Oral Polio Vaccine October 6, 1956 Dr. Albert Sabin announces his oral polio vaccine (OPV) was ready for wide-scale testing. It was administered by sugar cube, as opposed to Jonas Salk's polio vaccine that was administered by injection. By 1961, Sabin's OPV had been tested on at least 100 million people in the USSR, pa...

"Grizzly Man" Comes to a Grizzly End October 5, 2003 American environmentalist Timothy Treadwell, known as the "Grizzly Man," and his girlfriend are killed and eaten by a bear while camping among the grizzlies. He had lived among the grizzly bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska for 13 summers. Th...

Hinckley Stalks Carter October 2, 1980 John Hinckley, Jr. manages to get within 6 feet of U.S. President Jimmy Carter at a campaign event in Dayton, Ohio. A week later, he was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee on a weapons charge. Carter was in Nashville campaigning at the time. It is believed Hinckley intended to assas...

Playboy October 1, 1953 Playboy magazine is founded by Hugh Hefner. Its premiere issue hit the stands in December, featuring Marilyn Monroe from a photo shoot she did in the nude in 1949 when she was still a struggling actress. The first issue was produced in Hefner's kitchen with $8,000 he raised from friends, includi...

Cheers September 30, 1982 The TV show Cheers debuts on NBC. "Where Everybody Knows Your Name." Cheers was almost canceled during its first season where it ranked near the bottom in ratings, but eventually developed a following and became the #1 sitcom and one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. John Ratz...