October 1: Tunisia and Morocco join the Arab League. - NASA starts operations and replaces the NACA.

October 2: Guinea declares itself independent from France.

October 4: BOAC uses the new De Havilland Comet jets, to become the first airline to fly jet passenger services across the Atlantic.

October 9: Pope Pius XII dies.

October 11: Pioneer 1, the second and most successful of the 3 project Able space probes, becomes the first spacecraft launched by the newly formed NASA.

October 16: First broadcast of the long-running BBC Television children's programme Blue Peter.

October 19: Beginning of Great Chinese Famine.

October 21: The Life Peerages Act entitles women to sit in the British House of Lords for the first time. The Baronesses Swanborough (Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading) and Wooton (Barbara Wooton) are the first to take their seats.

October 26: First transatlantic flight of a Pan American World Airways Boeing 707.

October 28: Pope John XXIII succeeds Pope Pius XII as the 261st pope. (source: Wikipedia)