October 21
1797 - Launching of USS Constitution at the Hartts Boston shipyard, Boston, Massachusetts. The ship is now the oldest commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy.
1942 - British submarine lands CAPT Jerauld Wright, USN and four Army officers at Cherchel, French North Africa, to meet with a French military delegation to learn the French attitude toward future Allied landings.
1944 - Leyte Landings continue.
October 22
1846 - Miss Lavinia Fanning Watson of Philadelphia christens the sloop-of-war Germantown, the first U.S. Navy ship sponsored by a woman.
1951 - First of seven detonations, Operation Buster-Jangle nuclear test.
1962 - President John F. Kennedy orders surface blockade (quarantine) of Cuba to prevent Soviet offensive weapons from reaching Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
October 23
1944 - Battle of Leyte Gulf, a series of separate battles, begins with attacks on Japanese ships.
1983 - A suicide truck bomber attacks the Marine barracks at Beirut airport, Lebanon killing 241 (220 Marines, 18 Sailors, and 3 soldiers)
1983 - Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada, West Indies) begins.