At 10:30 a.m. on October 15, 1997, a jet-black car shaped like a dart tore across Nevada’s Black Rock Desert and did something no wheeled vehicle had ever officially done: it went faster than sound. Twice, in opposite directions, within the mandatory one-hour window. The sonic booms rattled windows and set off car alarms in…
The Nightmare Before Christmas opened in limited release on October 13, 1993, four days after its premiere at the New York Film Festival and more than two weeks before its wide release on October 29. Disney distributed the stop-motion film through its Touchstone Pictures label instead of its own name, worried the gothic visuals —…
John Denver died on October 12, 1997, when the experimental Rutan Long-EZ aircraft he was flying ran out of fuel and crashed into Monterey Bay near Pacific Grove, California. He was 53 and had owned the plane only a few weeks. The NTSB later traced the crash to a fuel valve that had been relocated…
On October 8, 1995, Edgar Martinez hit an 11th-inning double down the left field line to score Joey Cora and Ken Griffey Jr., giving the Seattle Mariners a 6-5 win over the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the ALDS at the Kingdome. The hit, known forever as “The Double,” won the franchise’s first…
Elizabeth Taylor had been married seven times before, but nothing in her previous six weddings prepared the world for what happened at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch on October 6, 1991. The bride was 59. The groom, Larry Fortensky, was a 39-year-old construction worker she’d met in rehab. And the venue had a working Ferris wheel….
On October 4, 1990, Fox aired the pilot of Beverly Hills, 90210, the teen drama that turned a zip code into a 1990s cultural phenomenon.
On October 3, 1995, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in a verdict watched live by 150 million Americans. Here’s the full story of the Trial of the Century.
Cartoon Network launched at 12 p.m. ET on October 1, 1992, when Turner Broadcasting flipped the switch on the first 24-hour cable channel built entirely around animation. It ran on Ted Turner’s newly acquired Hanna-Barbera library plus the Warner Bros., MGM, and Popeye cartoons he controlled, reaching just 233 cable systems on day one. Betty…
Miles Davis died on September 28, 1991, at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California, at age 65. A stroke triggered by a furious reaction to a doctor’s suggestion that he get a tracheal tube put him into a coma he never woke from, following years of pneumonia, diabetes, and a hip wrecked by sickle…
On September 27, 1998, Mark McGwire hit his 69th and 70th home runs in the Cardinals’ regular-season finale against the Montreal Expos at Busch Stadium, closing out the wildest single season in baseball history. The 70th came in the seventh inning off rookie Carl Pavano, a line drive that cleared the left-field wall and put…
On September 24, 1991, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released their fifth album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, produced by Rick Rubin inside a Laurel Canyon house the band believed was haunted by Harry Houdini’s widow. It sold more than 13 million copies worldwide on the strength of “Under the Bridge” and “Give It Away,” turning…
On September 22, 1994, NBC aired the pilot episode of Friends at 8:30 p.m., introducing six mostly unknown actors as Monica, Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe. The show had already been rejected under two earlier titles, nearly lost Jennifer Aniston to a canceled CBS sitcom, and used an R.E.M. song instead of its own…
