What happened on October 16? There are more than 315 events that were made this day in history. Here are the important historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.
Interesting Facts & Myths About October 16
October 16 is the 290th day of the year 2024. There are 76 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Wednesday. This day falls under the 42nd week of the year 2024.
On this day in Mentor, Minnesota 56736 sunrise will occur at 07:44 AM and sunset will occur at 06:35 PM (local time).
The zodiac sign of a person born on this day is Libra. The modern birthstone for this month is Opal while the mystical birthstone is Jasper.
According to the Chinese calendar, there are 105 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year (January 29, 2025).
Is your birthday coming up in two days? Are you not curious to find out who is sharing your special day? Discover all the April 27 famous birthdays. There are fun facts about that day that you must know. (Sponsored link)
Historical Events For October 16
- 456Magister militum Ricimer defeats Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the Western Roman Empire.
- 1384Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman.
- 1590Carlo Gesualdo, composer, Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, murders his wife, Donna Maria d'Avalos, and her lover Fabrizio Carafa, the Duke of Andria at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples.
- 1780Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont are the last major raids of the American Revolutionary War.
- 1781George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia after the Siege of Yorktown.
- 1793Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.
- 1793The Battle of Wattignies ends in a French victory.
- 1813The Sixth Coalition attacks Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Leipzig.
- 1834Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London burns to the ground.
- 1841Queen’s University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
- 1843Sir William Rowan Hamilton comes up with the idea of quaternions, a non-commutative extension of complex numbers.
- 1846William TG Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome.
- 1859John Brown leads a raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
- 1869Girton College, Cambridge is founded, becoming England’s first residential college for women.
- 1869The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is “discovered”.
- 1875Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.
- 1882The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business.
- 1905The Partition of Bengal in India takes place.
- 1906The Captain of Köpenick fools the city hall of Köpenick and several soldiers by impersonating a Prussian officer.
- 1916In Brooklyn, New York, Margaret Sanger opens the first family planning clinic in the United States.
- 1923The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.
- 1934Chinese 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.
- 1939World War II: First attack on British territory by the German Luftwaffe.
- 1940Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto is established.
- 1944Wally Walrus, Woody Woodpecker’s first steady foil, was debuted at the The Beach Nut, a Walter Lantz’s cartoon.
- 1945The Food and Agriculture Organization is founded in Quebec City, Canada.
- 1946Nuremberg Trials: Execution of the convicted Nazi leaders of the Main Trial.
- 1949Nikolaos Zachariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, announces a “temporary cease-fire”, effectively ending the Greek Civil War.
- 1949The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic are established.
- 1951The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, is assassinated in Rawalpindi.
- 1962Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States, and Cuba and the USSR, begins.
- 1964Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin are inaugurated as General Secretary of the CPSU and Premier, respectively and the collective leadership is established.
- 1964The People’s Republic of China detonates its first nuclear weapon.
- 1968Kingston, Jamaica is rocked by the Rodney Riots, inspired by the barring of Walter Rodney from the country.
- 1968United States athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked off the US team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.
- 1970In response to the October Crisis terrorist kidnapping, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada invokes the War Measures Act.
- 1973Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
- 1975Rahima Banu, a two-year old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, is the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.
- 1975The Australian Coalition opposition parties using their senate majority, vote to defer the decision to grant supply of funds for the Whitlam Government’s annual budget, sparking the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.
- 1975The 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.
- 1978Pope John Paul II is elected after the October 1978 Papal conclave.
- 1978Wanda Rutkiewicz is the first Pole and the first European woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- 1984Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
- 1984The Bill debuted on ITV, eventually becoming the longest-running police procedural in British television history.
- 1986Reinhold Messner becomes the first person to summit all 14 Eight-thousanders.
- 1991Luby’s massacre: George Hennard runs amok in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 and wounding 20 in Luby’s Cafeteria.
- 1993Anti-Nazi riot breaks out in Welling in Kent, after police stop protesters approaching the British National Party headquarters.
- 1995The Million Man March occurs in Washington, D.C.
- 1995The Skye Bridge is opened.
- 1996Eighty-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.
