On This Day - 23rd October

1893 - Gummo Marx born
1911 - Winston Churchill is appointed First Lord of the Admiralty
1915 - Cricketer WG Grace dies
1920 - Frank Rizzo born
1925 - Johnny Carson born
1940 - Pelé born
1942 - Michael Crichton born
1951 - The Conservative leader, Winston Churchill, winds up his election campaign by denying he is a warmonger
1956 - Tens of thousands of people take to the streets in Hungary to demand an end to Soviet rule.
1957 - Martin Luther King III born
1965 - Al Leiter born
1971 - British soldiers kill sisters Mary Ellen Meehan and Dorothy Maguire in a car speeding towards a checkpoint.
1983 - At least 146 American marines and 27 French servicemen are killed after two separate bomb attacks on military headquarters in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
1987 - Former champion jockey, Lester Piggott, is sentenced to three years imprisonment after being found guilty of an alleged tax fraud of over £3m.
2001 - The Northern Ireland peace process reaches an historic breakthrough as the IRA announce they are decommissioning their weapons.
2011 - Premier League Champions Manchester United are beaten 6 - 1 in the 160th 'Manchester Derby' at Old Trafford by Manchester City.

On This Day - 22nd October

1811 - Franz Liszt born
1836 - Sam Houston becomes the first president of the Texas Republic
1844 - Sarah Bernhardt born
1882 - N.C. Wyeth born
1903 - Curly Howard born
1906 - Artist Paul Cezanne dies
1917 - Joan Fontaine born
1920 - Timothy Leary born
1922 - Mussolini becomes dictator of Italy
1938 - Christopher Lloyd born
1939 - Tony Roberts born
1942 - Annette Funicello born
1943 - Catherine Deneuve born
1952 - Jeff Goldblum born
1963 - Brian Boitano born
1966 - One of Britain's most notorious double-agents, George Blake, escapes from prison in a daring break-out believed to have been masterminded by the Soviet Union.
1968 - Shaggy born
1974 - A bomb explodes in a restaurant near to where opposition leader Edward Heath is dining in London.
1983 - Thousands gather in London to support the CND in their protest over the use of nuclear missiles.
1990 - Scientists tell the Royal Geographical Society how irrigation has destroyed what was once the world's fourth largest fresh water sea.
2001 - The UK prepares for more rain in what are thought to be the worst floods for twenty years.

On This Day - 21st October

1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge born
1805 - Battle of Trafalgar
1833 - Alfred Nobel born
1917 - Dizzy Gillespie born
1925 - Joyce Randolph born
1931 - Inventor Thomas Edison dies
1942 - Judge Judy Sheindlin born
1952 - The President of the Kenya African Union, Jomo Kenyatta, is arrested following the declaration of a state of emergency in the British colony of Kenya
1956 - Carrie Fisher born
1966 - Tragedy hits the Welsh village of Aberfan as a coal slag tip engulfs a school killing 144, 116 of them children.
1975 - Armed police surround a house near Dublin where kidnapped businessman Tiede Herrema is being held captive.
1976 - Jeremy Miller born
1982 - Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness make history as they become the first members of Sinn Fein to be elected to the Ulster Assembly.
2001 - A post office worker in Washington becomes the third person to be diagnosed with anthrax.

On This Day - 20th October

1632 - Christopher Wren born
1784 - Lord Palmerston is born
1854 - Arthur Rimbaud born
1874 - Charles Ives born
1882 - Bela Lugosi born
1914 - Fayard Nicholas born
1925 - Art Buchwald born
1931 - Mickey Mantle born
1935 - Jerry Orbach born
1950 - Tom Petty born
1958 - Viggo Mortensen born
1967 - Thousands of demonstrators in Oakland, California, hold the biggest protest yet against the Vietnam War and Dann Gillen born
1972 - Snoop Dogg born
1973 - The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama, arrives in Britain for the start of a 10-day tour during which he will "administer vows to people who want them".
1983 - Eyewitnesses say the prime minister and seven of his colleagues have been killed during a hardline military coup in Granada.
1988 - The British Government announces plans to change the law so that remaining silent could incriminate rather than protect a suspect.
2000 - Human rights activist James Mawdsley is released from prison in Burma where he has been held since 1999.

