What Happened in October?

U.S. Vice President, Spiro T. Agnew, during President Richard Nixon Administration, resigns after pleading “no contest” to a charge of income tax evasion connected with kickbacks he received during his tenure as Maryland’s governor following months of maintaining his innocence.  Expand +

Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposes an embargo against the United States, in retaliation for the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military and to gain leverage in the post-war peace negotiations during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. More

The deportation order by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service of John Lennon's and his wife, Yoko Ono, is reversed by U.S. Federal Appeals Court judge, Chief Judge Irving Kaufman; allowing them to legally remain in the United States. Expand +

Palestinian militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked Lufthansa Flight 181. Boeing 737 carrying 86 passengers and five crew members. They demanded the release of 11 imprisoned members of the German Red Army Faction (RAF), an allied West German far-left militant group. Expand +

Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła of Poland was elected to be the 264th Pope; he assumed the name John Paul II and was the first non-Italian pontiff in 455 years. More

Park Chung Hee, the third president of South Korea, was assassinated by Kim Jae Kyu, head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, during a dinner at the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) safe house near the presidential compound in Jongno District, Seoul, South Korea.  Expand +

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gained independence from the UK on October 27, 1979. This date is celebrated as Independence Day, marking the nation's final step in a process that began with associate statehood in 1969 and continued after the collapse of the West Indies Federation.  Expand +

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is assassinated by Islamic extremists during a military parade in Cairo. His death lead to the disastrous war in Lebanon the following year, the creation of Hezbollah, and the seeds of al-Qaida. More

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announces that it has awarded the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize to Lech Walesa; a labor activist who helped form and lead communist Poland’s first independent trade union, Solidarity, from 1980 to 1990. Walesa became the first popularly elected president of Poland in 1990. View all Nobel Peace Prizes

On October 23, 1983, U.S. and French troops in Beirut were attacked by two suicide truck bombs during the Lebanese Civil War. The bombs exploded minutes apart. The first bomb struck the U.S. Marine barracks, killing 241 service members, and a second bomb hit the building housing French paratroopers, killing 58 soldiers.  Expand +

The United States invades Grenada, known as Operation Urgent Fury, in response to a coup. More

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) carries out a bombing in Brighton, England, targeting the Conservative Party conference. Although Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher survives, five people are killed in the attack.

An infant known as "Baby Fae" received a baboon's heart in an experimental transplant at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California by Dr. Leonard Bailey and his team. Despite the surgery's initial success, Baby Fae's body began to reject the baboon heart and she died 21 days after the transplant on November 15.  Expand +

Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India is assassinated by her own bodyguards and Sikh nationalists, purportedly to avenge the humiliation of Sikhs and the desecration of the Golden Temple during Operation Blue Star in June of that year.  Expand +

Four terrorists from the Arab Liberation Front, hijack the Italian cruise ship MS Achille Lauro shortly after it left Alexandria, Egypt. During the hijack the terrorists killed Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled American man who was in a wheelchair. More

The Iran-Contra scandal comes to light after a plane carrying weapons is shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinista regime. Eugene Hasenfus and ex US Marine and sole survivor of the plane crash, confessed that he was shipping military supplies into Nicaragua for use by the Contras, an anti-Sandinista force, allegedly run by the CIA.  Expand +

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 22.6 percent in a single trading session, a loss that remains the largest one-day stock market decline in history. Reaction of market distress sent global stock exchanges plummeting in a matter of hours. More

The 7.1 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake, also called the San Francisco Earthquake, strikes the Bay Area in California causing 63 deaths, nearly 3000 injuries and billions of Dollars of damage. It was the strongest earthquake to hit the area since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. More

The Hungarian Republic is officially declared, marking the end of Communist rule. More

Germany Day of Unity. Commemorates the Reunification of Germany which ended decades of division. More