October 1: The Nazi German Majdanek concentration camp (Konzentrationslager Lublin) opens in occupied Poland on the outskirts of the town Lublin. Between October 1941 and July 1944 at least 200,000 people will be killed in the camp. - New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy becomes the Royal New Zealand Navy

October 2: Operation Typhoon begins as Germany launches an all-out offensive against Moscow.

October 7: John Curtin becomes the 14th Prime Minister of Australia.

October 8: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol.

October 11-October 12: Fire destroys a Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Fall River, Massachusetts, consuming 15,850 tons of rubber and causing a setback to the United States war effort.

October 15: British submarine HMS Torbay bombards the port of Apollonia, Cyrenaica, in Italian Libya.

Mid-October: First production P-38E Lightning fighter produced by Lockheed.

October 16: The Soviet government moves to Kuibyshev (modern Samara), but Stalin remains in Moscow.

October 17: The destroyer USS Kearny is torpedoed and damaged near Iceland, killing 11 sailors (the first American military casualties of the war).

October 18: General Hideki To-jo- becomes the 40th Prime Minister of Japan.

October 21: The Germans rampage in Yugoslavia, killing thousands of civilians.

October 23: Walt Disney's animated film Dumbo is released.

October 24: Franz von Werra disappears during a flight over the North Sea.

October 30: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.

October 31: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. - Last day of carving on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. (source: Wikipedia)