16th October, on this day

456 Magister militum Ricimer defeats the Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the western Roman Empire
1311 Council of Vienne (15th ecumenical council) opens
1555 English bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley are burnt at the stake for heresy
1775 Portland, Maine burned by British
1780 Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont last major raid of the American Revolutionary War.
1781 George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia after the Siege of Yorktown.
1793 French Revolution: Marie Antoinette - Queen of France and wife of King Louis XVI - goes to the guillotine after being found guilty of treason
1793 Battle of Wattignies : a victory of the French under General Jourdan and Lazare Carnot against the Austrians under General Coburg
1813 War of the Sixth Coalition : Napoleon Bonaparte's French Army is defeated in the 'Battle of the Nations' at Leipzig
1815 Following his defeat the the Battle of Waterloo, former French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is exiled to the island of St Helena
1829 Tremont Hotel, 1st US modern hotel opens (Boston)
1834 In Britain, the original Houses of Parliament in London are almost completely destroyed by fire
1841 Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada is chartered
1843 Sir William Rowan Hamilton comes up with the idea of quaternions, a non-commutative extension of complex numbers.
1846 An anaesthetic is successfully used for the first time at a hospital in Massachusetts. Dentist William Morton uses diethyl ether before removing a tumour from a man's jaw .
1847 The classic novel 'Jane Eyre', written by Charlotte Bronte, is published under her pseudonym of Currer Bell
1848 1st US homeopathic medical college opens in Pennsylvania
1849 British seize Tigre Island in Gulf of Fonseca from Honduras
1859 American anti-slavery supporter John Brown, having embarked on a scheme to liberate Southern slaves through armed intervention, leads followers to capture the US arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Brown is recaptured by the Confederacy the following day and hung for treason several weeks later
1861 Confederacy starts selling postage stamps
1867 Alaska adopts the Gregorian calendar, crosses international date line
1869 Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is discovered.
1869 England's first residential college for women, Girton College, Cambridge, is founded.
1869 Hotel in Boston becomes the 1st to have indoor plumbing
1876 Race riot at Cainhoy SC (5 whites and 1 black killed)
1881 First edition of the British newspaper 'The People' - later to be renamed 'The Sunday People'
1902 Britain opens its first 'Borstal' detention centre at the village of Borstal in Kent. The institution is designed to keep boys - especially first offenders - away from adult criminals in prisons; to teach them a trade and to reward good behaviour
1905 The Partition of Bengal (India) occurred.
1906
The Captain of Köpenick fools the city hall of Köpenick and several soldiers by impersonating a Prussian officer.
1908 First aeroplane flight in Britain is made by American showman 'Colonel' Samuel Franklyn Cody
1916 Margaret Sanger opens 1st birth control clinic (46 Amboy St, Brooklyn)
1923 The Walt Disney Company is founded
1925 Texas School Board prohibits teaching of evolution
1926 Troop ship sinks in Yangtze River, killing 1,200
1931 Trunk murderess Winnie Ruth Judd chops first
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.
1939 First attack on British territory by German Luftwaffe.
