Dubrovka Theater Hostage Crisis
About 50 Chechen rebels led by Movsar Barayev took over the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow during the performance of Nord-Ost, a musical. The rebels took about 850 hostages and demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya.

Apple announces the first iPod Player
The iPod is the world’s best-selling portable media player. Already 6 years after its initial launch, Apple announced that 100 million devices had been sold.

Swatch Announces Internet Time
The Swiss watch company invented a new unit of time called the .beat, which corresponds to 1 minute and 26.4 seconds. Under the Internet Time system, a day is divided into 1000 .beats.

Beirut Barracks Bombing
Two bombs exploded in front of American and French barracks during the Lebanese Civil War, killing about 300 French and American military personnel. Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the bombings.

Jean-Paul Sartre Turns Down Nobel Prize
The French existentialist philosopher and writer published a letter in the newspaper Le Figaro to explain why he did not want to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature he had been awarded the day before on October 22.