Underwater diving is the practice of descending below the water's surface to interact with the environment. Humans are not biologically adapted for deep diving, and must use special equipment to extend the depth and duration of their dives. In ambient pressure diving, with direct exposure to the pressure of the surrounding water, the diver can use breathing apparatus for scuba diving or surface-supplied diving. For repeated deep dives, divers can reduce the risk of decompression sickness by living in a pressurized environment on the surface to prevent pressurization and depressurization as they dive. Atmospheric diving suits may be used to isolate the diver from high ambient pressure. Diving activities are restricted to maximum depths of about 40 metres (130 ft) for recreational scuba diving, 530 metres (1,740 ft) for commercial saturation diving, and 610 metres (2,000 ft) if atmospheric suits are worn. The history of breath-hold diving goes back at least to classical times, and there is evidence of prehistoric hunting and gathering of seafoods that may have involved underwater swimming. (Full article...)

Blyth's kingfisher

• ... that the scientific name of the Blyth's kingfisher (pictured), which grows up to 23 centimetres (9 inches) long, derives from the Greek demigod Hercules?
• ... that in 2005 Atanasio Monserrate and two other ministers resigned from the Manohar Parrikar-led government, leaving it in a minority and thus prematurely bringing down the Government of Goa?
• ... that the Border Police of Georgia have continued to help enforce Georgian sovereignty over Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the end of the Russo-Georgian War?
• ... that larvae of the orange-tipped sea squirt are brooded, and settle on the seabed close to the parent within minutes of being released?
• ... that S. Sashikanth was an award-winning architect before launching his own film production company, Y NOT Studios?
• ... that even though he won the popular vote by a 51–48% margin, Samuel J. Tilden failed to win the U.S. presidency in 1876?
• ... that Eugene Reimer, who played wheelchair basketball with Terry Fox and Rick Hansen, was the first disabled athlete to receive the Order of Canada?
• ... that hall of fame horse Eternal Sun's owner purchased him with an IOU written on a corner torn from the page of the seller's catalog?

Kazuo Ishiguro

• Kazuo Ishiguro (pictured) is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling circadian rhythm.
• In the United States, 59 people are killed and 489 others are injured in a mass shooting at a concert near Las Vegas.
• Amidst a constitutional crisis, an independence referendum takes place in Catalonia, Spain.
• In Saudi Arabia, a decree by King Salman effectively removes a longstanding ban on women driving in the country.

October 8: Independence Day in Croatia (1991)

Gustav Mahler

• 1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Perryville, one of the bloodiest battles of the war, was fought in the Chaplin Hills west of Perryville, Kentucky.
• 1897 – Composer Gustav Mahler (pictured) was appointed the director of the Vienna Court Opera.
• 1952 – Three trains collided at Harrow & Wealdstone station in London killing 112 people and injuring 340.
• 1967 – Marxist revolutionary and guerrilla leader Che Guevara was captured near La Higuera, Bolivia.
• 1998 – A new airport for Oslo, Norway, opened at Gardermoen, replacing a smaller one at the same location that had served as a backup to the city's previous main airport at Fornebu.

William John Swainson (b. 1789) · Ellen Wilkinson (b. 1891) · Wendell Willkie (d. 1944)