AP US History This Day in American History October – Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd is shot by FBI agents in a cornfield in East Liverpool, Ohio. Floyd, who had been a hotly pursued fugitive for four years, used his last breath to deny his involvement in the infamous Kansas City Massacre, in which four officers were shot to death at a train station. He died shortly thereafter.

AP US History This Day in American History October – In a televised speech of extraordinary gravity, President John F. Kennedy announces that U.S. spy planes have discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba. These missile sites—under construction but nearing completion—housed medium-range missiles capable of striking a number of major cities in the United States, including Washington, D.C.

AP US History This Day in American History October – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Highway Beautification Act, which attempts to limit billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising, as well as with junkyards and other unsightly roadside messes, along America's interstate highways. The act also encouraged "scenic enhancement" by funding local efforts to clean up and landscape the green spaces on either side of the roadways.

AP US History This Day in American History October Red Barber—the legendary announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers, with a voice that one sportswriter called "a spoonful of sugar drifting through a glass of iced tea"—dies. He was 84 years old. In an era when almost every major league baseball team had a distinct voice—Mel Allen for the Yankees, Curt Gowdy for the Red Sox, Harry Caray for the Cards—Barber’s erudite- but-homespun Mississippi twang was the Dodgers.