- 1998Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a warrant from Spain requesting his extradition on murder charges.
- 2002Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.
- 2006Hawaii Earthquake: A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport.
Who Were Born On October 16?
- 1396William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, English soldier (d. 1450)
- 1430King James II of Scotland (d. 1460)
- 1483Gasparo Contarini, Italian diplomat and cardinal (d. 1542)
- 1535Niwa Nagahide, Japanese warlord (d. 1585)
- 1663Prince Eugene of Savoy, French-born Austrian general (d. 1736)
- 1710Andreas Hadik, Austro-Hungarian general (d. 1790)
- 1714Giovanni Arduino, Italian geologist (d. 1795)
- 1726Daniel Chodowiecki, Polish painter (d. 1801)
- 1751Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, Queen of Prussia (d. 1805)
- 1752Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, German theologian (d. 1827)
- 1754Morgan Lewis, Governor of New York (1804–07) (d. 1844)
- 1758Noah Webster, American lexicographer (d. 1843)
- 1762Paul Hamilton, American politician (d. 1816)
- 1789William Burton, American politician (d. 1866)
- 1795William Buell Sprague, American clergyman and author (d. 1876)
- 1802Isaac Murphy, American politician (d. 1882)
- 1804Benjamin Russell, American artist (d. 1885)
- 1806William Pitt Fessenden, 26th United States Secretary of the Treasury (1864–65) (d. 1869)
- 1815Francis Lubbock, American politician (d. 1905)
- 1819Austin F. Pike, American politician (d. 1886)
- 1840Kuroda Kiyotaka, Japanese politician (d. 1900)
- 1841Hirobumi Ito, Japanese politician (d. 1909)
- 1854Karl Kautsky, Czech-born German theoretician (d. 1938)
- 1854Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (d. 1900)
- 1855Samedbey Mehmandarov, Russian general (d. 1931)
- 1861J. B. Bury, Irish historian (d. 1927)
- 1863Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1937)
- 1876Jimmy Sinclair, South African cricketer, rugby union and soccer player (d. 1913)
- 1878Maxie Long, American athlete (d. 1959)
- 1883Vasiliki Maliaros, Greek actress (d. 1973)
- 1884Rembrandt Bugatti, Italian sculptor (d. 1916)
- 1886David Ben-Gurion, Israeli statesman (d. 1973)
- 1888Eugene O'Neill, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953)
- 1888Paul Popenoe, American activist (d. 1979)
- 1890Maria Goretti, Italian saint (d. 1902)
- 1890Michael Collins, Irish politician (d. 1922)
- 1890Paul Strand, American photographer (d. 1975)
- 1897Louis de Cazenave, French supercentenarian (d. 2008)
- 1898William O. Douglas, American jurist (d. 1980)
- 1900Edward Ardizzone, Vietnamese-born British writer and illustrator (d. 1979)
- 1900Goose Goslin, American baseball player (d. 1971)
- 1900Primo Conti, Italian painter (d. 1988)
- 1903Cecile de Brunhoff, French storyteller (d. 2003)
- 1905Ernst Kuzorra, German footballer (d. 1990)
- 1906León Klimovsky, Argentine film director (d. 1996)
- 1908Enver Hoxha, Albanian dictator (d. 1985)
- 1912Clifford Hansen, American politician (d. 2009)
- 1914Mohammed Zahir Shah, Shah of Afghanistan (d. 2007)
- 1916George Turner, Australian author (d. 1997)
- 1917Alice Pearce, American actress (d. 1966)
- 1918Louis Althusser, French Marxist philosopher (d. 1990)
- 1919Kathleen Winsor, American writer (d. 2003)
- 1921MacKenzie Miller, American horse trainer and breeder (d. 2010)
- 1922Leon Sullivan, American civil rights leader and pastor (d. 2001)
- 1922Max Bygraves, English singer and songwriter
- 1923Bert Kaempfert, German orchestra leader and songwriter (d. 1980)
- 1923Bill McLaren, Scottish rugby commentator (d. 2010)
- 1923Linda Darnell, American film actress (d. 1965)
- 1925Angela Lansbury, English-born actress
