Today is Wednesday, October 8th, day 281 of 2025. There are 84 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On October 8, 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the Pakistan-India border, killing approximately 86,000 people.
Also on this day:
The Great Chicago Fire began in 1871; The three-day fire killed more than 300 people and destroyed more than 17,000 structures.
In 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game of the World Series when the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2–0.
In 1997, scientists reported that Mars Pathfinder provided perhaps the strongest evidence yet that Mars may once have been habitable.
In 2002, a federal judge approved President George W. Bush's request to reopen West Coast ports, ending a 10-day labor lockout that was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion a day.
In 2016, Donald Trump vowed to continue his campaign after many Republicans called on him to abandon his presidential bid following the release of a 2005 video in which he made lewd remarks about women and appeared to condone sexual assault.
In 2020, Michigan authorities said six men were charged with conspiring to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in response to what they saw as her “out-of-control power.”
In 2022, an explosion caused the partial collapse of a bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula to Russia, damaging an important supply artery for the Kremlin's military forces in southern Ukraine.
In 2024, two artificial intelligence pioneers—Canadian John Hopfield and American Geoffrey Hinton—won the Nobel Prize in Physics for helping create the building blocks of machine learning that will revolutionize the way people work and live.
Today's birthday people:
- Actor Paul Hogan is 86 years old.
- Civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson is 84 years old.
- Comedian Chevy Chase is 82 years old.
- Author R.L. Stine is 82 years old.
- Actress Sigourney Weaver is 76 years old.
- Musician Robert “Kool” Bell (Kool & the Gang) is 75 years old.
- Producer and director Edward Zwick is 73 years old.
- NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott is 70 years old.
- Comedian Darrell Hammond is 70 years old.
- Actor Kim Wayans is 64 years old.
- Gospel singer CeCe Winans is 61 years old.
- Olympic swimming champion Matt Biondi is 60 years old.
- Actress Caryn Parsons is 59 years old.
- Singer and producer Teddy Riley is 58 years old.
- Actor Matt Damon is 55 years old.
- Actor and TV presenter Nick Cannon is 45 years old.
- Singer-songwriter Bruno Mars is 40 years old.
- Actor Angus T. Jones is 32 years old.
- Actress and singer Bella Thorne is 28 years old.
