Historical Events on Thursday, 16th October

16/10/2017

Storm Ophelia strikes the U.K. and Ireland causing major damage and power loss.

Hurricane Ophelia, known as Storm Ophelia while extratropical, was regarded as the worst storm to affect Ireland in 50 years, and was also the easternmost Atlantic major hurricane on record. The tenth and final consecutive hurricane and the sixth major hurricane of the very active 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, Ophelia had non-tropical origins from a decaying cold front on 6 October. Located within a favourable environment, the storm steadily strengthened over the next two days, drifting north and then southeastwards before becoming a hurricane on 11 October. After becoming a Category 2 hurricane and fluctuating in intensity for a day, Ophelia intensified into a major hurricane on 14 October south of the Azores, brushing the archipelago with high winds and heavy rainfall. Shortly after achieving peak intensity, Ophelia began weakening as it accelerated over progressively colder waters to its northeast towards Ireland and Great Britain. Completing an extratropical transition early on 16 October, Ophelia became the second storm of the 2017–18 European windstorm season. Early on 17 October, the cyclone crossed the North Sea and struck western Norway, with wind gusts up to 70 kilometres per hour (43 mph) in Rogaland county, before weakening during the evening of 17 October. The system then moved across Scandinavia, before dissipating over Norway on the next day.

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16/10/2013

Lao Airlines Flight 301 crashes on approach to Pakse International Airport in Laos, killing 49 people.

Lao Airlines Flight 301 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Vientiane to Pakse, Laos. On 16 October 2013, the ATR 72-600 aircraft operating the flight crashed into the Mekong River near Pakse, killing all 49 people on board. The accident was the first involving an ATR 72-600 and the deadliest ever to occur on Lao soil.

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16/10/2002

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina opens in Egypt, commemorating the ancient library of Alexandria.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) is a major library and cultural center on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in Alexandria, Egypt. It is a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria, once one of the largest libraries worldwide, which was lost in antiquity.

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16/10/1999

The magnitude 7.1 Hector Mine earthquake strikes Southern California

The 1999 Hector Mine earthquake occurred in Southern California, United States, on October 16 at 02:46:50 PDT. Its moment magnitude was 7.1 and the earthquake was preceded by 12 foreshocks, the largest of which had a magnitude of 3.8. The event is thought to have been triggered by the 1992 Landers earthquake which occurred seven years earlier. It also deformed nearby faults vertically and horizontally. The earthquake's hypocenter was at a depth of 20 kilometers and its epicenter at 34.603° N 116.265° W.

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16/10/1998

Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a murder extradition warrant.

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean army officer and military dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He led the military junta that overthrew President Salvador Allende in 1973 and established a dictatorship. He was proclaimed President of Chile in 1974 and served until 1990, when he stepped down to pave the way for democratic elections. Throughout his presidency, thousands of political opponents were tortured or executed. Pinochet is the longest-serving head of state in the history of Chile.

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16/10/1996

Eighty-four football fans die and 180 are injured in a massive crush at a match in Guatemala City.

The Estadio Doroteo Guamuch Flores disaster was a crowd disaster that occurred on 16 October 1996 in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

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16/10/1995

The Million Man March takes place in Washington, D.C. About 837,000 attend.

The Million Man March was a large gathering of African-American men in Washington, D.C., on Monday, October 16, 1995. Called by Louis Farrakhan, it was held on and around the National Mall. The National African American Leadership Summit, a leading group of civil rights activists and the Nation of Islam working with scores of civil rights organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People formed the Million Man March Organizing Committee. The founder of the National African American Leadership Summit, Benjamin Chavis Jr., served as National Director of the Million Man March.

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The Skye Bridge in Scotland is opened.

The Skye Bridge is a road bridge over Loch Alsh, Scotland, connecting the Isle of Skye to the island of Eilean Bàn. The name is also used for the whole Skye Crossing, which further connects Eilean Bàn to the mainland across the Carrich Viaduct. The crossing forms part of the A87.

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16/10/1991

George Hennard runs amok in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 and wounding 20.

