On This Day - 16th October

1758 - Noah Webster, compiler of what is considered America's first dictionary was born
1846 - The first operation using local anaesthetic is performed
1854 - Oscar Wilde born
1888 - Eugene O'Neill born
1925 - Angela Lansbury born
1946 - Suzanne Somers born
1958 - Tim Robbins born
1962 - Flea born
1967 - Folk singer Joan Baez is arrested in a peace demonstration as rallies take place across America to protest against the continuing war in Vietnam.
1971 - Three prison staff are in hospital and dozens of prisoners injured after rioting and fires at the Long Kesh Maze prison.
1975 - Kellie Martin born
1977 - John Mayer born
1978 - Cardinals at the Vatican choose the first non-Italian Pope 'John Paull II' for more than 400 years.
1987 - Southern Britain begins a massive clear-up operation after the worst night of storms in living memory.
1996 - The British Government announces plans to outlaw almost all handguns following Dunblane massacre in March.

On This Day - 15th October

1878 - The Edison Electric Light company if founded
1908 - John Kenneth Galbraith born
1917 - Arthur Schlesinger born
1920 - Mario Puzo born
1924 - Lee Iacocca born
1937 - Linda Lavin born
1942 - Penny Marshall born
1945 - Jim Palmer born
1946 - Richard Carpenter born
1959 - Emeril Lagasse born
1959 - Sarah Ferguson born
1964 - News of the sudden departure of flamboyant Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev comes as a surprise to the West.
1969 - Americans take part in peace initiatives across the United States to protest against the continuing war in Vietnam and Vanessa Marcil born
1976 - Two men from the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) are jailed for 35 years in connection with the murders of members of the Miami Showband.
1987 - The Queen accepts the resignation of the Governor-General of Fiji at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference in Vancouver.
1999 - The Metropolitan Police announces a huge out-of-court settlement to Winston Silcott, wrongly accused over the murder of a policeman during riots in north London in 1985.
2003 - China succeeds in sending its first manned spacecraft into orbit, making it only the third country ever to send a human into space.

On This Day - 14th October

1066 - Battle of Hastings
1644 - English quaker William Penn who argued for religious tolerance and eventually founded Pennsylvania was born
1890 - Dwight Eisenhower born
1894 - E.E. Cummings born
1896 - Lillian Gish born
1910 - John Wooden born
1926 - Winnie the Pooh is published
1927 - Roger Moore born
1939 - Ralph Lauren born
1940 - Sir Cliff Richard born
1944 - Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, commits suicide
1952 - Harry Anderson born
1954 - The Queen welcomes Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie when he arrives in the UK during his world tour.
1969 - The new seven-sided 50p coin comes into circulation in Britain but prompts complaints that it is too similar to the 10-pence.
1973 - Dozens of people are killed in the Thai capital of Bangkok in street battles between government troops and demonstrators.
1974 - Natalie Maines born
1979 - Stacy Keibler and Usher born
1983 - The Trade and Industry Secretary Cecil Parkinson resigns after fresh details about his affair with a former secretary are revealed.
1994 - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and two Israelis - the Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres - are the winners of this year's Nobel peace prize.
2010 - The last of the 33 miners trapped deep underground in northern Chile for more than two months has been rescued. Shift supervisor Luis Urzua reached the surface at 0010 (0310 GMT) and was greeted by his family, rescuers, President Pinera and the first lady, Cecilia Morel. Bystanders cheered and clapped, and then started chanting "Chile".
2010 - Former Manchester City coach and manager ' Big Mal' Malcom Allison dies aged 83.