On This Day - 19th October

1922 - Jack Anderson born
1931 - John Le Carre born
1932 - Robert Reed born
1937 - Peter Max born
1945 - Jeannie C. Riley, John Lithgow and Divine born
1954 - The first day of the public inquiry into the crashes of two Comet airliners within months of each other hears that metal fatigue is the most likely cause.
1962 - Evander Holyfield born
1965 - Ty Pennington born
1967 - The American spacecraft Mariner 5 successfully flies past the planet Venus, just one day after a Soviet space probe disappeared into its atmosphere.
1970 - The oil company British Petroleum announces it has struck oil in the North Sea and Chris Kattan born
1976 - Omar Gooding born
1977 - The body of kidnapped businessman Hanns-Martin Schleyer is found in the boot of a car in France.
1987 - The UK stock market bottoms out after shares on Wall Street plummet following a wave of panic selling.
1989 - The Guildford Four are released after the Court of Appeal quashes their convictions.
2001 - Two inquiries are launched into the cause of a massive blunder that led to five years of research into the possibility of BSE in sheep being scrapped.
2003 - The American illusionist David Blaine has his feet back on solid ground after ending 44 days suspended in a glass box by the River Thames in London without food.
2004 - A senior aid worker for Care International, Margaret Hassan, is kidnapped on her way to work in Iraq.
2010 - Actor Tom Bosley, famous for playing Mr Cunningham in the TV series Happy Days dies aged 83.

On This Day - 18th October

1865 - Former Prime Minister Lord Palmerston dies
1900 - Lotte Lenya born
1919 - Anita O'Day born
1921 - Jesse Helms born
1923 - Melina Mercouri born
1926 - Chuck Berry born
1927 - George C. Scott born
1935 - Peter Boyle born
1938 - Dawn Wells born
1939 - Lee Harvey Oswald and Mike Ditka born
1947 - Laura Nyro born
1951 - Pam Dawber born
1956 - Martina Navratilova born
1960 - Jean-Claude Van Damme born
1961 - Wynton Marsalis born
1963 - A Scottish Earl, Lord Home, wins a bitter contest for the leadership of the Conservative Party to become Britain's new prime minister.
1967 - The Soviet Union sends a space probe beneath the cloud cover around Venus for the first time.
1976 - The funeral of Mafia boss Carlo Gambino takes place in New York.
1989 - The Communist leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, is forced to step down as leader of the country after a series of health problems.
2000 - Liz Hurley has been greeted by protesters at the Los Angeles premiere of her new film Bedazzled.

On This Day - 17th October

1849 - Composer Chopin dies
1893 - Spring Byington born
1905 - Jean Arthur born
1915 - Arthur Miller born
1918 - Rita Hayworth born
1920 - Montgomery Clift born
1921 - Tom Poston born
1930 - Jimmy Breslin born
1938 - Evel Knievel born
1948 - George Wendt and Margot Kidder born
1950 - Howard Rollins born
1956 - The Queen opens the world's first full-scale nuclear power station, at Calder Hall in Cumberland
1958 - Alan Jackson born
1963 - Norm MacDonald born
1968 - Two black Americans make history at the Mexico Olympics with a silent protest against racial discrimination.
1971 - Chris Kirkpatrick born
1972 - Eminem and Wyclef Jean born
1978 - Public pressure leads ministers to reduce the number of grey seals to be culled in Scotland.
1980 - The Queen makes the first state visit to the Vatican by a British monarch and is received by the Pope and Nick Cannon born
1989 - San Francisco hit by a powerful earthquake. The final death toll of 63 was well below the 300 expected deaths. Over 3,500 people were injured and 100,000 buildings damaged
2000 - Four people are killed when a high speed passenger train derails in Hatfield, just north of London.