The Luby's shooting, also known as the Luby's massacre, was a mass shooting that took place on October 16, 1991 at a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, United States. The perpetrator, 35-year-old George Pierre Hennard, drove his pickup truck through the front window of the cafeteria before opening fire, killing 23 people and wounding 27 others. He had a brief shootout with police officers in which he was seriously wounded but refused their orders to surrender and eventually died by suicide.

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16/10/1984

Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first Black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from Black theology with African theology.

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16/10/1978

Cardinal Karol Wojtyła is elected to the papacy as Pope John Paul II, he becomes the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523.

A conclave was held from 14 to 16 October 1978 to elect a new pope to succeed John Paul I, who had died on 28 September 1978, just 33 days after his election. All 111 eligible cardinal electors attended. On the eighth ballot, the conclave elected Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, the archbishop of Kraków. After accepting his election, he took the name John Paul II. The second conclave in the year, this was the latest conclave to include all eligible cardinal electors.

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16/10/1975

Indonesian troops kill the Balibo Five, a group of Australian journalists, in Portuguese Timor.

The Balibo Five was a group of journalists working for Australian commercial television networks who were murdered in the period leading up to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor on 7 December 1975. The Balibo Five were based in the town of Balibo in East Timor, where they were killed on 16 October 1975 during Indonesian incursions before the invasion. Journalist Roger East travelled to Balibo soon afterwards to investigate the likely deaths of the Five, and was executed by members of the Indonesian military on the docks of Dili on 8 December 1975. In 2007, following an inquest into the deaths, an Australian coroner ruled that they had been deliberately killed by Indonesian special forces soldiers. The official Indonesian version is that the men were killed by cross-fire during the battle for the town. In 2009, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) launched a war crimes investigation, but eventually concluded, in 2014, that there was insufficient evidence to prove an offence. The families of the murdered men continue to advocate for justice. Balibo House Trust was set up in their honour, and continues to do charitable work in East Timor.

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Three-year-old Rahima Banu, from Bangladesh, is the last known case of naturally occurring smallpox.

Rahima Banu Begum is the last known person to have been infected with naturally occurring Variola major smallpox, the more deadly variety of the disease.

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The Australian Coalition sparks a constitutional crisis when they vote to defer funding for the government's annual budget.

The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, also called the Dismissal, culminated with the dismissal of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), by Sir John Kerr, the governor-general of Australia, on 11 November 1975. Kerr then commissioned the leader of the opposition, Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal Party, as prime minister on the condition that he advise a new election. It has been described as the greatest political and constitutional crisis in Australian history.

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16/10/1973

Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Henry Alfred Kissinger was an American diplomat, political scientist, and politician. He served as the 7th national security advisor from 1969 to 1975, followed by being the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. He served under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

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16/10/1970

Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act during the October Crisis.

The War Measures Act was a statute of the Parliament of Canada that provided for the declaration of war, invasion, or insurrection, and the types of emergency measures that could thereby be taken. The Act was brought into force three times in Canadian history: during the First World War, Second World War, and the 1970 October Crisis.

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16/10/1968

Tommie Smith and John Carlos are ejected from the US Olympic team for participating in the Olympics Black Power salute.

During their medal ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City on October 16, 1968, two African-American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, each raised a black-gloved fist during the playing of the US national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner". While on the podium, Smith and Carlos, who had won gold and bronze medals respectively in the 200-meter running event of the 1968 Summer Olympics, turned to face the US flag and then kept their hands raised until the anthem had finished. In addition, Smith, Carlos, and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human-rights badges on their jackets.

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Kingston, Jamaica is rocked by the Rodney riots, inspired by the barring of Walter Rodney from the country.

The Rodney riots were riots and civil disturbances in Kingston, Jamaica in October 1968.

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Yasunari Kawabata becomes the first Japanese person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Yasunari/Kōsei Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read.

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16/10/1964

China detonates its first nuclear weapon.

Project 596 was the first nuclear weapons test conducted by the People's Republic of China, detonated on 16 October 1964, at the Lop Nur test site. It was an implosion fission device containing about 15 kg weapons-grade uranium (U-235) from Lanzhou enrichment plant.

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Leonid Brezhnev becomes leader of the Soviet Communist Party, while Alexei Kosygin becomes the head of government.

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982. He also held office as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1960 to 1964 and later from 1977 to 1982. His tenure as General Secretary and leader of the Soviet Union was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration.

