On October 18

Protests in Santiago that started 11 days prior escalated into open battle against the Chilean national police, forcing President Sebastián Piñera to declare a state of emergency.

Nihilism, the first professional runway show from the British designer Alexander McQueen, was staged in London.

At the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, American athlete Bob Beamon (pictured) achieved a distance of 8.90 m (29.2 ft) in the long jump event, setting a world record that stood for 23 years.

The Soviet space probe Venera 4 became the first spacecraft to perform direct in situ analysis of the environment of another planet (Venus).

The first cat in space, later known as Félicette, launched aboard a French Véronique rocket.

The Robert Burns Memorial Statue, the first public statue erected in New Brunswick, was dedicated in Fredericton.

Johannes Brahms (pictured) conducted the premiere of his Double Concerto, composed for violinist Joseph Joachim and cellist Robert Hausmann.

Renton defeated Kilmarnock 2–0 in the opening match of the inaugural Scottish Cup.

American Revolutionary War: In an act of retaliation against ports that supported Patriot activities in the early stages of the war, the Royal Navy destroyed what is now Portland, Maine.

The War of the Austrian Succession ended with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

Filipino sailors disembarked from the Manila galleon Nuestra Señora de Buena Esperanza in what is now Morro Bay, California, the first documented instance of Asians in the Americas.

The first recorded naval battle between Europeans and the Japanese occurred when a flotilla of samurai attacked two Portuguese trade vessels at the Battle of Fukuda Bay in Nagasaki.

The most significant earthquake to have occurred in Central Europe in recorded history destroyed Basel, Switzerland.

Byzantine–Norman wars: Robert Guiscard led an invasion of the Byzantine Empire, capturing Dyrrhachium in present-day Albania.

Pappus of Alexandria, one of the last great Greek mathematicians of antiquity, observed an eclipse that allowed historians to calculate the approximate dates of his life.