8th » Four major fires break out on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Holland, Michigan, and Manistee, Michigan including the Great Chicago Fire, and the much deadlier Peshtigo Fire.
10th » The Great Chicago Fire: Chicago burns after a barn accident. The fire lasts from October 8 to October 10.
Famous Birthdays on October in 1871
2nd » Cordell Hull, American captain, lawyer, and politician, 47th United States Secretary of State, Nobel Peace Prize e.g Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955)
2nd » Martha Brookes Hutcheson, American landscaper and author (d. 1959)
9th » Didak Buntić, Croatian monk and scholar (d. 1922)
9th » Georges Gauthier, Canadian archbishop (d. 1940)
11th » Johan Oscar Smith, Norwegian evangelist, founded the Brunstad Christian Church (d. 1943)
26th » Guillermo Kahlo, German-Mexican photographer (d. 1941)
30th » Buck Freeman, American baseball player (d. 1949)
30th » Paul Valéry, French poet and philosopher (d. 1945)
Famous Deaths for October 1871
4th » Sarel Cilliers, South African spiritual leader and preacher (b. 1801)
18th » Charles Babbage, English mathematician and engineer, invented the mechanical computer (b. 1791)
20th » Karl Christian Ulmann, Latvian-German theologian (b. 1793)