On October 31

An Uzbek immigrant drove a rented truck into cyclists and runners in Lower Manhattan, New York City, killing eight people.

The discovery of the Plutonian moons Nix and Hydra, based on photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope nearly five months prior, was announced.

After 22 years in power, Mahathir Mohamad retired as Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Singapore Airlines Flight 006 collided with construction equipment while attempting to take off from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taiwan during heavy rain, killing 83 people aboard.

Australian sailor Jesse Martin arrived in Melbourne, becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo, non-stop, and unassisted.

All 217 people on board EgyptAir Flight 990 perished when the aircraft suddenly crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts.

TG4, the world's first Irish language television station, began broadcasting.

Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her own Sikh bodyguards, sparking riots that killed thousands of Sikhs.

Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members escaped from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin aboard a hijacked helicopter that landed in the prison's exercise yard.

A gas explosion at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum in Indianapolis killed 81 people and injured about 400 others.

A gas explosion at the

Approximately 400 workers completed the 60-foot (18 m) busts of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

100 crew members of the USS Reuben James (pictured) perished when their vessel became the first U.S. Navy ship sunk by hostile action during World War II after it was torpedoed by the German submarine U-552.

World War I: Allied forces defeated Turkish troops in Beersheba in Southern Palestine at the Battle of Beersheba, with the battle involving one of the last successful cavalry charges.

Public-transportation workers in Indianapolis went on strike (pictured), shutting down mass transit in the city.

Martin Luther (pictured) posted his Ninety-five Theses onto the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

Romulus Augustulus took the throne as the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire.