How many days and weeks until October 8th?

The Post Office Tower was opened by Harold Wilson on October 8th 1965, at 189 metres to the tip of its mast the tallest building in Britain and, for some years, the only modern building most Londoners could name. It carried microwave dishes for the trunk telephone network and a revolving restaurant that turned once every twenty-two minutes. It was nonetheless treated as an official secret for decades, an anomaly a Member of Parliament finally aired in the Commons in 1993 on the reasonable ground that the thing was visible from half of north London.

Britain’s worst peacetime rail accident had come thirteen years before. Three trains collided at Harrow and Wealdstone station on the morning of October 8th 1952, in the middle of the rush hour. One hundred and twelve people were killed and more than three hundred injured. The inquiry hastened the fitting of automatic warning systems across the network.

A fire that began on October 8th 1871 burned for two days through Chicago, destroyed more than three square miles of the city and left about a hundred thousand homeless. The cause was never established. The story about Mrs O’Leary’s cow was a newspaper invention, and the reporter who wrote it later admitted as much.

Sir Alfred Munnings, the Suffolk painter of horses and scourge of modern art, was born on October 8th 1878.

Born on October 8th: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Sir Alfred Munnings and Sigourney Weaver — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a October 8th birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — opal for the stone, Libra for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

October birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual October birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

View on Amazon

Libra constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Libra for a October 8th birthday.

View on Amazon

Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the October birthstone and the marigold — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

View on Amazon

Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on October 8th, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

View on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Availability and links were checked on 15 August 2026 and can change.