October 7

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  1719: Mathematician Pierre Raymond de Montmort dies. He wrote Essay d'analyse sur les jeux de hazard, an influential book about probability and games of chance which introduced the combinatorial study of derangements.

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  1796: Mathematician and philosopher Thomas Reid dies. Reid believed that common sense (in a special philosophical sense of sensus communis) is, or at least should be, at the foundation of all philosophical inquiry, justifying our belief that there is an external world.

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  1885: Physicist and philosopher Niels Bohr born. He will make foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he will receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.

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  1919: Computer scientist and academic Henriette Avram born. She will develope the MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) format, the international data standard for bibliographic and holdings information in libraries.

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  1995: Mathematician and academic Olga Taussky-Todd dies. She contributed to matrix theory (in particular the computational stability of complex matrices), algebraic number theory, group theory, and numerical analysis.

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  2008: Asteroid 2008 TC3 entered Earth's atmosphere and exploded at an estimated 37 kilometers (23 mi) above the Nubian Desert in Sudan. It was the first time that an asteroid impact had been predicted before its entry into the atmosphere as a meteor.

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  2017: The Worcester Lunch Car Company's Research Division demonstrates advanced Flying Diner technology, including a new dinner menu.