Dashed left edge = started before October 2024 ·
Dashed right edge = ongoing beyond October 2024
Events in October 2024 27
1928 – 2024Ethel Kennedy (1928-2024)Died 10 October 2024, aged 96American advocate for social justice and human rights, widow of Robert F. Kennedy.
1928 – 2024Gustavo Gutierrez (1928-2024)Died 22 October 2024, aged 96Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest regarded as the father of liberation theology.
1928 – 2024Bruce Ames (1928-2024)Died 5 October 2024, aged 95American biochemist who developed the Ames test for chemical mutagens.
1930 – 2024Leon N. Cooper (1930-2024)Died 23 October 2024, aged 94American physicist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for Physics for the BCS theory of superconductivity.
1931 – 2024Mitzi Gaynor (1931-2024)American actress, singer and dancer, star of South Pacific.
1932 – 2024Robert Coover (1932-2024)Died 5 October 2024, aged 92American writer of avant-garde fiction whose experimental forms mixed reality and illusion.
1934 – 2024Fleur Adcock (1934-2024)Died 10 October 2024, aged 90New Zealand-born British poet of tranquil domestic lyrics cut with irony and the macabre.
1937 – 2024Ratan Tata (1937-2024)Died 9 October 2024, aged 86Indian businessman who led the Tata Group for two decades, admired as much for his ethics and philanthropy as for the acquisitions that made Tata global.
1938 – 2024Lilly Ledbetter (1938-2024)Died 12 October 2024, aged 86American activist whose equal-pay lawsuit led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.
1940 – 2024Luis Tiant (1940-2024)Died 8 October 2024, aged 83Cuban-born pitcher who won more major league games than any other Cuban player.
1940 – 2024Phil Lesh (1940-2024)Died 25 October 2024, aged 84American bassist and founding member of the Grateful Dead.
1941 – 2024Fethullah Gulen (1941-2024)Died 20 October 2024, aged 83Turkish Islamic scholar and leader of the Hizmet movement, accused by Ankara of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt.
1944 – 2024Teri Garr (1944-2024)Died 29 October 2024, aged 79American comic actress of Young Frankenstein, Mr Mom and Tootsie, for which she was Oscar-nominated.
1954 – 2024Alex Salmond (1954-2024)Died 12 October 2024, aged 69Scottish politician who was first minister of Scotland and led the 2014 independence campaign.
1960 – 2024Fernando Valenzuela (1960-2024)Died 22 October 2024, aged 63Mexican pitcher whose 1981 rookie season with the Los Angeles Dodgers set off Fernandomania.
1962 – 2024Yahya Sinwar (1962-2024)Died 16 October 2024, aged 61De facto leader of Hamas from 2017 and considered a principal architect of the 7 October 2023 attacks. He was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
1993 – 2024Liam Payne (1993-2024)Died 16 October 2024, aged 31English singer and member of One Direction, one of the best-selling boy bands of all time.
2024All 14 True Summits Without Supplementary OxygenCompleted all fourteen true summits without supplementary oxygen in two years and 150 days, adding another extraordinary achievement to his record.
2024Hurricane Helene ReliefDonated $2 million — $1 million personally and $1 million through her businesses and the Dollywood Foundation — to relief efforts following Hurricane Helene's devastation of her home region in east Tennessee.
2024Iran fires 180 ballistic missiles at IsraelA second direct Iranian attackIran launched around 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on 1 October 2024, its second direct attack of the year, in response to Israeli operations against Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.
2024Nobel Prize in Physics awarded for machine learningJohn Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton honoured for neural networksThe 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded on 8 October to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for foundational discoveries enabling machine learning with artificial neural networks.
2024Hurricane Milton strikes FloridaA rapid intensification to Category 5 in the GulfHurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, on 9 October 2024, two weeks after Helene. It had intensified to Category 5 over the Gulf before weakening at landfall.
2024Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded for protein structureDavid Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper honouredThe 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced on 9 October, going to David Baker for computational protein design and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for AlphaFold's prediction of protein structures.
2024SpaceX catches a Starship booster with the launch towerMechanical arms grip the returning Super HeavySpaceX caught the Super Heavy booster of Starship in the arms of its launch tower on 13 October 2024, the first time an orbital-class booster had been recovered this way.
2024Mitzi Gaynor dies in Los AngelesMitzi Gaynor dies aged 93.
2024Plays alongside son BronnyLeBron and Bronny James become the first active father-son duo in NBA history when they take the court together for the Lakers, fulfilling a long-stated career goal.
2024Catastrophic floods hit ValenciaMore than 220 killed in hours of rainfallTorrential rain caused catastrophic flash flooding around Valencia on 29 October 2024, killing more than 220 people in Spain's deadliest natural disaster in decades.