5 Records Broken on Halloween (in the 1980s)

Halloween is a time to get your sugar fix and celebrate the spooky. Yet, there are other events that have taken place over the years on October 31. It so happens that many interesting records were broken that day in the 1980s. No, I’m not talking about the the kind of broken records that make your music skip and repeat. I’m talking about extraordinary events of their kind that were officially measured. Here are five remarkable records set on Halloween in the 1980s.

1980: Julian Nott Sets Hot-air Balloon Altitude Record

Julian Nott was a pioneer in the field of ballooning from Bristol, holding 79 world records. One of those was a balloon altitude record set on Halloween day, 1980 which stood for eight years. Nott, looking more like a fighter pilot than a balloonist, entered the composite plastic pressurized cabin of his hot air balloon. He then floated 55,130 feet above Longmont, Colorado. To put that into perspective, the maximum cruising altitude for commercial airplanes is around 42,000 feet. Nott was indeed flying high.

Image: National Air and Space Museum Archives.

Nott died in 2019 after sustaining injuries from a test flight of an experimental, high altitude balloon in California. Yet, his name lives on in the U.S. Ballooning Hall of Fame as one of the greatest trailblazers in the field.

Julian Nott talks about his experiences in ballooning in 2015.

1983: Ron Grant Runs Solo Around Australia

On Halloween, 1983, Ron Grant completed 8,316 mile, anticlockwise run around Australia. It took him 217 days, which is roughly seven and a quarter months. Ron started north from Brisbane, ran the circumference of Australia all the way to Brisbane maintaining an average of over 38 mile per day. While there had been others to make runs around Australia, Ron Grant was the first person to do it solo.

Sorry Forrest Gump. Ron Grant has you beat! Image: Runcive

For his achievement, Ron was awarded the Queensland Sportsman of the Year, Queenslander, and the Order of Australia. So, if you have a craving to win some regal-sounding awards, all you have to do is an equivalent of a coast to coast run in the United States… four times!

I couldn’t for the life of me, find a news video for this event. Thus, I present to you “I Ran (So Far Away)” by A Flock of Seagulls, which was released in March, 1982. Ron could very well have heard the song on his trek across Australia.

Ron ran so far away he ended back where he started!

1987: English Pair Ties Longest Singles Tennis Match

If you search around, you’ll find many references to the longest tennis match in 1987 going to Boris Becker and John McEnroe for their Davis Cup match on July 24. It lasted 6 hours 21 minutes, and was the longest professional match ever played at the time. However, on Halloween 1987, John Feaver and Keith Glass finally finished their amateur tennis match in Coventry, UK that lasted 80 hours and 21 minutes over 3 days! This tied the world record for the longest singles tennis match ever played.

Info, images and video about the amateur match seem pretty hard to come by. I could do more research… or I can present to you “Tennis Anyone” by Today from 1990.

You’re welcome.

1987: Jockey Chris Antley First to Win 9 Races in a Day

On the same day tennis records were being made, horse racer Chris W. Antley was making a record of his own. On Halloween day, 1987, Antley became the first rider to win nine races on nine individual horses in only one day! More accurately, the wins came in less than half a day. He won four times at Aqueduct in the afternoon and and five times at the Meadowlands at night.

Chris Antley wins… 9 times! Image: Paulick Report

What makes Chris’ wins more endearing is he was recovering from substance abuse. Chris shows that anyone can bounce back and be a winner. Sadly, he succumbed to his illness and died of an overdose in 2000. A film about Antley was produced by Asylum Entertainment made a film about Antley for ESPN's 30 for 30 series in 2011. Chris was honored with an induction into National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2015.

Chris Antley’s Racing Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

1988: Lowest Temperature Recorded in Cleveland’s History

Trick-or-treaters in Cleveland needed to bundle up on Halloween, 1988. Temperatures that day reach is 19 °F, the lowest temperature ever reached in Cleveland’s recorded history for October at the time.

Incidentally, the #1 song in the U.S. on October 31, 1988 was “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys. I can imagine many frosty Clevelanders listening to that song thinking, “that’s where we want to go… way down in Kokomo!”

What do you think the most impressive record on this list from 1980s Halloween is? Let me know in the comments below. With that, I leave you with this lyric:

“Miracles were made to come true and it happened today for me.”

— Chris Antley