Historical Events
- Oct 2 Former US VP John C Breckinridge flees Kentucky
- Oct 6 Naval Engagement at Charleston, South Carolina, USS Flag vs BR Alert
- Oct 6 Revolt of Russian student shuts down university of Petersburg
- Oct 11 Battle of Dumfries, VA (Quantico Creek)
- Oct 12 Confederate ironclad Manassas attack Union's Richmond on Mississippi
- Oct 16 Confederacy starts selling postage stamps
- Oct 21 Battle of Balls Bluff, VA (Leesburg, Harrison's Island)
- Oct 22 1st telegraph line linking West & East coasts completed
- Oct 24 First US transcontinental telegram is sent (from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.)
- Oct 24 West Virginia secedes from Virginia
- Oct 25 First Battle of Springfield [Zagonyi's Charge], fought in Springfield, Missouri, Union victory (US Civil War)
- Oct 25 Telegraph message sent from St Louis to San Francisco
- Oct 25 Toronto Stock Exchange created
Pony Express Ends
Oct 26 Pony Express (Missouri to California) ends after 19 months
Famous Birthdays
- Oct 4 Frederic Remington, American artist and sculptor of American West, born in Canton, New York (d. 1909)
- Oct 4 João Marcelino Arroio, Portuguese composer (Amor de Perdiçâo), born in Porto, Portugal (d. 1930)
- Oct 8 Theodore Roberts, American actor (Roaring Road, 10 Commandments), born in San Francisco, California (d. 1928)
Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930)
Oct 10 Norwegian Arctic explorer and advocate for refugees (Nobel Peace Prize 1922), born in Store Frøen, Christiania
Richard Sears (1861-1943)
Oct 26 American tennis player (US Nat C'ship 1881-87), born in Boston, Massachusetts
Famous Deaths
- Oct 5 Antoni Melchior Fijałkowski, Polish bishop (b. 1778)
- Oct 6 Elias Canneman, liberal minister of Finance (1813-14), dies at 84
- Oct 21 Edward Dickinson Baker, British-American attorney, politician (US Senator from Oregon, 1860-61; US Representative from Illinois, 1845-47, 1849-51), and Union Army officer, dies in the US Civil War Battle of Balls Bluff, Virginia at 50
- Oct 21 John Breckinridge Grayson, Confederate brigadier general, dies
- Oct 25 Friedrich Carl von Savigny, German jurist and legal scholar (historical school of jurisprudence), dies at 82
