P. G. Wodehouse (15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humourists of the 20th century. His novels and short stories feature elaborate plots and a unique writing style based on a combination of very formal language, references to classical literature, and contemporary club-room slang. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public. They include the jolly gentleman of leisure Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood and moved to France in 1934 for tax reasons. In 1940 he was taken prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans and interned for nearly a year. After his release he made six broadcasts from German radio in Berlin. The talks were comic and apolitical, but they prompted anger and a threat of prosecution in Britain. He never returned to England, living from 1947 until his death in the US. (Full article...)

Spyridon Louis in 1896

• ... that Greek water-carrier Spyridon Louis (pictured) became a national hero as a result of winning the inaugural modern Olympic men's marathon?
• ... that Venezuelan political activist Rafaela Requesens was a flamenco dancer for fifteen years from the age of six?
• ... that the Harvard Graduate Students Union, a labor union representing 5,000 student workers at Harvard University, is affiliated with the United Automobile Workers?
• ... that the fee in excess of £2,000 paid by Blackburn Rovers in 1921 for the footballer Fergie Aitken was the record that Bury had received for a player?
• ... that Wandersong was one of the first GameMaker Studio titles to be released on the Nintendo Switch, along with Hyper Light Drifter and Undertale?
• ... that basketball player Trey Lewis transferred to Louisville with hopes of reaching the NCAA Tournament, but the team declared itself ineligible for the tournament after he joined?
• ... that Don Raimondo Viale was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations for assisting Jews who had escaped from the Borgo San Dalmazzo concentration camp?
• ... that Henry G. Hanks left Cleveland to join the California Gold Rush, only to end up selling paint and studying mineralogy?

Soyuz MS-10 launch

• Both crew members survive an emergency landing when Soyuz MS-10 suffers a booster failure shortly after launch (pictured) from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
• Hurricane Michael makes landfall in Florida, United States, as a Category 4 storm, killing 17 people after causing at least 15 deaths in Central America.
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases a report on actions urgently needed to confine global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).
• The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is awarded to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer for integrating climate change and technological innovation, respectively, into "long-run macroeconomic analysis".

October 15

Air India Boeing 747

• 1529 – The Siege of Vienna ended as the Austrians repelled the invading Turks, turning the tide against almost a century of conquest in Europe by the Ottoman Empire.
• 1888 – George Lusk, the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee in London, received a letter allegedly from Jack the Ripper.
• 1932 – Air India (modern aircraft pictured), the flag carrier airline of India, began operations under the name Tata Airlines.
• 1965 – Vietnam War protests: At an anti-war rally in New York City, David J. Miller burned his draft card, the first such act to result in arrest under a new amendment to the Selective Service Act.
• 2013 – A 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Bohol in the Philippines, resulting in 222 deaths.

Al-Mu'tamid (d. 892) · Dolores Jiménez y Muro (d. 1925) · Julia Yeomans (b. 1954)