World-renowned escapologist Harry Houdini performed his final show in Detroit while suffering from appendicitis.

She continued making exhibition flights until 1916, earning her the nickname the ‘Tomboy of the Air’.

The Greenwich Meridian became the international standard for zero degrees longitude, ensuring continuity with most existing nautical charts.

In October 1921 Harding travelled to Alabama. Here he expressed his support for anti-lynching laws that would hold counties responsible for the illegal hangings, and lodge federal murder cases against the participants.

Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backing singer Cassie Gaines were all killed in the crash.

Set in the distant future where books are outlawed, the story focuses on Guy Montag whose job as a fireman sees him burn houses that are found to contain books.

Although ridiculed shortly afterwards as ‘Seward’s Folly’, the Alaska Purchase has since been reinterpreted as one of President Andrew Johnson’s greatest achievements.

On the 17th October 1814 eight people were killed when nearly one and a half million litres of beer swept out of London’s Horse Shoe Brewery and formed an alcoholic tidal wave that swept down…

The first well-publicised public demonstration of inhaled ether anaesthesia was given at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

In the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and the killing of unarmed black teen Matthew Johnson by police the following year, the two men established the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

A U-2 spy plane captured images of the construction of a missile site on Cuba, triggering the Cuban Missile Crisis.

On the 13th October AD 54, the Roman Emperor Claudius died, supposedly after being poisoned.

An iron lung respirator was used for the first time at Boston Children’s Hospital.

On the 11th October 1521, Pope Leo X granted the title “Defender of the Faith” to King Henry VIII of England.