Today in History: October 8, the Great Chicago Fire breaks out

Today is Thursday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2026. There are 84 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Oct. 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire began; more than 300 people died and more than 17,000 structures were destroyed during the three-day blaze.

Also on this date:

In 1862, Union forces beat back a Confederate offensive in the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky's biggest and bloodiest engagement of the Civil War, leading to hundreds of casualties but ensuring the state would remain under Northern control.

In 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0.

In 1967, Bolivian forces wounded and captured guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who was attempting to spark a revolution in the South American country. He was executed the next day.

In 1997, scientists reported that NASA's Mars Pathfinder had yielded what could be the strongest evidence yet that Mars might once have been hospitable to life.

In 2002, a federal judge approved President George W. Bush’s request to reopen West Coast ports, ending a 10-day labor lockout that was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion a day.

In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake on the Pakistan-India border killed an estimated 86,000 people.

In 2016, Hurricane Matthew made landfall on the South Carolina coast, triggering heavy flooding and several deaths in the Carolinas only days after a devastating rampage through the Caribbean where it killed more than 500 people in Haiti alone and others elsewhere.

In 2022, an explosion caused the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia, damaging an important supply artery for the Kremlin’s war effort in southern Ukraine.

In 2024, two pioneers of artificial intelligence — Canadian John Hopfield and American Geoffrey Hinton — won the Nobel Prize in physics for helping create the building blocks of machine learning that is revolutionizing the way people work and live.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Paul Hogan is 87. Comedian Chevy Chase is 83. Author R.L. Stine is 83. Actor Sigourney Weaver is 77. Musician Robert “Kool” Bell (Kool & the Gang) is 76. Producer-director Edward Zwick is 74. NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott is 71. Comedian Darrell Hammond is 71. Actor Kim Wayans is 65. Gospel singer CeCe Winans is 62. Olympic gold medal swimmer Matt Biondi is 61. Actor Karyn Parsons is 60. Singer-producer Teddy Riley is 59. Actor Matt Damon is 56. Actor-TV host Nick Cannon is 46. Singer-songwriter Bruno Mars is 41. Actor Angus T. Jones is 33. Actor-singer Bella Thorne is 29. Actor Gordon Cormier is 17.