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16/10/1962

Cuban Missile Crisis begins: U.S. President John F. Kennedy is informed of photos taken on October 14 by a U-2 showing nuclear missiles (the crisis will last for 13 days starting from this point).

The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in the United Kingdom, Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962. The confrontation is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.

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16/10/1953

Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro delivers his "History Will Absolve Me" speech, and is sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment by the Fulgencio Batista government for leading an attack on the Moncada Barracks.

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country in the Caribbean. It comprises the eponymous main island as well as 4,195 islands, islets, and cays. Situated at the convergence of the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean, Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula, south of both Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola, and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and Dominican Republic, with about 10 million inhabitants. It is the largest country in the Caribbean by area. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America.

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16/10/1951

The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, is assassinated in Rawalpindi.

Liaquat Ali Khan was a Pakistani lawyer, politician and statesman who served as the first prime minister of Pakistan from 1947 until his assassination in 1951. He played a key role in consolidating the state of Pakistan, much as Muhammad Ali Jinnah did in founding it. A leading figure in the Pakistan Movement, he is revered as Quaid-e-Millat and Shaheed-e-Millat.

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16/10/1949

The Greek Communist Party announces a "temporary cease-fire", thus ending the Greek Civil War.

The Greek Civil War took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the end of World War II, consisted of a Communist-led uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece. The rebels declared a people's republic, the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece, which was governed by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and its military branch, the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). The rebels were supported by Albania and Yugoslavia. With the support of the United Kingdom and the United States, the Greek royal government forces ultimately prevailed.

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16/10/1947

The Philippines takes over the administration of the Turtle Islands and the Mangsee Islands from the United Kingdom.

Turtle Islands, officially the Municipality of Turtle Islands, is a municipality in the province of Tawi-Tawi, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 5,683 people, making it the least populated town in the province.

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16/10/1946

Nuremberg trials: Ten defendants found guilty by the International Military Tribunal are executed by hanging.

The Nuremberg trials were international criminal trials held by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States against leaders of defeated Nazi Germany for plotting and carrying out invasions of several countries across Europe and committing atrocities against their citizens in the Second World War.

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16/10/1943

Holocaust in Italy: Raid on the Roman Ghetto.

The raid on the Roman Ghetto took place on 16 October 1943. A total of 1,259 people, mainly members of the Jewish community—numbering 363 men, 689 women, and 207 children—were detained by the Gestapo. Of these detainees, 1,023 were identified as Jews and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Of these deportees, only fifteen men and one woman survived.

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16/10/1940

Holocaust in Poland: The Warsaw Ghetto is established.

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the German authorities within the new General Government territory of occupied Poland. At its height, as many as 460,000 Jews were imprisoned there, in an area of 3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi), with an average of 9.2 persons per room, barely subsisting on meager food rations. Jews were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Nazi concentration camps and mass-killing centers. In the summer of 1942, at least 254,000 ghetto residents were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp during Großaktion Warschau under the guise of "resettlement in the East" over the course of the summer. The ghetto was demolished by the Germans in May 1943 after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had temporarily halted the deportations. The total death toll among the prisoners of the ghetto is estimated to be at least 300,000 killed by bullet or gas, combined with 92,000 victims of starvation and related diseases, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the casualties of the final destruction of the ghetto.

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16/10/1939

World War II: No. 603 Squadron RAF intercepts the first Luftwaffe raid on Britain.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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16/10/1934

Chinese Communists begin the Long March to escape Nationalist encirclement.

The Long March was a military retreat by the Chinese Red Army and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from advancing Kuomintang (KMT) forces during the Chinese Civil War, occurring between October 1934 and October 1935. About 100,000 troops retreated from the Jiangxi Soviet and other bases to a new headquarters in Yan'an, Shaanxi, travelling approximately 10,000 kilometres. About 8,000 troops ultimately survived the Long March.

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16/10/1923

Walt Disney and his brother, Roy, found the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, today known as The Walt Disney Company.

Walter Elias Disney was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards won (22) and nominations (59) by an individual. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and have also been named as some of the greatest films ever by the American Film Institute.

