Today is Thursday, Oct. 31, the 305th day of 2024. There are 61 days left in the year. This is Halloween.

On Oct. 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi, India’s Prime Minister for more than 15 years, was assassinated by two of her own security guards.

In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation making Nevada the 36th state, eight days before the presidential election.

In 1941, work was completed on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, begun in 1927.

In 1950, Earl Lloyd of the Washington Capitols became the first African-American to play in an NBA game; Lloyd would go on to play for nine seasons, winning an NBA championship in 1955 with the Syracuse Nationals.

In 1961, the body of Josef Stalin was removed from Lenin’s Tomb as part of the Soviet Union’s “de-Stalinization” drive.

In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990, bound from New York to Cairo, crashed off the Massachusetts coast, killing all 217 people aboard.

In 2005, President George W. Bush nominated Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

In 2011, the United Nations estimated that world population had reached seven billion people (world population is greater than eight billion today).