GMT 10/8/2017

1871 The Great Chicago Fire begins in southwest Chicago, possibly in a barn owned by Patrick and Katherine O'Leary. Fanned by strong southwesterly winds, the flames raged for more than 24 hours, eventually leveling three and a half square miles and wiping out one-third of the city. Approximately 250 people were killed in the fire; 98,500 people were left homeless; 17,450 buildings were destroyed.

1897 Journalist Charles Henry Dow, founder of the Wall Street Journal, begins charting trends of stocks and bonds.

1900 Maximilian Harden is sentenced to six months in prison for publishing an article critical of the German Kaiser.

1906 Karl Ludwig Nessler first demonstrates a machine in London that puts permenant waves in hair. The client wears a dozen brass curlers, each wearing two pounds, for the six-hour process.

1912 First Balkan War begins as Montenegro declares war against the Ottoman Empire.

1918 US Army corporal Alvin C. York kills 28 German soldiers and captures 132 in the Argonne Forest; promoted to sergeant and awarded US Medal of Honor and French Croix de Guerre.

1919The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives pass the Volstead Prohibition Enforcement Bill.(bad hair day for drunks)

1921 First live radio broadcast of a football game; Harold W. Arlin was the announcer when KDKA of Pittsburgh broadcast live from Forbes Field as the University of Pittsburgh beat West Virginia University 21–13.

1922 Lilian Gatlin becomes the first woman pilot to fly across the United States.

1932 Indian Air Force established.

1939 Nazi Germany annexes Western Poland.

1956 Don Larsen of the New York Yankees pitches the first perfect game in World Series history against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1967 Guerrilla Che Guevara captured in Bolivia.

1968 U.S. forces in Vietnam launch Operation SEALORDS (South East Asia Lake, Ocean, River and Delta Strategy), an attack on communist supply lines and base areas in and around the Mekong Delta.

1969 The "Days of Rage" begin in Chicago; the Weathermen faction of the Students for a Democratic Society initiate 3 days of violent antiwar protests.

1973 In the Yom Kippur War an Israeli armored brigade makes an unsuccessful attack on Egyptian positions on the Israeli side of the Suez Canal.

1978 Ken Warby of Australia sets the world water speed record, 317.60 mph, at Blowering Dam in Australia; no other human has yet (2013) exceeded 300 mph on water and survived.

1982 The musical Cats begins a run of nearly 18 years on Broadway.

1991 Croatia votes to sever its ties with Yugoslavia.

2001 US President George W. Bush establishes the Office of Homeland Security.





Born on October 8


1949 Sigourney Weaver, actress; (Aliens film series, Gorillas in the Mist).