October 16
October 16 is the 289th day of the year (290th in Leap years). There are 76 days remaining.
Events
- 456 - Magister militum Ricimer defeats the Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the western Roman Empire
- 1775 - Portland, Maine burned by the British
- 1781 - George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia
- 1793 - Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.
- 1793 - Battle of Wattignies
- 1813 - The Sixth Coalition attacks Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Leipzig.
- 1834 - Much of the ancient structures of the Palace of Westminster in London is burnt down
- 1841 - Queen's University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
- 1843 - Sir William Rowan Hamilton invents the concept of quaternions.
- 1859 - John Brown leads raid on Harper's Ferry, West Virginia
- 1869 - Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, discovered.
- 1869 - England's first residential college for women, Girton College, Cambridge, is founded.
- 1882 - The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business.
- 1890 - Michael Collins born: Irish Patriot and Commander-in-Chief, Irish Free State Army.
- 1906 - The Captain of Köpenick fools the city hall of Köpenick and several soldiers by impersonating a Prussian officer.
- 1912 - Bulgarian pilots Radul Milkov and Prodan Toprakchiev perform the first bombing with an airplane in history.
- 1916 - Margaret Sanger founds Planned Parenthood by opening the first U.S. birth control clinic.
- 1934 - Chinese Communists begin the Long March; it ended a year and four days later, by which time Mao Zedong had regained his title as party chairman.
- 1940 - Benjamin O. Davis Sr. named first African American general in the United States Army
- 1940 - Warsaw Ghetto established
- 1946 - Ten war criminals of the Second World War, condemned in the Nuremberg trials hanged.
- 1949 - Nikos Zakhiariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, announces a "temporary cease-fire", effectively ending the Greek Civil War.
- 1951 - The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, is assassinated in Rawalpindi
- 1964 - People's Republic of China detonates its first nuclear weapon
- 1968 - United States athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked out of the USA's team for performing a Black Power salute during a medal ceremony.
- 1968 - Kingston, Jamaica is rocked by the Rodney Riots, inspired by the barring of Walter Rodney from the country.
- 1969 - United States - The "miracle" New York Mets win the World Series.
- 1970 - Anwar Sadat elected President of Egypt
- 1970 - Canada - In response to the October Crisis terrorist kidnapping, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act.
- 1972 - Rainbow, a British television programme for children, debuts.
- 1973 - Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1975 - The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists based in the town of Balibo in the then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), are killed by Indonesian troops.
- 1978 - Karol Józef Wojtyła becomes Pope John Paul II
- 1984 - Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1987 - Great Storm of 1987: hurricane force winds to hit much of the South of England killing 23 people.
- 1991 - Luby's massacre: George Hennard runs amok in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 and wounding 19 in Luby's Cafeteria.
- 1991 - Jharkhand Chhatra Yuva Morcha is founded at a conference in Ranchi, India.
- 1992 - Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson files a 1.4 million USD lawsuit against French tabloids for running topless photos taken of her on the French Riviera, including some of Texas millionaire John Bryan suckling on her toes.
- 1995 - The Million Man March occurs in Washington, DC.
- 1996 - 84 are killed and more than 180 injured as 47,000 soccer fans attempt to squeeze into the 36,000-seat Mateo Flores Stadium in Guatemala City.
- 2001 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: U.S. warplanes mistakenly bomb International Red Cross warehouse in Kabul, Afghanistan.
- 2002 - Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.
- 2003 - The Red Sox and Yankees face off in a historical ALCS game 7 at Yankee Stadium. The game ends in dramatic fashion with an Aaron Boone walk off homerun.
Births
- 1396 - William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, English soldier (d. 1450)
- 1430 - King James II of Scotland (d. 1460)
- 1483 - Gasparo Contarini, Italian diplomat and cardinal (d. 1542)
- 1535 - Niwa Nagahide, Japanese warlord (d. 1585)
- 1663 - Prince Eugene of Savoy, French-born Austrian general (d. 1736)
- 1710 - Andreas Hadik, Austro-Hungarian general (d. 1790)
- 1714 - Giovanni Arduino, Italian geologist (d. 1795)
- 1726 - Daniel Chodowiecki, Polish painter (d. 1801)
- 1758 - Noah Webster, American lexicographer (d. 1843)
- 1815 - Francis Lubbock, Governor of Texas (d. 1905)
- 1840 - Kuroda Kiyotaka, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1900)
- 1841 - Prince Hirobumi Ito, Japanese governor of Korea (d. 1909)
- 1854 - Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (d. 1900)
- 1861 - J. B. Bury, Irish historian (d. 1927)
- 1863 - Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1937)
- 1878 - Maxey Long, American athlete (d. 1959)
- 1886 - David Ben-Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1973)
- 1888 - Eugene O'Neill, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953)
- 1888 - Paul Popenoe, American activist (d. 1979)
- 1890 - Michael Collins, Irish patriot (d. 1922)
- 1890 - Paul Strand, American photographer (d. 1975)
- 1898 - William O. Douglas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1980)
- 1900 - Primo Conti, Italian painter (d. 1988)
- 1903 - Cecile de Brunhoff, French storyteller (d. 2003)
- 1908 - Enver Hoxha, Albanian dictator (d.1985)
- 1914 - Zahir Shah, King of Afghanistan
- 1918 - Louis Althusser, French Marxist philosopher (d. 1990)
- 1919 - Kathleen Winsor, American writer (d. 2003)
- 1925 - Angela Lansbury, English-born actress
- 1927 - Günter Grass, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1928 - Mary Daly, feminist
- 1931 - Charles Colson, American Watergate conspirator
- 1936 - Andrei Chikatilo, Russian serial killer
- 1936 - Current Japanese Supreme Court Chief Justice Akira Machida is born.
- 1938 - Carl Gunter Jr, Louisiana State Representative (d. 1999)
- 1940 - Barry Corbin, American actor
- 1940 - Dave DeBusschere, American basketball player (d. 2003)
- 1941 - Tim McCarver, baseball player and commentator
- 1946 - Suzanne Somers, American actress
- 1947 - Terry Griffiths, Welsh snooker player
- 1947 - Bob Weir, American musician (Grateful Dead)
- 1952 - Boogie Mosson, American musician (P Funk)
- 1952 - Ron Taylor, American actor (d. 2002)
- 1953 - Paulo Roberto Falcão, Brazilian footballer
- 1958 - Tim Robbins, American actor, director, and writer
- 1959 - Gary Kemp, British musician and actor
- 1959 - Erkki-Sven Tüür, Estonian composer
- 1962 - Flea, Australian musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
- 1962 - Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Russian baritone
- 1965 - Steve Lamacq, British journalist and disc jockey
- 1967 - Davina McCall, British television presenter
- 1972 - Tomas Lindberg, Swedish musician (At The Gates)
- 1974 - Paul Kariya, Canadian hockey player
- 1977 - John Mayer, American musician
- 1980 - Sue Bird, American basketball player
- 1980 - Timana Tahu, Australian Rugby League Player
- 1984 - Melissa Lauren, pornographic actress
- 1986 - Clint Boisel, American Bowler
Deaths
- 1553 - Lucas Cranach the Elder, German painter (b. 1472)
- 1555 - Hugh Latimer, English protestant (martyred)
- 1591 - Pope Gregory XIV (b. 1535)
- 1594 - William Cardinal Allen, English Catholic cardinal (b. 1532)
- 1621 - Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Dutch composer (b. 1562)
- 1628 - François de Malherbe, French poet and critic (b. 1555)
- 1649 - Isaac van Ostade, Dutch painter (b. 1621)