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16/10/1919

Adolf Hitler delivers his first public address at a meeting of the German Workers' Party.

The German Workers' Party was an obscure far-right political party established in the Weimar Republic after World War I. It lasted from 5 January 1919 until 24 February 1920. The DAP was the precursor of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party.

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16/10/1916

Margaret Sanger opens the first family planning clinic in the United States.

Margaret Sanger was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, founded Planned Parenthood, and was instrumental in the development of the first birth control pill. Sanger is regarded as a founder and leader of the U.S. birth control movement.

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16/10/1909

William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz hold the first summit between a U.S. and a Mexican president. They narrowly escape assassination.

William Howard Taft was the 27th president of the United States from 1909 to 1913 and the tenth chief justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930. He is the only person to have held both offices.

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16/10/1905

The Partition of Bengal in India takes place.

The Partition of Bengal in 1905, also known as the First Partition of Bengal, was a territorial reorganization of the Bengal Presidency in British India, implemented by the authorities of the British Raj. The reorganization separated the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas. Announced on 16 October 1905 by Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, and implemented West Bengal for Hindus and East Bengal for Muslims, it was undone a mere six years later.

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16/10/1891

A diplomatic incident between the United States and Chile occurred after U.S. sailors were attacked in Valparaíso, nearly leading to war.

The Baltimore crisis was a diplomatic incident that took place between Chile and the United States, after the 1891 Chilean Civil War, as a result of the growing American influence in the Pacific Coast region of Latin America in the 1890s. It marked a dramatic shift in United States–Chile relations. It was triggered by the fatal stabbing of two United States Navy sailors from USS Baltimore in front of the "True Blue Saloon" in Valparaíso on October 16, 1891. The United States government demanded an apology. Chile ended the episode when it apologized and paid a $75,000 indemnity.

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16/10/1882

The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business.

The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, abbreviated NYC&St.L, was a railroad that operated in the mid-central United States from 1881 to 1964. Commonly referred to as the "Nickel Plate Road", the railroad served parts of the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Its primary connections occurred in Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Toledo.

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16/10/1875

Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.

Brigham Young University (BYU) is a private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System (CES) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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16/10/1869

The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is "discovered".

The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous archaeological hoaxes in American history. It was a 10-foot-tall (3.0 m), roughly 3,000 pound purported "petrified man", uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell, in Cardiff, New York. He covered the giant with a tent and it soon became an attraction site. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P. T. Barnum are still being displayed.

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Girton College, Cambridge is founded, becoming England's first residential college for women.

Girton College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college at Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college status by the university, marking the official admittance of women to the university. In 1976, it was the first Cambridge women's college to become coeducational. Its sister college is Somerville College, one of the two Oxford colleges to first admit women.

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16/10/1859

Origins of the American Civil War: Abolitionist John Brown and his supporters launch a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).

The origins of the American Civil War were rooted in the desire of the Southern states to preserve and expand the institution of slavery. Historians in the 21st century overwhelmingly agree on the centrality of slavery in the conflict, but they disagree on the North's reasons for refusing to allow the Southern states to secede. The negationist Lost Cause ideology denies that slavery was the principal cause of the secession, a view disproven by historical evidence, notably some of the seceding states' own secession documents. After leaving the Union, Mississippi issued a declaration stating, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world."

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16/10/1846

William T. G. Morton administers ether anesthesia during a surgical operation.

William Thomas Green Morton was an American dentist who first publicly demonstrated the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic in 1846. He is credited with gaining the medical world’s acceptance of surgical anesthesia.

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16/10/1843

William Rowan Hamilton invents quaternions, a three-dimensional system of complex numbers.

Sir William Rowan Hamilton was an Irish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who made numerous major contributions to algebra, classical mechanics, and optics. His theoretical works and mathematical equations are considered fundamental to modern theoretical physics, particularly his reformulation of Lagrangian mechanics. His research included the analysis of geometrical optics, Fourier analysis, and quaternions, the last of which made him one of the founders of modern linear algebra.

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16/10/1841

Queen's University is founded in the Province of Canada.

Queen's University at Kingston, commonly known as Queen's University or simply Queen's, is a public research university in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Queen's holds more than 1,400 hectares of land throughout Ontario and owns Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England. Queen's is organized into eight faculties and schools.

