Today in History

Protests break out in countries around the globe, under the slogan “United for Global Democracy.”

Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets 733.08 points, the second-largest percentage drop in the Dow’s history.

New Zealand police arrest 17 people believed to be part of a paramilitary training camp.

Prince Christian of Denmark, Count of Monpezat.

China launches its first manned space mission, Shenzhou I.

Andy Green of the UK becomes the first person to break the sound barrier in the Earth’s atmosphere, driving the ThrustSSC supersonic car to a record 763 mph (1,228 km/h).

Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the USSR, receives Nobel Peace Prize for his work in making his country more open and reducing Cold War tensions.

Canadian hockey player Wayne Gretzky makes his 1,851st goal, breaking the all-time scoring record in the National Hockey League.

The Great Storm of 1987 strikes the UK and Europe during the night of Oct 15-16, killing over 20 people and causing widespread damage.

Rallies for The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam draw over 2 million demonstrators across the US, a quarter million of them in the nation’s capital.

Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale establish the Black Panther Party, an African-American revolutionary socialist political group, in the US.

Nikita Khrushchev is replaced by Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the Soviet Union.

Princess Friederike of Hanover.

President Harry Truman meets with General Douglas MacArthur at Wake Island to discuss U.N. progress in the Korean War.

Vichy French Premier Pierre Laval is executed by a firing squad for his wartime collaboration with the Germans.

William David Trimble, Baron Trimble; British politician who served as First Minister of Northern Ireland (1998–2002); shared 1998 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement.

Penny Marshall, actress, producer, director; Laverne of Laverne & Shirley TV sitcom (1976-83); directed Big (1988), the first film directed by a woman to gross over $100 million in US box office receipts.

Odessa, a Russian port on the Black Sea which has been surrounded by German troops for several weeks, is evacuated by Russian troops.

Peter C. Doherty, veterinary surgeon, medical researcher; shared 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; named Australian of the Year 1997.

Evan Hunter, author, screenwriter; born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in 1952 and created the pen name Ed McBain in 1956. As Evan Hunter he wrote The Blackboard Jungle novel and the screenplay for The Birds; as Ed McBain he created the popular 87th Precinct series that became benchmarks of the police procedural mystery genre.

Lee Iacocca, engineer, businessman; assisted in designing Ford Mustang and Pinto; later, as CEO of Chrysler Corp., he is credited with saving Chrysler from extinction.

Italo Calvino, Italian novelist.

Mario Puzo, novelist and screenwriter best known for The Godfather.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Congress passes the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which labor leader Samuel Gompers calls “labor’s charter of freedom.” The act exempts unions from anti-trust laws; strikes, picketing and boycotting become legal; corporate interlocking directorates become illegal, as does setting prices which would effect a monopoly.

Torbjorn Oskar Caspersson, Swedish cytologist and geneticist.

John Kenneth Galbraith, economist, writer and diplomat.

C.P. Snow, novelist.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, is arrested for betraying military secrets to Germany.

An attempt to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kan., ends in disaster for the Dalton gang as four of the five outlaws are killed and Emmet Dalton is seriously wounded.

P.G. Wodehouse, novelist and playwright.

Victorio, feared leader of the Minbreno Apache, is killed by Mexican troops in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico.

Thomas A. Edison founds the Edison Electric Light Co.

For the second time, the Confederate submarine H L Hunley sinks during a practice dive in Charleston Harbor, this time drowning its inventor along with seven crew members.

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher and writer.

Helen Hunt Jackson, writer and poet.

During the land defeat of the British on the Thames River in Canada, the Indian chief Tecumseh, now a brigadier general with the British Army (War of 1812), is killed.

Francois Pilatre de Rozier makes the first manned flight in a hot air balloon. The first flight was let out to 82 feet, but over the next few days the altitude increased up to 6,500 feet.

The Gregorian (or New World) calendar is adopted in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal; and the preceding ten days are lost to history.

Ottoman armies under Suleiman end their siege of Vienna and head back to Belgrade.

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), Roman poet.