October 1969

[October 1], 1969 (Wednesday)

• Olof Palme was approved unanimously by the Riksdag to be the next Prime Minister of Sweden after Finance Minister Gunnar Sträng, a fellow member of Sweden's Social Democratic Workers Party, declined an attempt by conservative legislators to nominate a challenger to Palme. He would replace Tage Erlander as Prime Minister upon Erlander's retirement on October 14.
• The Beijing Subway began operation in a ceremony timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The original line was long and ran from the Beijing central railway station to the People's Liberation Army base at Fushouling.
• Born:
• *Zach Galifianakis, American comedian; in Wilkesboro, North Carolina
• *Marcus Stephen, President of Nauru from 2007 to 2011

  [October 2], 1969 (Thursday)

• A 1.2 megaton thermonuclear device was tested at Amchitka Island, Alaska. The test, codenamed Project Milrow, was a "calibration shot" to test if the island was fit for larger underground nuclear detonations.
• Born: Mitch English, American TV host; in Covington, Kentucky

  [October 3], 1969 (Friday)

• Twenty-four of the 30 legislators of West Germany's Free Democrats party voted to join in a coalition government with the 224 members of Willy Brandt's Social Democratic Party, only one short of the 249 that would be necessary for Brandt to become Chancellor on the first ballot of voting in the new Bundestag that would take office on October 20. The Free Democrat Party decision meant that, for the first time in West Germany's 20-year history, the Christian Democrats would no longer lead the government.
• The member nations of the International Monetary Fund voted overwhelmingly to approve the implementation of a "new form of manmade international money", special drawing rights, referred to as "paper gold". Under the plan, the IMF would distribute $9.5 billion dollars of credit over a three-year period to IMF members "in proportion to their economic importance" in order to facilitate trade between nations without an actual transfer of their gold reserves.
• Born: Gwen Stefani, American singer and three-time Grammy Award winner, frontwoman of No Doubt; in Fullerton, California

  [October 4], 1969 (Saturday)

• Diane Linkletter, the 21-year old daughter of popular TV show host Art Linkletter, died after falling or jumping from a window of her sixth floor apartment at the Shoreham Towers in West Hollywood. Diane had made regular appearances on her father's show during the 1968–69 season. The elder Linkletter attributed the death to his daughter's use of the hallucinogenic drug LSD, and told reporters, "It wasn't suicide, because she wasn't herself. It was murder. She was murdered by the people who manufacture and sell LSD." He clarified in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that Diane was already "somewhat emotional and dramatic", that she had confided in him that she had experimented with LSD five months earlier and had a bad experience, and that she apparently had taken the drug again hours before calling a friend and her brother to say that she was terrified. The tragedy would become part of an urban legend that, during the LSD trip, Diane had jumped because she "believed she could fly", and would be cited in debates over stricter controls over illicit drugs.
• Major League Baseball's first divisional playoffs began as the Minnesota Twins visited the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Mets visited the Atlanta Braves. The division of the National League and the American League into Eastern and Western Divisions was new for 1969. Previously, the AL's Orioles and the NL's Mets would have been the pennant winners without need for a playoff. Opening the best 3 games of 5 series, the Orioles won, 4–3, and the Mets 9–5.
• Died: Natalino Otto, 56, Italian big band leader, died after his second heart attack in two weeks.

  [October 5], 1969 (Sunday)

• The groundbreaking British comedy Monty Python's Flying Circus first aired, appearing on BBC One at 10:55 at night. The first show was described in the news as "Latest late-night show which will, we are warned, be 'nutty'."
• The Japanese TV manga program Sazae-san, certified by Guinness World Records as the world's longest-running animated television series premiered on Fuji Television. As of 2024, Sazae-san had been on the air for 55 years.

