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

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Today is Wednesday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2025. 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 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 1997, scientists reported the 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, Donald Trump vowed to continue his campaign after many Republicans called on him to abandon his presidential bid in the wake of the release of a 2005 video in which he made lewd remarks about women and appeared to condone sexual assault.

In 2020, authorities in Michigan said six men had been charged with conspiring to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in reaction to what they viewed as her “uncontrolled power.”

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 86. Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson is 84. Comedian Chevy Chase is 82. Author R.L. Stine is 82. Actor Sigourney Weaver is 76. Musician Robert “Kool” Bell (Kool & the Gang) is 75. Producer-director Edward Zwick is 73. NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott is 70. Comedian Darrell Hammond is 70. Actor Kim Wayans is 64. Gospel singer CeCe Winans is 61. Olympic gold medal swimmer Matt Biondi is 60. Actor Karyn Parsons is 59. Singer-producer Teddy Riley is 58. Actor Matt Damon is 55. Actor-TV host Nick Cannon is 45. Singer-songwriter Bruno Mars is 40. Actor Angus T. Jones is 32. Actor-singer Bella Thorne is 28.