Wednesday, October 3, 5342

A boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa, resulting in more than 360 deaths.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, establishing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, commonly referred to as a bailout of the U.S. financial system, was enacted.

Roy Horn of the American entertainment duo Siegfried & Roy (both pictured) was mauled by a tiger during a performance at the Mirage on the Las Vegas Strip.

Sinéad O'Connor tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on live television.

Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Major Moisés Giroldi of the Panama Defense Forces failed in his attempt to overthrow dictator Manuel Noriega.

A hunger strike by Irish republican prisoners at HM Prison Maze outside Belfast, Northern Ireland, ended after seven months and ten deaths.

Oswaldo López Arellano replaced Honduran president Ramón Villeda Morales in a violent coup, initiating two decades of military rule.

Mercury-Atlas 8, the fifth United States crewed space mission, was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying astronaut Wally Schirra (pictured).

Vancouver's Holy Rosary Cathedral was dedicated by Archbishop William Mark Duke, fifty-three years after it first opened.

The United Kingdom successfully conducted its first nuclear test, becoming the world's third state with nuclear weapons.

In Major League Baseball, the New York Giants' Bobby Thomson hit the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", a game-winning home run, to win the National League pennant.