On This Day - 30th October

1735 - John Adams, second president of the US born.
1821 - Fyodor Dostoevsky born
1885 - Ezra Pound born
1893 - Charles Atlas born
1896 - Ruth Gordon born
1911 - Tom Horn Born
1932 - Louis Malle born
1935 - Robert Caro born
1937 - Claude Lelouch born
1939 - Grace Slick born
1942 - Battle of El Alamein ends in Allied victory
1945 - Henry Winkler born
1951 - Harry Hamlin born
1957 - The Government reveals details of plans to reform the House of Lords which include creating the first women life peerages.
1960 - Diego Armando Maradona born
1961 - Russia explodes biggest ever nuclear device provoking widespread anger from around the world.
1967 - Gavin Rossdale born
1981 - The secretary of the UK's pro-euthanasia group Exit is sentenced to two and a half years for aiding and abetting suicide.
1984 - Father Jerzy Popieluszko, an outspoken supporter of Poland's banned trade union, is found dead 11 days after he was kidnapped.
1991 - US President George Bush encourages Arabs and Israelis to "lay down the past" in his opening speech to the Middle East peace conference in Spain.

On This Day - 29th October

1891 - Fanny Brice born
1921 - Bill Mauldin born
1947 - Richard Dreyfuss born
1948 - Kate Jackson born
1971 - Winona Ryder born
1975 - General Franco's dictatorship is effectively ended with the announcement heir designate Prince Carlos will take over as provisional head of state.
1976 - The Duchess of Kent opens the Selby coalfield which is the first to be developed in 70 years.
1980 - Ben Foster born
1982 - Lindy Chamberlain is found guilty of the murder of her nine-week-old daughter after a jury dismisses her claim that a dingo took the baby.
1998 - The long-awaited report by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission accuses leading figures from across the political spectrum of human rights violations.
1999 - A massive cyclone sweeps through the state of Orissa in eastern India, killing an unknown number of people and leaving thousands homeless.
2003 - The Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, resigns after failing to win the backing of his fellow MPs.
2011 - The first and last presenter of 'Top of the Pops' Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile, OBE, KCSG dies aged 84.

On This Day - 28th October

1886 - The Statue of Liberty was 'unveiled'
1914 - Jonas Salk born
1927 - Cleo Laine born
1936 - Charlie Daniels born
1944 - Dennis Franz born
1955 - Bill Gates born
1962 - US President John F Kennedy welcomes Russia's announcement that it will dismantle its missiles based in Cuba and Daphne Zuniga born
1967 - Julia Roberts born
1974 - Sports Minister Denis Howell's wife and young son survive a bomb attack on their car and Joaquin Phoenix born
1979 - Chairman Hua Kuo-Feng, the first Chinese leader to visit Britain, is welcomed at Heathrow by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
1986 - A 24-year-old Essex man is sentenced to life for killing five members of his family, including his two young nephews.
2001 - Masked gunmen burst into a church in eastern Pakistan killing 18 people including children who were at prayer.

On This Day - 27th October

1728 - Captain James Cook born
1858 - Theodore Roosevelt born
1872 - Emily Post born
1904 - The New York Subway opens
1914 - Dylan Thomas born
1920 - Nanette Fabray born
1923 - Roy Lichtenstein born
1924 - Ruby Dee born
1939 - John Cleese born
1946 - Carrie Snodgress born
1950 - The British intelligence service searches for the missing atomic scientist Bruno Pontecorvo who disappeared seven weeks ago.
1967 - Scott Weiland born
1968 - An estimated 6,000 marchers demonstrating against the Vietnam War face up to police outside the US Embassy in London.
1977 - Jeremy Thorpe tells journalists he was not involved in a plot to kill former male model Norman Scott.
1978 - Four people are killed and four others seriously wounded after a gunman goes on a shooting spree in the Midlands
1982 - Three RUC officers investigating reports of a robbery in Lurgan die after a bomb explodes beneath their armoured police car.
1984 - Kelly Osbourne born

On This Day - 26th October

1911 - Mahalia Jackson born
1914 - Jackie Coogan born
1942 - Bob Hoskins born
1947 - Jaclyn Smith, Pat Sajak born and Hillary Rodham Clinton born
1951 - The Conservatives defeat Labour in the general election by a small majority making Winston Churchill prime minister for the second time.
1954 - Lauren Tewes born
1956 - The Hungarian Prime Minister, Imre Nagy, appeals for calm as demonstrators battle with Soviet troops.
1959 - The Soviet Union reveals the first pictures of the far side of the Moon.
1962 - Cary Elwes born
1979 - The President of South Korea, Park Chung Hee, is "accidentally" shot dead by the chief of his intelligence service, Kim Jea Kyu.
1994 - At a ceremony in the desert witnessed by US President Clinton, Jordan and Israel sign a peace agreement ending 46 years of war.
2000 - The long awaited report into the spread of BSE or "mad cow disease" and its fatal human equivalent, vCJD, criticises officials, scientists and government ministers.

On This Day - 25th October

1838 - Georges Bizet born
1881 - Pablo Picasso born
1892 - Leo G. Carroll born
1912 - Minnie Pearl born
1924 - Billy Barty born
1940 - Bobby Knight born
1941 - Helen Reddy born
1944 - Jon Anderson born
1963 - Tracy Nelson born
1964 - Zambia is the ninth African state to gain independence from the British crown.
1976 - The Queen has officially opened the National Theatre on the South Bank in London after years of delays.
1983 - American forces seize control of the Caribbean island of Grenada less than a week after a left-wing coup in which the prime minister, Maurice Bishop, was killed.
1984 - The EEC donates £1.8 million to help combat the famine in Ethiopia.
2001 - British Crime Survey reveals the chances of being a victim of crime are lowest for 20 years.

On This Day - 24th October

1904 - Moss Hart born
1924 - The Zinoviev Letter is published losing the Labour party the election that followed.
1929 - The Wall Street Stock Market crash
1930 - J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson born
1936 - David Nelson born
1939 - F. Murray Abraham born
1945 - Allies of World War II ratify the UN Charter at a ceremony in Washington DC.
1947 - Kevin Kline born
1979 - Ben Gillies born
1980 - Monica born
1981 - More than 250,000 people march through London to protest over the siting of nuclear missiles in the UK.
1983 - Civil servant Dennis Nilsen goes on trial accused of six murders and two attempted murders.
1986 - The UK government breaks off diplomatic relations with Syria following revelations of official complicity in Nezar Hindawi's plot to blow up an El Al airliner.
2001 - 11 people die after two lorries crash head-on and catch fire inside the Gotthard road tunnel in Switzerland.
2003 - The legendary supersonic aircraft, Concorde, makes its last commercial passenger flight amid emotional scenes at Heathrow airport