■ The Pop Edition
October 25: Mets Win Game 6, Halloween Turns 48
Born On This Day
Katy Perry
1984 · TURNS 42
She started out as a Christian gospel singer named Katy Hudson before reinventing herself with a wig, a candy-colored aesthetic, and a run of number-one singles that made her one of the defining pop hitmakers of the early 2010s. She's since branched into TV judging and Vegas residencies without ever quite leaving the charts behind.
Chad Smith
1961 · TURNS 65
The Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer since 1988, he's the guy whose resemblance to Will Ferrell spawned an actual charity drum-off between the two. Beyond the internet gag, he's anchored a rhythm section that helped turn funk-punk into stadium rock.
Craig Robinson
1971 · TURNS 55
He spent years doing stand-up and Second City sketch work before landing Darryl Philbin on The Office, a role that let his deadpan warmth carry entire episodes. Hot Tub Time Machine and This Is the End followed, cementing him as a reliable comic anchor in ensemble casts.
Persia White
1972 · TURNS 54
Best known as Lynn Searcy on Girlfriends, the UPN comedy that ran eight seasons and became a touchstone for its portrayal of Black women's friendships. She's also released music as a singer-songwriter outside her acting career.
Zachery Ty Bryan
1981 · TURNS 45
He played oldest son Brad Taylor on Home Improvement for its entire eight-season run, growing up on screen alongside Tim Allen's sitcom dad. It remains the role that defines his career, a fixture of 1990s Tuesday nights.
Opening Weekend: Halloween
John Carpenter's Halloween made its first theatrical appearance on October 25, 1978, opening in Kansas City before spreading through the country over the following weeks — a rollout typical of low-budget horror in an era before wide simultaneous releases. Shot in about 21 days on a budget widely cited around $325,000, it introduced Michael Myers, a mask that cost less than two dollars, and a synth score Carpenter wrote himself.
Critics were slow to warm to it; some early reviews dismissed it as exploitation. Audiences disagreed, and word of mouth turned it into one of the most profitable independent films ever made relative to its budget. It didn't invent the slasher formula outright — Black Christmas and Psycho got there first — but it codified the rules that Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street would follow: a masked killer, a final girl, a holiday setting turned menacing.
Forty-eight years later, the franchise has survived reboots, timeline retcons, and at least three different continuities, and the original still gets a theatrical re-release most Octobers. Carpenter's score alone has outlived plenty of bigger movies.
The Moment: Game 6, 1986 World Series
On October 25, 1986, the Boston Red Sox were one out from their first championship since 1918, up 5-3 in the tenth inning at Shea Stadium against the New York Mets. Then came three straight singles, a wild pitch to tie it, and a slow ground ball from Mookie Wilson that skipped through Bill Buckner's legs at first base, scoring the winning run. The Red Sox lost the game and, two nights later, the series.
“A little roller up along first…”
— Vin Scully, calling the play
Buckner, a respected veteran with a long career and a bad ankle, became an unfair shorthand for Boston's misery for nearly two decades, the play looping endlessly on highlight reels every October. It fed the idea of a Red Sox curse that only got heavier with retelling, until the team finally broke through in 2004. Buckner himself eventually made peace with it publicly, throwing out a first pitch at Fenway to a standing ovation in 2008, but the ground ball itself remains one of the most replayed six seconds in sports television.
Meanwhile…
1968The Beatles' Hey Jude is in the fourth of its nine consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
1985October 25, 1985 is the exact date on Doc Brown's note in Back to the Future — the day Marty's whole ordeal in the DeLorean kicks off.
2001Microsoft releases Windows XP, the operating system that would stay on office desktops for well over a decade.
2002Jackass: The Movie opens in theaters, taking the MTV stunt show's chaos to the multiplex.
2013The Counselor, Ridley Scott's Cormac McCarthy-scripted thriller, opens wide.
1986The same Game 6 also gives us Vin Scully's call, still replayed every October as baseball's most famous heartbreak.