October Surprise History: 5 Last-Minute Events That Affected Past Presidential Elections

Election Day is about a month away, and that means there's still time for more chaos and drama to hit the race.

As if the fight between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump wasn't providing enough headlines, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised Tuesday to leak "significant" data about the candidates. Is an October surprise coming?

October surprises are events or news — often from the opposition — timed to drop just before a big election. While you wait to see what will happen this month, check out October surprises from years past.

1968: Perhaps the first October surprise came in the election between Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey, when then-President Lyndon B. Johnson stopped bombing in North Vietnam on Halloween in an attempt to win back Democratic voters upset with the war, according to Mental Floss. Nixon still won, but the election was tighter than predicted.

1972: On Oct. 26, just before Nixon took on Democrat George McGovern, national security adviser Henry Kissinger said that "peace is at hand" in Vietnam. McGovern said the statement was untrue and the move was "cruel political deception" by the president's administration, according to Politico. Nixon won anyway.

1980: Democrat and President Jimmy Carter was up against Republican Ronald Reagan during the Iran hostage crisis, during which dozens of Americans were held captive by a group of student rebels. Conservatives were worried Carter would free the Americans just before the election and boost his popularity, but it didn't happen, BBC News reported. The negotiations faltered in October and Reagan won. On his inauguration day, the Americans were released.

2000: Days before the famous election between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, a local news source found out that the GOP nominee had been arrested years before in a drunken driving incident, according to NPR. Bush went on CNN Nov. 2 to take questions about the arrest, where he raised suspicion about the timing of the story's release. "Here we are with four days to go in the campaign and we're discussing something that happened 24 years ago," he said.

2012: Hurricane Sandy, the storm that killed more than 230 people and slammed the East Coast between Oct. 22 and Nov. 2, was considered the last cycle's October surprise. GOP nominee Mitt Romney needed the news coverage, but the weather took priority. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama scored brownie points among voters who watched him lead the government's response to the hugely damaging storm, the Daily Beast reported. Obama, of course, emerged victorious.