2016: A Fairchild Merlin airliner on a French surveillance mission crashes in Kirkop, Malta, killing all five people on board.
2015: A driver, arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence (DUI), crashes into the Oklahoma State Homecoming parade in Stillwater, Oklahoma, killing four people and injuring 34.
2008: "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.
1990: Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti reveals to the Italian parliament the existence of Gladio, the Italian "stay-behind" clandestine paramilitary NATO army, which was implicated in false flag terrorist attacks implicating communists and anarchists as part of the strategy of tension from the late 1960s to early 1980s.
1986: Nezar Hindawi is sentenced to 45 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down by a British court, for the attempted bombing on an El Al flight at Heathrow Airport. After the verdict, the United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, claiming that Hindawi is helped by Syrian officials.
1980: The government of Poland legalizes the Solidarity trade union.
1977: Veterans Day is observed on the fourth Monday in October for the seventh and last time. (The holiday is once again observed on November 11 beginning the following year.)
1975: In Iceland, 90% of women take part in a national strike, refusing to work in protest of gaps in gender equality.
1964: Northern Rhodesia gains independence from the United Kingdom and becomes the Republic of Zambia (Southern Rhodesia remained a colony until the next year, with the Unilateral Declaration of Independence).
1963: An oxygen leak from an R-9 missile at the Baikonur Cosmodrome triggers a fire that kills seven people.
1960: Nedelin catastrophe: An R-16 ballistic missile explodes on the launch pad at the Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome space facility, killing over 100. Among the dead is Field Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death is reported to have occurred in a plane crash.
1926: Harry Houdini's last performance takes place at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit.
1917: Bolshevik Red Guards began takeover of buildings in Russia, among the first events associated with the October Revolution.
1917: Battle of Caporetto; Italy suffers a catastrophic defeat by the forces of Austria-Hungary and Germany on the Austro-Italian front of World War I (lasts until 19 November - also called Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo).