Five Things That Happened On October 21 In Soap History

In 1993, Belle Black, the daughter of Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall) and John Black (Drake Hogestyn) was born on Days of Our Lives. Marlena went into labor at the Horton cabin and at the end of the previous episode, she realized that the baby was coming! John and Kristen DiMera were there and they rushed to action. John helped Marlena breathe through difficult contractions until Kristen saw the baby's head. She and John changed positions and John encouraged Marlena to begin pushing. Finally, the baby arrived! Marlena was surprised to find out it was a girl, saying, "He's a she?" John and Kristen went outside to give mom and baby some privacy, but John sensed something was wrong when they couldn't hear them. He went back inside and saw that Marlena was asleep. John crouched down to admire the baby and realized with horror that she wasn't breathing! (In the next episode, he administered CPR and the baby survived.)

In 2008, All My Children's Zach Slater helped his sister-in-law, Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel) deliver daughter Gabrielle in the aftermath of a tornado. When she first went into labor, Zach assured her that he would get her to a hospital, and Bianca asked Zach if he was upset that she had kept it a secret from his wife/her sister, Kendall, that Zach was her baby's biological father (via a secret donation of sperm). Zach replied that he thought she had made the right decision. Bianca's contractions intensified and they realized that Zach would have to deliver the baby. After navigating another crisis (Gabrielle's umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck), the child made its safe entrance into the world.

In 2011, Bold and Beautiful's Hope Logan (Kim Matula) kissed Liam Spencer (Scott Clifton) after realizing that he had gone to the mountain in Aspen to meet her, not to do what he ultimately did (marry Steffy Forrester). Earlier in the episode, Liam had been shocked when Brooke told him that Hope had been ready to move in with him and be intimate with him when she had spied him kissing Steffy. He went to see Hope and they got their wires uncrossed, leading to the passionate kiss.

In 2016, Abby Newman (Melissa Ordway) and her husband, Ben "Stitch" Rayburn (Sean Carrigan), reached a breaking point in their relationship on Young and Restless. They had gotten married the previous New Year's Eve. Their union got off to a rocky start when Abby suffered a miscarriage after tripping and falling in an accident orchestrated by Ben's troubled young son, Max. Abby summoned Stitch to meet, telling him, "I have been all over the place, trying to figure out what to do now, and I can't find any answers. All I know is that not talking isn't working." Over the course of their difficult conversation, Abby admitted that she wasn't in love with him anymore and they came to the realization that their marriage was over.

In 2020, Bold and Beautiful's wild story about Thomas Forrester's (Matthew Atkinson) infatuation with a mannequin that bore an uncanny resemblance to Hope Logan (Annika Noelle) kicked into high gear when Thomas brought the lifeless figure home from the office. In this episode, Thomas and Hope had a conversation after Hope allowed Thomas to spend time with their son, Douglas. Thomas spoke of how grateful he was to be in Douglas's life and swore to Hope that he had changed. Later, Charlie delivered a box containing the display mannequin to Thomas's office after it had been sent back by a boutique. Then, just as Hope bubbled to Liam about how Thomas wasn't as obsessed with her anymore, Thomas paced around his house, asking himself, "What was I thinking, bringing this here? What am I doing?" The next shot depicted the mannequin that looked like Hope.