- 1655 - Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, Italian physician, mathematician, and music theorist (b. 1591)
- 1750 - Sylvius Leopold Weiss, German composer and lutenist (b. 1687)
- 1755 - Saint Gerard Majella, Catholic saint (b. 1725)
- 1781 - Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, British naval officer (b. 1705)
- 1793 - Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (executed) (b. 1755)
- 1796 - Victor Amadeus III of Savoy (b. 1726)
- 1865 - Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, philosopher, and sociologist (b. 1781)
- 1877 - Theodore Barrière, French dramatist (b. 1823)
- 1888 - John Wentworth, Mayor of Chicago (b. 1815)
- 1893 - Patrice MacMahon, duc de Magenta, President of France (b. 1808)
- 1937 - Jean de Brunhoff, French writer (b. 1899)
- 1946 - Hans Frank, German war criminal (b. 1900)
- 1946 - Wilhelm Frick, German war criminal (b. 1877)
- 1946 - Alfred Jodl, German military officer (b. 1890)
- 1946 - Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Austrian SS officer (b. 1903)
- 1946 - Wilhelm Keitel, German military officer (b. 1882)
- 1946 - Joachim von Ribbentrop, German politician (b. 1893)
- 1946 - Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi ideologist (b. 1893)
- 1946 - Fritz Sauckel, German war criminal (b. 1892)
- 1946 - Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Austrian Nazi leader (b. 1894)
- 1946 - Julius Streicher, German propagandist (b. 1887)
- 1951 - Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime Minister of Pakistan (b. 1896)
- 1959 - George Marshall, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1880)
- 1962 - Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher and poet (b. 1884)
- 1966 - George O'Hara, American actor (b. 1899)
- 1972 - Hale Boggs, U.S. Congressman from Louisiana (b. 1914)
- 1972 - Leo G. Carroll, English actor (b. 1892)
- 1973 - Gene Krupa, American musician (b. 1909)
- 1978 - Dan Dailey, American actor (b. 1913)
- 1979 - Johan Borgen, Norwegian author (b. 1903)
- 1981 - Moshe Dayan, Israeli general (b. 1915)
- 1983 - Jakov Gotovac, Croatian composer (b. 1895)
- 1983 - Kelso, American racehorse (b. 1957)
- 1986 - Arthur Grumiaux, Belgian violinist (b. 1921)
- 1989 - Cornel Wilde, American actor (b. 1915)
- 1990 - Art Blakey, American jazz drummer (b. 1919)
- 1992 - Shirley Booth, American actress (b. 1898)
- 1994 - Raul Julia, American actor (b. 1940)
- 1996 - Eric Malpass, English novelist (b. 1910)
- 1996 - Jason Bernard, American actor (b. 1938)
- 1997 - James Michener, American writer
- 1998 - Jon Postel, American Internet pioneer (b. 1943)
- 1999 - Jean Shepherd, American writer and actor (b. 1921)
- 2000 - Mel Carnahan, American politician (b. 1934)
- 2002 - Angela Dawson, American activist
- 2003 - Avni Arbas, Turkish artist (b. 1919)
- 2003 - Stu Hart, Canadian professional wrestler (b. 1915)
- 2003 - László Papp, Hungarian boxer (b. 1926)
- 2004 - Pierre Salinger, John F. Kennedy's White House Press Secretary (b. 1925)
- 2005 - "Len" Dresslar, American singer and voice actor (b. 1925)
- 2005 - David Reilly, American Singer (God Lives Underwater), (b. 1971)
Holidays and observances
- R.C. Saints - Saint Hedwig of Andechs; Saint Margaret Marie Alacoque; Saint Gall; Saint Gerard Majella
- Also see October 16 (Easter Orthodox liturgics)
- Bahá'í Faith – Feast of 'Ilm (Knowledge) - First day of the 12th month of the Bahá'í Calendar
- United Nations - World Food Day
- United States - World Food Prize Day, a.k.a. Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Day in Iowa and Minnesota; National Feral Cat Day; Boss' Day
External links
October 15 - October 17 - September 16 - November 16 - more historical anniversaries