1901 - American nurse Jane Toppan is arrested, after autopsies of the Davies family found traces of poison. It is later revealed that she was a serial killer.
1917 - Max Meiser of Berlin sets the first rules for the game of handball.
1918 - The German High Sea fleet is grounded when sailors mutiny on the night to October 30.
1998 – American astronaut John Glenn becomes the oldest person in space.
1998 – A Turkish airliner with 39 people on board, flying from Adana to Ankara, is hijacked by Kurdish militants, demanding the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The pilot successfully lands in Ankara after tricking the militants into thinking that he was flying to Sofia, Bulgaria to refuel.
1999 – A tropical cyclone hits southern and eastern India, particularly affecting the state of Orissa. 10,000 people are estimated to have been killed and 1.5 million made homeless.
From 2001
2002 – A department store fire in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam kills at least 60 people and leaves around 100 missing.
2012 - After leaving a trail of destruction across the Caribbean, killing 67 people, Hurricane Sandy strikes the east coast of the United States, causing major flooding, and in some parts snowfall, to several Eastern and Great Lakes states as well as parts of southern Canada. New York City is among the major cities affected. At least 33 people are killed.