1. On October 3, 1895, the town of Raton in northern New Mexico was incorporated. Raton, which is located near the Colorado border, was founded as a railroad town and its economy still relies heavily on the transportation industry today.

2. In 1930, the University of New Mexico's football team played its first game at University Stadium in Albuquerque on October 3. The game was against the University of Colorado and the final score was 0-0.

3. In 1943, the first class of Women's Army Corps (WAC) officers graduated from the WAC Training Center at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Among the graduates were 34 women from New Mexico, including Margaret T. Gonzales from Albuquerque, who would go on to serve in the Pacific theater during World War II.

4. On October 3, 1959, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta held its first event at a small field in the city's Eastside neighborhood. The event has since grown to become the largest balloon festival in the world, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

5. In 1984, the Roswell Incident became a topic of discussion in the New Mexico State Legislature on October 3. State Representative Joe Stell from Carlsbad introduced a resolution to recognize the 37th anniversary of the alleged crash of an unidentified flying object in Roswell, New Mexico. The resolution did not pass, but it helped to bring wider attention to the incident in the years that followed.