- 1927Günter Grass, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1928Ann Morgan Guilbert, American actress
- 1928Mary Daly, American feminist philosopher and theologian (d. 2010)
- 1929Fernanda Montenegro, Brazilian actress
- 1930Carmen Sevilla, Spanish actress
- 1931Charles Colson, American Watergate figure
- 1931Rosa Rosal, Filipino actress and humanitarian
- 1931Valery Klimov, Russian violinist
- 1932Henry Lewis, American musician and conductor (d. 1996)
- 1932John Grant, British politician (d. 2000)
- 1934Peter Ashdown, British racing driver
- 1936Akira Machida, Japanese judge
- 1936Andrei Chikatilo, Russian serial killer (d. 1994)
- 1936Peter Bowles, English actor
- 1938Carl Gunter Jr, American state legislator (d. 1999)
- 1938Nico, German musician, fashion model and actress (d. 1988)
- 1939Joe Dolan, Irish singer (d. 2007)
- 1940Barry Corbin, American actor
- 1940Dave DeBusschere, American basketball player (d. 2003)
- 1940Ivan Della Mea, Italian singer-songwriter (d. 2009)
- 1941Tim McCarver, American baseball player and commentator
- 1943Fred Turner, Canadian bass player (Bachman–Turner Overdrive)
- 1944Kaizer Motaung, Southafrican footballer and footballmanager
- 1946Suzanne Somers, American actress
- 1947Bob Weir, American musician (Grateful Dead)
- 1947David Zucker, American film director
- 1947Terry Griffiths, Welsh snooker player
- 1948Hema Malini, Indian Actress
- 1948Leo Mazzone, American baseball coach
- 1952Boogie Mosson, American musician (P Funk)
- 1952Ron Taylor, American actor (d. 2002)
- 1953Al Sobotka, American sports facility operations manager
- 1953Paulo Roberto Falcão, Brazilian footballer
- 1953Tony Carey, American musician (Rainbow, Planet P Project)
- 1954Serafino Ghizzoni, Italian rugby player
- 1954Stephen Mellor, American actor
- 1955Ellen Dolan, American actress
- 1956John Chavis, American football coach
- 1956Rudra Mohammad Shahidullah, Bangladeshi poet (d. 1992)
- 1958Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Greek singer
- 1958Tim Robbins, American actor, director, and writer
- 1959Brian Harper, American baseball player
- 1959Erkki-Sven Tüür, Estonian composer
- 1959Gary Kemp, British musician and actor
- 1959Marc Collins-Rector, American businessman and sex offender
- 1960Bob Mould, American musician
- 1961Marc Levy, French novelist
- 1961Randy Vasquez, American actor
- 1962Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Russian baritone
- 1962Flea, Australian-born American musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
- 1962Ken Chinn, American musician (SNFU)
- 1962Manute Bol, Sudanese basketball player (d. 2010)
- 1962Nico Lazaridis, German footballer
- 1963Brendan Kibble, Australian musician
- 1965Steve Lamacq, British journalist and disc jockey
- 1965Tom Tolbert, American basketball player
- 1968Elsa Zylberstein, French actress
- 1968Mark Lee, Singaporean actor & comedian
- 1968Randall Batinkoff, American actor
- 1969Danny Hesp, Dutch footballer
- 1969Roy Hargrove, American jazz trumpeter
- 1969Takao Ōmori, Japanese professional wrestler
- 1969Terri J. Vaughn, American actress
- 1969Wendy Wilson, American pop singer (Wilson Phillips)
- 1970Kazuyuki Fujita, Japanese professional wrestler and mixed martial arts fighter
- 1970Mehmet Scholl, German footballer
- 1971Chad Gray, American singer
- 1972Adrianne Frost, American comedian and author
- 1972Darius Kasparaitis, Russian ice hockey player
- 1972Kordell Stewart, American football player
- 1972Tomas Lindberg, Swedish musician (At the Gates)
- 1973David Unsworth, English footballer
- 1973María Eugenia Larraín, Chilean model, engineer and socialite
- 1973Peter Polaco, American professional wrestler
- 1974Paul Kariya, Canadian hockey player
