Nicolas Sarkozy hosted Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown and Silvio Berlusconi at the Élysée, joined by ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet, as the Fortis, Hypo Real Estate and Icelandic bank failures proved the U.S. credit crisis had gone global. The leaders pledged to stand behind systemically important banks but rejected an EU-wide bailout fund, leaving each capital to act alone — Berlin guaranteed all German private deposits the next day. Markets were unconvinced: on Monday the Dow broke below 10,000 for the first time since 2004 after falling as much as 800 points intraday.

The Soviet Union put Sputnik 1 into orbit from the Baikonur launch site — a 58 cm, 84 kg polished metal sphere that circled the Earth every 96 minutes, broadcasting a radio beep any ham operator could pick up. The shock to American confidence was immediate and expensive: Washington created ARPA (later DARPA) and NASA within a year and poured money into science education. The resulting defense and aerospace spending wave fueled a generation of tech companies and, via ARPANET, eventually the internet.

Under Pope Gregory XIII's reform, Thursday, October 4 was followed directly by Friday, October 15 in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Poland, erasing ten days to realign the calendar with the solar year. Protestant and Orthodox countries refused for decades or centuries, so Europe ran on two dates at once — a headache for merchants, bills of exchange and interest calculations. Britain held out until 1752, and its refusal to lose tax revenue from the skipped days is why the U.K. tax year still begins on April 6.

Johnny Podres shut out the Yankees 2-0 in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium, giving the Brooklyn Dodgers their first and only World Series title after losing to New York in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953. The key play came in the sixth, when Sandy Amorós made a sprinting catch of Yogi Berra's slicing fly down the left-field line and doubled Gil McDougald off first. The Daily News ran "This IS Next Year" on its back page — and two years later Walter O'Malley moved the franchise to Los Angeles.

Janis Joplin was found dead of a heroin overdose at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood, just 16 days after Jimi Hendrix died in London, while in the middle of recording her album Pearl. Released posthumously in January 1971, Pearl spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and "Me and Bobby McGee" became her only No. 1 single. Her death cemented the "27 Club" myth that later swept up Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse.