Historical Events — October 5
Steve Jobs Dies a Day After the iPhone 4S Launch — 2011
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died at 56 at his Palo Alto home after a long fight with pancreatic cancer, one day after Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S and six weeks after he handed the CEO job to Tim Cook. Jobs had returned in 1997 to a company roughly 90 days from insolvency and left it worth about $350 billion, trading places with Exxon Mobil as the world's most valuable company. The succession worry proved misplaced: under Cook, Apple became the first U.S. company to top $1 trillion in 2018 and later passed $3 trillion.
Women of Paris March on Versailles Over Bread Prices — 1789
Thousands of Parisian market women, furious over the soaring price and scarcity of bread, marched 12 miles through the rain to Versailles, armed with kitchen knives, pikes and dragged cannon. Joined by the National Guard, the crowd invaded the palace and forced Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette back to Paris the next day, effectively making the royal family prisoners of the Revolution. It remains history's sharpest lesson in food inflation as a political accelerant.
Truman Delivers the First Televised White House Address — 1947
President Harry Truman went on TV from the White House for the first time, asking Americans to skip meat on Tuesdays, poultry and eggs on Thursdays, and save a slice of bread a day to free up grain for famine-stricken postwar Europe. He warned that American waste would also feed domestic inflation, and asked distillers to halt production for 60 days. Only about 44,000 U.S. homes had TV sets — most heard it on radio — and the conservation drive soon gave way to the Marshall Plan.
Barry Bonds Hits 71 and 72 to Break McGwire's Record — 2001
Barry Bonds took the Dodgers' Chan Ho Park deep in the first inning at Pac Bell Park for home run No. 71, breaking Mark McGwire's single-season record of 70 set just three years earlier, then hit No. 72 two innings later. He finished the season with 73, a mark that still stands. The record and the ball itself — No. 73 sold for $517,500 — became permanently entangled with baseball's steroid era after the BALCO investigation.
Dr. No and "Love Me Do" Debut on the Same Day — 1962
Britain got two cultural exports on a single Friday: Dr. No, the first James Bond film starring Sean Connery, premiered at the London Pavilion, and the Beatles released their debut single "Love Me Do" on Parlophone. Bond, made on a roughly $1 million budget, launched one of the highest-grossing film franchises ever, now owned by Amazon via its MGM deal. "Love Me Do" peaked at No. 17 in the U.K. — a modest start for the band that would lead the British Invasion 16 months later.