  [October 6], 1969 (Monday)

• In Chicago, a time bomb placed by the American anarchist organization Weather Underground, destroyed a statue that had been erected to commemorate the victims of the Haymarket Bombing that killed seven Chicago policemen on May 4, 1886. The statue of a 19th century policeman, located at the time on Randolph Street near the Kennedy Expressway, was broken in half by the blast and toppled from its pedestal. The 1969 bombing was the first of several blasts that would be carried out by the "Weathermen" against American governmental buildings, and was the opener of the "Days of Rage" that coincided with the trial of the "Chicago Seven", who were on trial for conspiracy to incite a riot during the Democratic National Convention in 1968. Nobody was injured, and the statue would be rebuilt, only to be bombed again on October 6, 1970.
• The Baltimore Orioles and the New York Mets clinched the championships of the American League and the National League, respectively, by winning the third games of their best-of-5 series. Both games were played in the afternoon, with the NL series starting at 1:00 in New York, and the AL series beginning 90 minutes later in Minnesota. The Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, 7–4, and the Orioles beat the Minnesota Twins, 11–2, to qualify both teams for the 1969 World Series, set to begin on October 11.
• Born:
• *Muhammad V of Kelantan, Sultan of Kelantan since 2010 and Malaysia's Head of State from 2016 to his abdication in 2019; in Kota Bharu
• *Ogün Temizkanoğlu, Turkish soccer football defender and national team member; in Hamm, West Germany
• Died: Walter Hagen, 76, American professional golfer who won the PGA Championship five times and the British Open four times during the 1920s, as well as the U.S. Open twice.

  [October 7], 1969 (Tuesday)

• A three-member military junta, that had governed Brazil since August 31, selected Army General Emílio Médici as the nation's new President. The three ministers of Brazil's Army, Navy and Air Force had governed the country since August 31 after President Artur da Costa e Silva had suffered a stroke. Medici would be sworn in on October 30 after Brazil's Congress was called back into session to give official approval to the appointment and to approve 58 amendments to the national constitution to legalize the military junta's actions.
• Born: DJ Qbert, American turntable DJ and composer; in San Francisco
• Died: Natalya Lisenko, 85, Russian-born French actress and wife of Ivan Mozzhukhin

  [October 8], 1969 (Wednesday)

• The rights to employ St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Curt Flood were traded to the Philadelphia Phillies as part of an exchange involving seven players. Flood, however, didn't want to leave St. Louis, where he had built a profitable business as a portrait painter. He announced first that he intended to retire from baseball but soon became the first player to challenge the nearly century long practice of teams trading players without the players' consent. Before the 1970 season was to begin, Flood would file an antitrust lawsuit that, while ultimately unsuccessful, would lead the way for the players to strike successfully for the right to free agency.
• The first public protests by the radical American Weather Underground organization began with the "Days of Rage" in Chicago, timed to coincide with the "Chicago Seven" trial of defendants people charged with inciting violence during the Democratic National Convention in 1968. The Illinois National Guard was called in the next day to control the violence. Shortly after 10:30 p.m., a speaker at Chicago's Lincoln Park told 600 assembled demonstrators to "tear down the Drake Hotel" and to "get" Judge Julius Hoffman, who was presiding over the federal trial.

  [October 9], 1969 (Thursday)

• The People's Republic of China announced that it would renounce further claims to territory that had been ceded to Russia during the past three centuries, including in the Treaty of Nerchinsk signed on August 27, 1689, between the Chinese Empire and the Russian Empire. "China does not demand the return of Chinese territory which Tsarist Russia annexed by means of unequal treaties," the government said in a 4,500-word statement, and added that the only request that it had was for the Soviets to concede that the treaties had been unfair. The declaration also brought an immediate end to the border wars that had been going on since March, with a return to the status quo by withdrawal of both nations' troops from each other's territory.
• The USSR made a partial change in its economic policy to allow employers the option to pay some workers more than others based on production. The move, which one British newspaper commented was "in effect, based on the capitalist policy of higher wages for better workers" and to allow managers to fire inefficient ones, was approved by the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party following the recommendations of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin.
• Born:
• *Steve McQueen, British film director and Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave; as Steven Rodney McQueen in London
• *Jun Akiyama, Japanese professional wrestler and President of All Japan Pro Wrestling; in Izumi, Osaka Prefecture
• *PJ Harvey, British singer and musician; in Bridport, Dorset
• Died: Don Hoak, 41, former third baseman of baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates died of a heart attack shortly after not being named the Pirates new manager, a job that he wanted to have. Hoak collapsed while driving his car, after giving chase to three young men who had stolen his brother-in-law's automobile.