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South African jurist Navi Pillay is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Navanethem Pillay (Tamil: நவநீதம் பிள்ளை; née Naidoo; born, 23 September 1941) is a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. An Indian South African of Tamil origin, Pillay was the first non-white female judge of the High Court of South Africa. She has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2026 for her efforts to promote peace and international law.
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American software engineer Margaret Hamilton dies at the age of 90.
- Margaret Elaine Hamilton (née Heafield; August 17, 1936 – September 30, 2026) was an American computer scientist. She directed the Software Engineering Division at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, where she led the development of the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo Guidance Computer for the Apollo program. She later founded two software companies—Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986—both in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Francis Halzen is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in neutrino astronomy.
- Francis Louis Halzen (born 23 March 1944) is a Belgian-American physicist who has worked in both theoretical and experimental particle physics, including high-energy astrophysics. Born in Belgium, he was educated at the Catholic University of Leuven and worked as a scientific associate at CERN before moving to the United States, where he has been a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison since 1972. Since 2001 he has been the principal investigator and co-spokesperson of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, the world's largest neutrino detector, based at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. He received the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics "for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin."
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Henri B. Kagan and Kensō Soai are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.
- Henri Boris Kagan (born 15 December 1930) is a French chemist. He is currently an emeritus professor at the Université Paris-Saclay in France. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of asymmetric catalysis. His discoveries have had far-reaching impacts on the pharmaceutical industry.
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- Kensō Soai (硤合 憲三, Soai Kensō; born 3 May 1950) is a Japanese organic chemist, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Applied Chemistry at Tokyo University of Science.
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High school students in France and Belgium launch mass protests for better conditions, starting fires and causing 400 schools to be closed.
- Since 18 September 2026, a series of demonstrations and blockades by lycée students began in the Créteil academy in the suburbs of Paris, and have since spread across France and parts of Belgium.
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In motorsport, Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin win the World Rally Championship.
- The 2026 FIA World Rally Championship was the 54th season of the World Rally Championship, an international rallying series organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and WRC Promoter GmbH. Teams and crews competed for the World Rally Championships for Drivers, Co-drivers and Manufacturers. Crews were free to compete in cars complying with Groups Rally1 to Rally5 regulations; however, only manufacturers competing with Rally1 cars were eligible to score points in the manufacturers' championship. The championship began in January 2026 with the Monte Carlo Rally and was set to conclude in November 2026 with the Rally Saudi Arabia, until the event was removed due to the 2026 Iran war. The Rally Italia Sardegna subsequently became the season finale. The series was supported by the WRC2 and WRC3 categories at every round of the championship and by Junior WRC at selected events.
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In rugby league, the Super League Grand Final ends with Wakefield Trinity defeating the Warrington Wolves.
- The 2026 Super League Grand Final, named the 2026 Betfred Super League Grand Final for sponsorship reasons, was the 29th official Super League Grand Final and the championship-deciding rugby league game of the 2026 Super League season. The match was contested between Warrington Wolves and Wakefield Trinity at Old Trafford in Manchester, England, with Wakefield winning 23–10 to claim their first ever Super League title.
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Paramount Skydance completes its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal valued at $110 billion, becoming Skydance Corporation.
- On October 6, 2026, Paramount Skydance acquired Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) for $31 per share, valuing the company at $110.9 billion, and forming a combined entity known as Skydance Corporation. The acquisition was funded by the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners, with additional funding being provided by the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (which would go on to hold non-voting shares in the company).
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Iran war (ongoing)
- Since 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel have been at war with Iran and its regional allies. The war follows the Twelve-Day War in June 2025 and sporadic fighting during the Middle Eastern crisis sparked by the Gaza war (2023–present). Amid ongoing US–Iran negotiations regarding Iran's nuclear program, the war began when the US and Israel conducted hundreds of air strikes on targets across Iran, including strikes that assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei alongside several other Iranian officials.
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Russo-Ukrainian war (ongoing)
- On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the existing war between the two countries that began when Russia attacked Ukraine in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties. Russian troops
occupy roughly 20% of Ukraine. From a population of 41 million, about 8 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced and 6–7 million have fled the country, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II.
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