On This Day - 13th October

1905 - Actor Henry Irving dies
1915 - Cornel Wilde born
1921 - Yves Montand born
1924 - Nipsey Russell born
1925 - Lenny Bruce and Margaret Thatcher born
1934 - Nana Mouskouri born
1941 - Paul Simon born
1943 - Italy declares war on Germany
1947 - Sammy Hagar born
1954 - Chris Chataway breaks the 5,000 metres world record by five seconds.
1957 - Chris Carter born
1959 - Marie Osmond born
1962 - Kelly Preston and Jerry Rice born
1969 - Nancy Kerrigan born
1971 - British Army engineers blow up minor border roads in Northern Ireland to crack down on IRA gun-running and Sacha Baron Cohen born
1976 - 98 die in Santa Cruz, Bolivia when a Boeing 707 crashes into a busy city street.
1980 - Ashanti born
1988 - The British Government fails to stop publication of the controversial book Spycatcher, written by a former secret service agent.
1992 - The government announces plans to close one third of Britain's deep coal mines, putting 31,000 miners out of work.
1994 - Three main loyalist paramilitary groups announce a ceasefire in Northern Ireland following the IRA announcement seven weeks ago.
2010 - Florencio Avalos, 31, becomes the first of the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days to reach the surface shortly after 3am (BST).

On This Day - 12th October

1899 - The Boer war starts
1915 - The nurse Edith Cavell is executed by the Germans
1932 - Dick Gregory born
1935 - Luciano Pavarotti born
1947 - Chris Wallace born
1950 - Susan Anton born
1964 - Quintin Hogg, a senior Conservative minister steels the show at the Conservative news conference by branding all Labour voters "bonkers".
1967 - The Naked Ape steps out. Zoologist Dr Desmond Morris stuns the world by writing about humans in the same way scientists describe animals.
1968 - Hugh Jackman born
1969 - Martie Seidel born
1970 - Kirk Cameron born
1975 - Marion Jones born
1978 - British punk rocker Sid Vicious is arrested on suspicion of murder after his girlfriend's body is found in their New York hotel room.
1984 - An IRA bomb explodes at the Grand Hotel during the Conservative Party conference in Brighton. The direct attack on the British Government killed 5 and injured 34.
1986 - Superpower talks collapse after Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev fail to agree on Star Wars.
2000 - At least 17 American sailors die and more than 40 are injured in what's thought to have been a suicide bomb attack on a US Navy destroyer in Yemen.
2002 - A car bomb outside a Bali nightclub kills 202.

On This Day - 11th October

1844 - Henry John Heinz born
1884 - Eleanor Roosevelt born
1918 - Jerome Robbins born
1925 - Elmore Leonard born
1957 - Dawn French born
1961 - Steve Young born
1962 - Joan Cusack born
1966 - Luke Perry born
1967 - The Move pop group apologises in the High Court to the Prime Minister for a "violent and malicious personal attack".
1974 - Harold Wilson's Labour government wins a second term in office.
1976 - The new head of the Communist Party, Hua Goufeng, snuffs out a coup led by Chairman Mao's widow Jiang Qing and three others party members.
1980 - Algerian double earthquake
1982 - The Mary Rose, flagship of King Henry VIII, rises to the surface after 437 years at the bottom of the Solent.
1985 - Michelle Trachtenberg born
1987 - A huge sonar exploration of Loch Ness fails to find the world famous monster known affectionately as Nessie.
1989 - Michelle Wie born

On This Day - 10th October

1813 - Giuseppe Verdi born
1900 - Helen Hayes born
1913 - The Panama Canal is opened
1917 - Thelonious Monk born
1924 - Edward D. Wood born
1926 - Richard Jaeckel born
1930 - Harold Pinter born
1946 - Ben Vereen and Charles Dance born
1955 - David Lee Roth born
1958 - Tanya Tucker born
1967 - Mike Malinin born
1969 - The Northern Ireland Cabinet accepts the Hunt report recommendations to disarm the RUC and abolish the Ulster Special Constabulary and Brett Favre born
1970 - Quebec separatists kidnap Labour and Immigration Minister Pierre Laporte.
1974 - Dale Earnhardt born
1975 - Actors Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor secretly remarry in Africa only 16 months after getting divorced.
1976 - Bob Burnquist born
1978 - Jodi Lyn O'Keefe born
1980 - Thatcher 'not for turning'. The prime minister makes a memorably defiant speech at her party's conference in Brighton. Two earthquakes strike the northern Algerian city of El Asnam killing 3,500.
1999 - Thousands gather to watch the giant Ferris wheel become the latest landmark on the London skyline.
2010 - Soul singer Solomon Burke dies on a plane at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.