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British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky Television plc merge to form BSkyB as a result of massive losses.
The Morris worm, the first Internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant mainstream media attention, is launched from MIT.
Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and "The Wise Men" conclude that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.
The Cuban Adjustment Act comes into force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.
Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam war.
King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother Faisal.
South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.
Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the trial R v Penguin Books Ltd, the Lady Chatterley's Lover case.
The first section of the M1 motorway, the first inter-urban motorway in the United Kingdom, is opened between the present junctions 5 and 18, along with the M10 motorway and M45 motorway.
Quiz show scandals: Twenty One game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.
Canada in the Korean War: A platoon of The Royal Canadian Regiment defends a vital area against a full battalion of Chinese troops in the Battle of the Song-gok Spur. The engagement lasts into the early hours of November 3.
The Dutch-Indonesian Round Table Conference ends with the Netherlands agreeing to transfer sovereignty of the Dutch East Indies to the United States of Indonesia.
In California, designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden (and only) flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules (also known as the "Spruce Goose"), the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.
World War II: First day of Battle of Elaia-Kalamas between the Greeks and the Italians.
The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, "high-definition" (then defined as at least 200 lines) service. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.
In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast is the result of the United States presidential election, 1920.
The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, in charge of preparation and carrying out the Russian Revolution, holds its first meeting.
The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" with the clear understanding "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities".
World War I: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles are subsequently closed.
Bulgaria defeats the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Lule Burgas, the bloodiest battle of the First Balkan War, which opens her way to Constantinople.
The Boers begin their 118-day siege of British-held Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.
North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.
Plymouth Colony governor Josiah Winslow leads a colonial militia against the Narragansett during King Philip's War.
The Peace of Bicêtre suspends hostilities in the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War.
A qaghan of the Western Turkic Khaganate is assassinated in a Chinese palace by Eastern Turkic rivals after the approval of Tang emperor Gaozu.
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