7.30pm (AEDT) – Cricket World Cup – Australia v India – Chennai, India

Start of Veterans Health Week (until 15 October)

International Lesbian Day

World Octopus Day

Birthdays for Paul Hogan (1939), Matt Damon (1970) and Bruno Mars (1980)

Anniversary of:
• America’s deadliest wildfire that claimed more than 1,200 lives in Peshtigo, Wisconsin (1871)
• the Second Opium War beginning that pitted the British and French Empires against the Qing dynasty of China (1856)
• the patenting of the microwave oven (1945)
• the release of John Lennon’s mega-hit Imagine (1971)