MONTGOMERY CLIFT, American actor was born on this date (d. 1966); Clift was an American Academy-award nominated actor. He was the great-grandson of Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General under President Abraham Lincoln, and the great-great grandson of Francis Preston Blair, a journalist and adviser to President Andrew Jackson, and Levi Woodbury, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Author Patricia Bosworth, who had total access to Clift's family and many persons who knew the actor and worked with him, writes in her book on Montgomery Clift, "Before the accident Monty had drifted into countless affairs with men and women. It suited his personality to have sex with a variety of partners. After the accident and his drug addiction became more serious, Monty was often impotent, and sex became less important to him. Bosworth asserts that his deepest commitments were emotional rather than sexual anyway, and reserved for old friends; he was unflinchingly loyal to men like Bill La Massena and women like Elizabeth Taylor, Libby Walker, Nancy Walker and Ann Lincoln."

Montgomery Clift died in 1966 at the age of 45 of a heart attack brought on by complications of his severe drug and alcohol addictions. He is interred in the Quaker Cemetery, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York.

ROB MARSHALL, American director, born; An American theater and film director and choreographer born in Wisconsin, Marshall is a six-time Tony nominee, Academy Award nominee, Golden Globe nominee and Emmy winner whose most noted work includes the 2002 film Chicago and the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret. He grew up in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Marshall is out Gay and lives in New York City with his long-time partner, John DeLuca, a stage director and choreographer.

HIJRA eunuchs in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh float the political party Jiti Jitayi. In the culture of the Indian subcontinent a hijra (also known by a number of different names and romanized spellings) is usually considered a member of "the third sex" — neither man nor woman.

Most are physically male or intersex, but some are female. Hijras usually refer to themselves as female at the language level, and usually dress as women. Census data does not exist, but estimates range from 50,000 to 5,000,000 in India alone. Although they are usually referred to in English as "eunuchs", relatively few have any genital modifications.

A third gender has existed in the subcontinent from the earliest records, and was clearly acknowledged in Vedic culture, throughout the history of Hinduism, as well as in the royal courts of Islamic rulers.

THE INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ERADICATION OF POVERTY is October 17. It was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1992 to be observed in the next year, 1993. But the first commemoration of the event took place in Paris, France in 1987. 100,000 people gathered on the Human Rights and Liberties Plaza at the Trocodéro to honor victims of poverty, hunger, violence and fear. The text engraved in the stone reads as follows: "Wherever men and women are condemned to live in extreme poverty, human rights are violated. To come together to ensure that these rights be respected is our solemn duty"