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16/10/1836

Great Trek: Afrikaner voortrekkers repulse a Matabele attack, but lose their livestock.

The Battle of Vegkop, alternatively spelled as Vechtkop, took place on 16 October 1836 near the present day town of Heilbron, Free State, South Africa. After an impi of about 600 Matebele murdered 15 to 17 Afrikaner voortrekkers on the Vaal River, abducting three children, King Mzilikazi ordered another attack. The Voortrekkers, under the command of Andries Potgieter, repulsed them, but at the cost of abandoning their livestock.

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16/10/1834

Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London burns to the ground.

The Palace of Westminster, the medieval royal palace used as the home of the British parliament, was largely destroyed by fire on 16 October 1834. The blaze was caused by the burning of small wooden tally sticks which had been used as part of the accounting procedures of the Exchequer until 1826. The sticks were disposed of carelessly in the two furnaces under the House of Lords, which caused a chimney fire in the two flues that ran under the floor of the Lords' chamber and up through the walls.

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16/10/1817

Italian explorer and archaeologist Giovanni Belzoni, uncovered the Tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.

Giovanni Battista Belzoni, sometimes known as The Great Belzoni, was a prolific Italian explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities. He is known for his removal to England of the seven-tonne bust of Ramesses II, the clearing of sand from the entrance of the great temple at Abu Simbel, the discovery and documentation of the tomb of Seti I, including the sarcophagus of Seti I. Belzoni was the first to penetrate into the Pyramid of Khafre, the second pyramid of the Giza complex, and the first European in modern times to visit the Bahariya Oasis. Howard Carter, the discoverer of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, summed up Belzoni as ‘one of the most remarkable men in the entire history of archaeology’.

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Simón Bolívar sentences Manuel Piar to death for challenging the racial-caste in Venezuela.

Manuel Carlos María Francisco Piar Gómez was General-in-Chief of the army fighting Spain during the Venezuelan War of Independence.

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16/10/1813

The Sixth Coalition attacks Napoleon in the four-day Battle of Leipzig.

The Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations, was fought from 16 to 19 October 1813 at Leipzig, Saxony. The Coalition armies of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, led by Tsar Alexander I, Karl von Schwarzenberg, Gebhard von Blücher and Swedish Crown Prince Charles John, decisively defeated the Grande Armée of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon's army also contained Polish and Italian troops, as well as Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine. The battle was the culmination of the German campaign of 1813 and involved about 560,000 soldiers, 2,200 artillery pieces, the expenditure of 400,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, and 133,000 casualties. This made it the largest of the battles during the Napoleonic Wars and, arguably, the deciding battle of the wars.

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16/10/1805

War of the Third Coalition: Napoleon surrounds the Austrian army at Ulm.

The Battle of Ulm on 16–19 October 1805 was a series of skirmishes, at the end of the Ulm Campaign, which allowed Napoleon I to trap an entire Austrian army under the command of Karl Freiherr Mack von Leiberich with minimal losses and to force its surrender near Ulm in the Electorate of Bavaria.

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16/10/1793

French Revolution: Queen Marie Antoinette is executed.

Marie Antoinette was Queen of France as the wife of Louis XVI from 10 May 1774 until the abolition of the monarchy in 1792. She was beheaded during the Reign of Terror, a period of political violence in the French Revolution.

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War of the First Coalition: French victory at the Battle of Wattignies forces Austria to raise the siege of Maubeuge.

The Battle of Wattignies saw a French army commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan attack a Coalition army directed by Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After two days of combat Jourdan's troops compelled the Habsburg covering force led by François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt to withdraw. The War of the First Coalition victory allowed the French to raise the siege of Maubeuge. At a time when failed generals were often executed or imprisoned, Jourdan had to endure interference from Lazare Carnot from the Committee of Public Safety. The village, renamed Wattignies-la-Victoire in honor of the important success, is located 9 kilometres (6 mi) southeast of Maubeuge.

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16/10/1780

American Revolutionary War: The British-led Royalton raid is the last Native American raid on New England.

The Royalton raid was a British-led Indian raid in 1780 against various towns along the White River Valley in the Vermont Republic during the American Revolutionary War. It was the last major Indian raid in New England.

