On This Day - 31st October

1632 - Jan Vermeer born
1795 - John Keats born
1860 - Juliette Low born
1887 - Chiang Kai-Shek born
1896 - Ethel Waters born
1912 - Dale Evans born
1922 - Barbara Bel Geddes born
1926 - Harry Houdini dies
1931 - Dan Rather born
1936 - Michael Landon born
1942 - David Ogden Stiers born
1947 - Deidre Hall born
1950 - John Candy and Jane Pauley born
1955 - Princess Margaret calls off her plans to marry divorced Group Captain Peter Townsend.
1961 - Peter Jackson and Larry Mullen born
1966 - Adam Horovitz born
1971 - A bomb explodes in the Post Office tower causing extensive damage but no injuries.
1984 - Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, is killed by two assassins believed to be her own bodyguards.
1997 - A Boston jury finds Louise Woodward, 19, guilty of second degree murder for killing the baby in her care.
2003 - Asia's longest-serving leader, the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, steps down after 22 years in power.

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

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.

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.