1940 Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr named 1st black general in regular army
1940 Lottery for 1st US WW II draftees held; number 158 drawn 1st
1940 Warsaw Ghetto established
1941 "Gordo" comic strip (by Gus Arriola) 1st appears in newspapers
1941 Germany advances within 60 miles (96 K) of Moscow
1942 Cyclone in Bay of Bengal kills some 40,000 south of Calcutta India
1942 National Boxing Assn freezes titles of those serving in armed services
1943 Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly opens city's new subway system
1946 At least 10 Nazi war criminals are executed as sentences handed down by judges at the Nuremburg War Trials begin to be carried out. Among those hanged are General Alfred Jodl; Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel; Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop - a former Ambassador to Great Britain; Wilhelm Frick and Julius Streicher
1949 Nikolaos Zachariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, announces a "temporary cease-fire", effectively ending the Greek Civil War.
1949 The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and German Democratic Republic were established.
1951 The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, is assassinated in Rawalpindi.
1958 Britain's most popular children's television programme 'Blue Peter' is first broadcast on BBC TV. The first presenters are Leila Williams and Christopher Trace
1962 Cuban missile crisis began as JFK becomes aware of missiles in Cuba
1964 Brezhnev and Kosygin are inaugurated as General Secreaty of the CPSU and Premier, respectively.
1964 China becomes world's 5th nuclear power
1968 During Olympics Tommie Smith and John Carlos give black power salute
1968 Kingston, Jamaica is rocked by the Rodney Riots, inspired by the barring of Walter Rodney from the country.
1969 Soyuz 6 returns to Earth
1970 Canada - In response to the October Crisis terrorist kidnapping, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act.
1973 Kissinger and Le Duc Tho jointly awarded 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.
1976 Soyuz 23 returns to Earth
1978 In the Vatican, in Rome, Polish -born Cardinal Karol Wojtyla is elected Pope John Paul II - the first non-Italian Pope since 1542
1982 Mt Palomar Observatory 1st to detect Halley's comet on 13th return
1982 Shultz warns US will withdraw from UN if they vote to exclude Israel
1984 Desmond Tutu, black Anglican Bishop, wins the Nobel Peace Prize
1985 Intel introduces 32-bit 80386 microcomputer chip
1986 Armand Hammer returns to US with Jewish refusenik David Goldfarb
1986 US govt closes down due to budget problems
1987 175-kph winds cause blackout in London, much of southern England
1987 Jessica McClure rescued 58 hrs after falling 22' into a well shaft
1990 US forces reach 200,000 in the Persian Gulf
1993 Anti-Nazi riot breaks out in Welling in Kent, after police stop protesters approaching British National Party headquarters
1991 George Jo Hennard, 35, kills 23 and himself & wounds 20 in Texas
1994 Finland votes to join the European Union
1995 The Million Man March occurs in Washington, DC.
1996 British Home Secretary Michael Howard announces stringent new gun controls following the mass shooting of children at a school in Dunblane in Scotland
1996 Eighty-four people are killed and more than 180 injured as 47,000 football fans attempt to squeeze into the 36,000-seat Estadio Mateo Flores in Guatemala City.
1998 Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a warrant from Spain requesting his extradition on murder charges.
2002 Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.

October 16th 2005

Children pulled alive from quake rubble

Rice seeks UK support over Iran

Iraq awaits constitution result

October 16th 2006

Sri Lanka attack causes carnage

US confirms N Korea nuclear test

Madonna baby flies out of Malawi

October 16th 2007

Iraq seeks talks on Turkey threat

Putin in Iran for landmark visit

Report highlights blog censorship

October 16th 2008

Afghan strike 'kills civilians'

EU 'holds firm' on climate goals

Afghan policeman 'kills soldier'

October 16th 2009

Deadly bomb shakes Pakistani city

Suicide bombing hits Iraq mosque

LHC gets colder than deep space

Birthdates which occurred on October 16th:

1708 Albrecht von Haller Switz, experimental physiology (Acad of Science)
1758 Noah Webster lexicographer (Webster's Dictionary)
1792 Francisco Moraz n (L) president of Central America (1830-40)
1827 Arnold B”cklin Switzerland, landscape/allegory painter
1849 Geoirge Washington Williams famous African
1851 James Ten Eyck champion rower/coach (Ten Eyck Trophy namesake)
1854 Oscar Wilde [Fingal O'Flahertie Wills], Dublin, (Pic of Dorian Gray)
1863 Sir Austen Chamberlain British Foreign Secretary (Nobel 1925)
1886 David Ben-Gurion Plonsk Poland, 1st PM of Israel (1948-53, 55)
1888 Eugene O'Neill NYC, dramatist (Desire Under the Elms-Nobel 1936)
1890 Paul Strand NYC, photographer (Native Land-1942)
1898 Arthur H Dean lawyer/advisor to FDR
1898 William O Douglas Maine, US supreme court justice (1939-75)
19-- Angela Baur (fictional character on "Who's the Boss")
19-- Flea rock bassist (Red Hot Chili Peppers-Blood Sugar Sex Magik)
19-- Jim Youngs Old Bethpage NY, actor (Secret of Midland Heights)
19-- Morgan Stevens Knoxville Tn, actor (David-Fame, Bare Essence)
1900 Leon (Goose) Goslin baseball hall of famer (AL bat champ 1928)
1900 Lloyd Corrigan SF, actor (Papa Dodger-Willy, Prof McKillup-Hank)
1905 Rex Bell Chicago, cowboy (Cowboys & Injuns)
1906 George Martin Lott Jr tennis champ (1931 US Open runner-up)
1908 Enver Hoxha post-war leader of Albania (1944-85)
1913 Alice Pearce NYC, comedienne/actress (Gladys Kravitz-Bewitched)
1921 Linda Darnell Dallas, Tx, actress (Unfaithfully Yours, 2nd Chance)
1921 Michael Conrad Washington Hgts NY, actor (Delvecchio, Hill St Blues)
1922 Max Bygraves London, actor (Tom Brown's School Days)
1925 Angela Lansbury London England, actress (Jessica-Murder She Wrote)
1927 Gnter Grass Germany, novelist/poet (The Tin Drum)
1927 Lee Montague London England, actor (Uncle Sasha-Holocaust)
1931 Charles W Colson presidential adviser, Watergate figure
1932 Henry Lewis LA Calif, conductor/bass (LA Philharmonic 1955-59)
1937 Tony Anthony Clarksburg WV, actor (Treasure of 4 Crowns)
1940 Dave DeBusschere Detroit, NBA foward (NY Knick)/last ABA commissioner
1941 Tim McCarver baseball catcher (NY Mets)/sportscaster (ABC, CBS)
1944 Johnny Washbrook Toronto, actor (Ken-My Friend Flicka)
1946 Suzanne Somers San Bruno Calif, actress (3's Company, Step by Step)
1947 Bob Weir guitarist (Grateful Dead-Uncle Joe's Band)
1951 Daniel Gerroll London, actor (Big Business)
1953 Susan Pedersen US, 4 X 100m medley swimmer (Olympic-gold-1968)
1955 Ellen Dolan Iowa, actress (Guiding Light, Margo Hughes-ATWT)
1958 Tim Robbins actor (Bull Durham, Cadillac Man)
1959 Gary Kemp rocker (Spandau Ballet-True)
1962 Manute Bol NBA center (Golden State Warriors)
1969 Wendy Wilson singer (Wilson-Philips-Hold On)
1978 Abel Talamantez Texas, singer (Menudo-Cannonball)

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Deaths which occurred on October 16th:
1793 Marie Antoinette queen of France, beheaded in France
1849 George Washington Williams Penns, 1st major black historian
1946 Arthur Seyss-Inquart Austrian chancellor (1930s), dies at 54
1951 Liaquat Ali Khan PM of Pakistan, assassinated by Said Akbar
1972 Leo G Carroll actor (Topper, Man From Uncle), dies at 80
1978 Dan Dailey actor (Gov Drinkwater-Governor & JJ), dies at 63
1981 Moshe Dayan Israel's general, dies at 66
1983 George Liberace violinist (Liberace Show), dies at 72
1984 Ken Carpenter TV announcer (Lux Video Theater), dies at 84
1984 Peggy Ann Garner actress, dies at 53 of cancer
1985 Claude Stroud actor (Hobart-Ted Knight Show, Duke), dies at 78
1987 Dana Suesse songwriter (You Ought to be in Pictures), dies at 75
1989 Cornel Wilde actor, dies
1990 Art Blakey jazz drummer (Jazz Messengers), dies of cancer at 71

Golden Link 1 On this day 16th October

Golden Link 2 On this day 16th October

Golden Link 3 On this day 16th October