- 1975Brynjar Gunnarsson, Icelandic footballer
- 1975Ernesto Noel Aquino, Honduran footballer
- 1975Jacques Kallis, South African cricketer
- 1975Kellie Martin, American actress
- 1976Ryan Fitzgerald, Australian footballer and media personality
- 1977John Mayer, American musician
- 1978Ethan Luck, American musician (The O.C. Supertones, Demon Hunter, Relient K)
- 1979Erin Brown, American actress, model, filmmaker, and musician
- 1980Jeremy Jackson, American actor
- 1980Sue Bird, American basketball player
- 1980Timana Tahu, Australian Rugby League player
- 1981Ali B, Dutch rapper
- 1981Anthony Reyes, American baseball player
- 1981Caterina Scorsone, Canadian actress
- 1981Gregory Sedoc, Dutch athlete
- 1981Martin Halle, Danish footballer
- 1982Cristian Riveros, Paraguayan footballer
- 1982Frédéric Michalak, French rugby player
- 1982Pippa Black, Australian actress
- 1982Prithviraj Sukumaran, Indian Film Actor
- 1982Vincy Chan, Hong Kong singer
- 1983Philipp Kohlschreiber, German tennis player
- 1984Melissa Lauren, French pornographic actress
- 1984Shayne Ward, British singer
- 1985Casey Stoner, Australian motorcycle racer
- 1985Verena Sailer, German sprinter
- 1986Craig Pickering, British sprinter
- 1986Derk Boerrigter, Dutch footballer
- 1986Inna, Romanian singer
- 1986Nicky Adams, Welsh footballer
- 1988Zoltán Stieber, Hungarian footballer
- 1990Yohanna, Icelandic singer
- 1991John and Edward Grimes, Irish singers
- 1992Bryce Harper, American baseball player
- 2003Princess Kritika of Nepal, daughter of Crown Prince Paras
Who Died On October 16?
- 1355Louis, King of Sicily (b. 1337)
- 1553Lucas Cranach the Elder, German painter (b. 1472)
- 1555Hugh Latimer, English Protestant (martyred)
- 1555Nicholas Ridley, English Protestant (martyred)
- 1591Pope Gregory XIV (b. 1535)
- 1594William Allen, English Catholic cardinal (b. 1532)
- 1621Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Dutch composer (b. 1562)
- 1628François de Malherbe, French poet and critic (b. 1555)
- 1649Isaac van Ostade, Dutch painter (b. 1621)
- 1655Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, Italian physician, mathematician, and music theorist (b. 1591)
- 1680Raimondo Montecuccoli, Italian-Austrian general
- 1750Sylvius Leopold Weiss, German composer and lutenist (b. 1687)
- 1755Saint Gerard Majella, Catholic saint (b. 1725)
- 1774Robert Fergusson, Scottish poet (b. 1750)
- 1781Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, English naval officer (b. 1705)
- 1791Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin, Russian general and statesman (b. 1739)
- 1793John Hunter, Scottish doctor and philosopher (b. 1728)
- 1793Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (executed) (b. 1755)
- 1796Victor Amadeus III of Savoy (b. 1726)
- 1810Nachman of Breslov, founder of Breslov Hasidut (b. 1772)
- 1822Eva Marie Veigel, Austrian ballet dancer (b. 1724)
- 1865Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, philosopher, and sociologist (b. 1781)
- 1877Theodore Barrière, French dramatist (b. 1823)
- 1888John Wentworth, Mayor of Chicago (b. 1815)
- 1893Patrice MacMahon, duc de Magenta, President of France (b. 1808)
- 1908Joseph Leycester Lyne (Father Ignatius), a restorer of monastic life in the Church of England (b. 1837)
- 1909Jakub Bart-Ćišinski, Sorbian writer (b. 1856)
- 1937Jean de Brunhoff, French writer (b. 1899)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Alfred Jodl, German military officer (b. 1890)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi ideologist (b. 1893)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Austrian Nazi leader (b. 1892)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Austrian SS officer (b. 1903)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Fritz Sauckel, German war criminal (b. 1894)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Hans Frank, German war criminal (b. 1900)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Joachim von Ribbentrop, German politician (b. 1893)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Julius Streicher, German propagandist (b. 1887)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Wilhelm Frick, German war criminal (b. 1877)
- 1946Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Wilhelm Keitel, German military officer (b. 1882)
- 1951Liaqat Ali Khan, first Prime Minister of Pakistan (b 1895)
- 1952Ghulam Bhik Nairang, Indian/Pakistani Muslim leader and poet (b. 1876)
- 1956Jules Rimet, president of FIFA (b. 1873)
- 1959George Marshall, United States Secretary of State, Nobel laureate (b. 1880)
- 1959Minor Hall, American jazz musician (b. 1897)
- 1962Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher and poet (b. 1884)
- 1964Patsy Callighen, Canadian Hockey Player (b. 1906)
- 1966George O'Hara, American actor (b. 1899)
- 1968Ellis Kinder, baseball player (b. 1914)
- 1971Robin Boyd, Australian architect (b.1919)
- 1972Hale Boggs, US Congressman from Louisiana (b. 1914)
- 1972Leo G. Carroll, English actor (b. 1886)
- 1972Nick Begich, US Congressman from Alaska (b. 1932)
- 1973Gene Krupa, American jazz drummer (b. 1909)
- 1974Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, Carnatic musician (b. 1895)
- 1975Vittorio Gui, Italian conductor (b. 1885)
- 1978Dan Dailey, American actor (b. 1913)
- 1979Johan Borgen, Norwegian author (b. 1903)
- 1981Moshe Dayan, Israeli general (b. 1915)
- 1982Mario Del Monaco, Italian tenor (b. 1915)
- 1983Jakov Gotovac, Croatian composer (b. 1895)
- 1983Kelso, American racehorse (b. 1957)
- 1986Arthur Grumiaux, Belgian violinist (b. 1921)
- 1989Cornel Wilde, American actor (b. 1915)
- 1990Art Blakey, American jazz drummer (b. 1919)
- 1990Jorge Bolet, Cuban-American classical pianist (b. 1914)
- 1991Ole Beich, Guns n Roses bass player (b.1955)
- 1992Shirley Booth, American actress (b. 1898)
- 1996Eric Malpass, English novelist (b. 1910)
- 1996Jason Bernard, American actor (b. 1938)
- 1997Audra Lindley, American actress (b. 1918)
- 1997James Michener, American writer (b. 1907)
- 1998Jon Postel, American Internet pioneer (b. 1943)
- 1999Jean Shepherd, American writer and actor (b. 1921)
- 2000Mel Carnahan, American politician (b. 1934)
- 2002Dawson family, American murder victims
- 2003Avni Arbas, Turkish artist (b. 1919)
- 2003László Papp, Hungarian boxer (b. 1926)
- 2003Stu Hart, Canadian professional wrestler (b. 1915)
- 2004Pierre Salinger, John F. Kennedy’s White House Press Secretary (b. 1925)
- 2005“Len” Dresslar, American singer and voice actor (b. 1925)
- 2005David Reilly, American singer (God Lives Underwater) (b. 1971)
- 2005Eugene “Porky” Lee, American child actor (b. 1933)
- 2005Ursula Howells, English actress (b. 1922)
- 2006John Murra, Ukrainian-American anthropologist (b. 1916)
- 2006Lister Sinclair, Canadian broadcaster and playwright (b. 1921)
- 2006Ross Davidson, Scottish actor (b. 1949)
- 2006Tommy Johnson, American tubist (b. 1935)
- 2006Valentín Paniagua Corazao, Ex President of Peru (b. 1936)
- 2007Barbara West, second-to-last living Titanic survivor (b. 1911)
- 2007Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress (b. 1921)
- 2007Toše Proeski, Macedonian music star and humanitarian (b. 1981)
- 2010Barbara Billingsley, American actress (b. 1915)
- 2010Eyedea, American rapper (Eyedea & Abilities) (b. 1981)
- 2011Dan Wheldon, English auto racer (b. 1978)
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