbe. However in his 1964 song, The Ostrich (performed by the Primitives, which later became Velvet Underground) Reed tuned all six strings of his guitar to a single D note: DDDDdd. Born 2 March 1942.
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28 October 1922 – Benito Mussolini, of the National Fascist Party, takes over the leadership of Italy’s government, after forcing Prime Minister Luigi Facta to resign following the ‘March on Rome’. Mussolini took the title ‘IL DUCE’ (The Leader).
28 October 1962 – end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, known in Cuba as the October Crisis and in Russia as Kарибский кризис (Caribbean Crisis), one of the major events of the Cold War as it brought the world to the brink of nuclear conflict. It started when a USAF U-2 plane photographed evidence of Soviet air bases being constructed in Cuba on 14 October 1962. The U.S. considered bombing the bases, but ended up blockading Cuba, preventing Soviet weapons being delivered. Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev wrote to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, stating the blockade constituted an act of war. For 13 days, the Americans and Soviets conducted talks to resolve the crisis. On 28 October 1962, Kennedy and UN Secretary General U. Thant reached a public and secret agreement with Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets agreed to dismantle their weapons in Cuba, while the U.S. gave an agreement to never invade Cuba. Secretly, the U.S. agreed to dismantle its ballistic missiles in Turkey.
28 October 1965 – Ernest Hemingway wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. Author of ‘The Old Man and the Sea‘.
28 October 1998 – death of Ted Hughes, English poet, children’s writer. Has been described as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes married American poet, Sylvia Plath in 1957. They separated in 1962 after she discovered he was having an affair with Assia Wevill, a German-born Jewish woman who escaped the Nazis during World War II. Plath suicided six months after the separation, at the age of 30. Plath had a history of suicide attempts and there is conjecture that her death could have been accidental as she had left a note to call her doctor. However, others believe the effort put into this attempt indicate that she intended to kill herself. Plath died from carbon monoxide poisoning after placing her head in a gas oven with the gas turned on. She had sealed the rooms between her and her sleeping children, with wet towels to ensure the gas didn’t harm the children. Hughes was devastated by her suicide and stopped writing poetry for three years. He had been having an affair with Assia Wevill and eventually had a child to her. Their daughter was named Alexandra Tatiana Elise (nicknamed ‘Shura’). In 1969, Wevill also suicided in the same manner as Sylvia Plath, by sealing the kitchen door and window, and turning on the gas stove. Whereas Plath had protected her children from the gas, Wevill gave 4 year old Shura a sleeping tablet mixed in a glass of water. Their bodies were found laying on a mattress in the kitchen. Some blamed Hughes for both suicides, alleging that he was abusive to both women. Hughes was unable to finish his poetry series, ‘The Crow’ after the death of Wevill. In 1970, he married Carol Orchard, who remained his wife until his death. From 1984, Hughes served as Poet Laureate. Born 17 August 1930.
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29 October 529BC – International Day of Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, responsible for the Cyrus Cylinder, which has been called the world’s first charter of human rights. The Cyrus Cylinder praised the munificence of King Cyrus and denounced the conquered Babylonian King Nabodinus as an oppressor of the people. It extols King Cyrus as a benefactor of the people, who liberated them from Nabodinus, repatriated them, restored temples and improved their lives. A copy of the cylinder sits in UN headquarters in New York as an example of early human rights. However, German historians have challenged the Cylinder as being propaganda that Cyrus had ordered be written, so that he appeared better than other leaders, when in fact he committed numerous atrocities when conquering other nations.
29 October 1929 – ‘Black Tuesday’, stock market crash leads to the Great Depression. Investors dumped 16 million shares and the market crashed a further 12%, losing $30 billion in two days.
29 October 1956 – Israel invades Egypt after President Nasser announces he is nationalising the Suez Canal, starting the Suez Crisis.
29 October 1969 – Creation of the ARPANET, predecessor of the internet, when the first host-to-host communication is sent. ARPANET stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network which was operated by the U.S. Department of Defense.
29 October 1982 – Lindy Chamberlain found guilty of murdering her baby daughter, Azaria, after a jury dismissed her claim that a dingo took the baby. Her husband, Michael, was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder. She spent 3 years in jail, before being released. Eight years after the trial, her conviction was overturned. In 1992, her and Michael were acquitted and received $1.3 million in compensation from the Australian government for false imprisonment. There have been four inquests, with the latest being held 2012, with the finding that a dingo did take the baby.
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30 October 1920 – the Communist Party of Australia founded in Sydney, New South Wales.
30 October 1938 – Fear of alien invasion panics the United States as Orson Welles narrates the H.G. Wells radio-play, War of the Worlds (click for the complete broadcast). Listeners did not realise it was just a play, unleashing havoc across the U.S. 30 October 1939 – birth of Grace Slick, American rock singer with Jefferson Airplane and as a solo performer.30 October 1961 – the Soviet Union detonates the world’s largest nuclear bomb, the Tsar Bomba, which had a yield of 50 megatons. It was 4,000 times more powerful than the bomb the USA dropped on Hiroshima, 1,400 times the combined power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 10 times the combined power of all conventional explosives used in World War II, and one quarter of the estimated yield of the 27 August 1883 volcanic explosion in Krakatoa. The crown of the mushroom cloud was more than 56km high and was visible for hundreds of kilometres. The Soviets had initially intended for the Hydrogen Bomb to be 100 megatons, but decided to tone it back a tad. The United Nations pleads with both the Soviet Union and the United States to end the arms race or risk destroying the planet. By 1986, with the arms race out of control, the U.S.A. deployed the MX-missiles. Each missile had 10 warheads capable of carrying 300 megatons each, with a potential combined yield 60 times the Tsar Bomba (240,000 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, 15 times the size of Krakatoa) … a dream come true for Marvin the Martian … but … the MX’s were never detonated (‘where’s the kaboom?‘). They were retired in 2005.
30 October 1990 – the ‘Chunnel’ (or Channel Tunnel) is completed linking England and France by a tunnel that goes under the English Channel.
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31 October – Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve), celebrated in a number of countries on the eve of the Christian festival, All Hallows’ Day (or All Saints’ Day).
31 October 1517 – Protestant Revolution starts when Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the Wittenburg Church in Germany in protest against what he saw as corruption in the Catholic Church.
31 October 1876 – large cyclone strikes India, killing more than 200,000 people.
31 October 1941 – completion of Mt Rushmore sculptures near Keystone, South Dakota. It is a sculpture carved into the granite face of the mountain and ended because funding ran out. The sculpture features the faces of four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Construction started on 4 October 1927. It was the brainchild of Doane Robinson. The carvings are 18m (60′) high and were carved by Gutzon Borglum and a team of 400 workers.
31 October 1975 – Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announces the enactment of the Racial Discrimination Act which made it illegal to discriminate against someone based on their race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin.
31 October 1984 – Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, assassinated by Sikh extremists.
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