■October 14, 1843 - Ole Ringness was born in Norway. He and his parents arrived in Texas in 1852 and eventually settled in a Bosque County Norwegian community. As the community's first mail carrier, Ole made a regular four-day round trip between Norman Hills, seven miles west of Clifton, and Fort Worth. In his work on the family farm, he observed a wheel of his wagon cup on the axle. As the wheel became more cupped, it moved larger amounts of mud. Thus he conceived the idea of a disc plow and disc harrow and made models of them in his father's blacksmith shop. On July 26, 1872, as he journeyed to Washington, D.C., to present his case for a patent on his inventions, he died under mysterious circumstances. The family never pursued a patent for his inventions, and similar farm equipment was patented by a plow company. A model of one of Ringness's three original disc plows is in the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin.
■October 15, 1943 - Texas native Ira Eaker was promoted from commander of the Eighth Air Force to assume command of both American air forces in England, the Eighth and the Ninth.
■October 17, 1839 - Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas, and his cabinet arrived in the new capital city of Austin.
■October 21, 1964 - Robert E. McKee, one of America's most important contractors, died in El Paso. He built the largest military center in Texas, Camp Bowie, near Brownwood, in a record time of 10 months.