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The Great Hurricane of 1780 finishes after its sixth day, killing between 20,000 and 24,000 residents of the Lesser Antilles.

The Great Hurricane of 1780 was the deadliest tropical cyclone in the Western Hemisphere. An estimated 22,000 people died throughout the Lesser Antilles when the storm passed through the islands from October 10 to October 16. Specifics on the hurricane's track and strength are unknown, as the official Atlantic hurricane database only goes back to 1851.

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16/10/1736

Mathematician William Whiston's predicted comet fails to strike the Earth.

William Whiston was an English theologian, historian, natural philosopher, and mathematician, a leading figure in the popularisation of the ideas of Isaac Newton. He is now probably best known for helping to instigate the Longitude Act in 1714 and his important translations of the Antiquities of the Jews and other works by Josephus. He was a prominent exponent of Arianism and wrote A New Theory of the Earth.

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16/10/1590

Prince Gesualdo of Venosa murders his wife and her lover.

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa was an Italian nobleman and composer. Though both the Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, he is better known for writing madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century. He is also known for killing his first wife and her aristocratic lover upon finding them in flagrante delicto.

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16/10/1384

Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman.

Jadwiga, also known as Hedwig, was the first female monarch of the Kingdom of Poland, as well as its last hereditary ruler. She reigned from 16 October 1384 until her death. Born in Buda, she was the youngest daughter of Louis I of Hungary and Poland and his wife, Elizabeth of Bosnia. Jadwiga was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou, and had forebears among the Polish Piasts.

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16/10/1311

The Council of Vienne convenes for the first time.

The Council of Vienne was the fifteenth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church and met between 1311 and 1312 in Vienne, France. This occurred during the Avignon Papacy and was the only ecumenical council to be held in the Kingdom of France. One of its principal acts was to withdraw papal support for the Knights Templar at the instigation of Philip IV of France. The Council, unable to decide on a course of action, tabled the discussion. In March 1312 Philip arrived and pressured the Council and Clement to act. Pope Clement V passed papal bulls dissolving the Templar Order, confiscating their lands, and labeling them heretics.

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16/10/0955

King Otto I defeats a Slavic revolt in what is now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

The Battle on the Raxa river was fought on 16 October 955 over control of the Billung march between the forces of Otto I of Germany allied with the Rani tribe on one side, and the Obotrite federation under Nako and his brother Stoigniew with their allied and tributary Slav neighbours on the other. The Raxa river is identified with either the Recknitz or the Elde river. The German victory over the Slavs followed up on the August victory at the Lechfeld over the Magyars and marked the high point of Otto's reign.

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16/10/0912

Abd ar-Rahman III becomes the eighth Emir of Córdoba.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥakam al-Rabdī ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Dākhil al-Marwānī al-Umawī al-Qurashī, or simply ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III, was the Umayyad Emir of Córdoba from 912 to 929, at which point he founded the Caliphate of Córdoba, serving as its first caliph until his death. Abd al-Rahman won the laqab (sobriquet) al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh in his early 20s when he supported the Maghrawa Berbers in North Africa against Fatimid expansion and later claimed the title of Caliph for himself. His half-century reign was known for its religious tolerance.

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16/10/0690

Empress Wu Zetian ascends to the throne of the Tang dynasty and proclaims herself ruler of the Chinese Empire.

Empress Wu, commonly known as Wu Zetian, personal name Wu Zhao, was the only female sovereign in the history of China. She had previously held power as the empress consort of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang dynasty from 660 to 683 and as empress dowager during the reigns of her sons, Emperors Zhongzong and Ruizong, between 683 and 690. She was the sole ruler of the self-styled Zhou dynasty from 690 to 705.

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16/10/0456

Ricimer defeats Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the Western Roman Empire.

Ricimer was a Romanized Germanic general, who ruled the remaining territory of the Western Roman Empire from 456 after defeating Avitus, until his death in 472, with a brief interlude in which he contested power with Procopius Anthemius. Deriving his power from his position as magister militum of the Western Empire, Ricimer exercised political control through a series of puppet emperors. Ricimer's death led to unrest across Italy and the establishment of a Germanic kingdom on the Italian Peninsula.

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