Today in History

    What happened on the 16th of October in history?

    Change Date:

    • 1775
      Portland Maine burned by British.
    • 1781
      Washington takes Yorktown
    • 1793
      Marie Antoinette beheaded in France.
    • 1846
      Dentist William T. Morton demonstrated the effectiveness of ether
    • 1849
      British seize Tigre Island in Gulf of Fonseca from Honduras.
    • 1859
      John Brown leads group of 20 in a raid on Harper's Ferry Va.
    • 1861
      Confederacy starts selling postage stamps
    • 1869
      Hotel in Boston becomes the 1st to have indoor plumbing
    • 1916
      Margaret Sanger opens 1st birth control clinic (Bkln)
    • 1921
      Jim Conzelman takes over as coach of Rock Island Independents from Frank Coughlin -- only mid-game coaching change in NFL history.
    • 1923
      Disney Co founded
    • 1941
      Gordo (by Gus Arriola) 1st appeared in newspapers
    • 1943
      Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly opens the city's new subway system.
    • 1946
      10 Nazi leaders hanged as war criminals after Nuremberg trials.
    • 1952
      Woolworth's at Powell & Market (S.F.) opens.
    • 1957
      Queen Elizabeth & Prince Philip arrive in Virginia
    • 1962
      Yanks beat Giants 4 games to 3 in the world series
    • 1962
      Cuban missile crisis began as JFK becomes aware of missiles in Cuba
    • 1964
      Brezhnev & Kosygin replace Krushchev as head of Russia
    • 1964
      China becomes world's 5th nuclear power
    • 1969
      Soyuz 6 returns to Earth
    • 1970
      Anwar Sadat elected president of Egypt succeeding Gamal Abdel Nasser
    • 1971
      Amphitheater in McLaren Park is dedicated in S.F.
    • 1973
      Kissinger & Le Duc Tho jointly awarded Nobel peace prize
    • 1976
      Soyuz 23 returns to Earth
    • 1978
      Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla elected supreme pontiff-John Paul II.
    • 1981
      Israel's General Moshe Dayan dies at 66
    • 1982
      Mt Palomar Observatory 1st to detect Halley's comet on 13th return
    • 1982
      Devils 1st road victory 6-5 over Penguins
    • 1982
      Shultz warns US will withdraw from UN if they vote to exclude Israel
    • 1984
      Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu named Nobel Peace Prize winner
    • 1985
      Intel introduces 32-bit 80386 microcomputer chip.
    • 1986
      Armand Hammer arrives back in US with Jewish refusenik David Goldfarb
    • 1987
      175-kph winds cause blackout in London much of southern England.
    • 1987
      18-month-old Jessica McClure is rescued 58 hours after she fell 22 feet into a well shaft in Midland TX.