October 16 in History

Ricimer ( RISS-im-ər, Latin: [ˈrɪkɪmɛr]; c. 418 – 19 August 472) 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.

Emperor Zetian (17 February 624 – 16 December 705), personal name Wu Zhao, was the only undisputed 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. In her early life, Wu served as a concubine of Emperor Taizong. After his death, she married his successor, Emperor Gaozong, becoming empress in 655. Wu exercised substantial political influence even before her elevation and gradually came to dominate court affairs. After Gaozong suffered a debilitating stroke in 660, she effectively administered the empire on his behalf until his death in 683. Breaking with precedent, Wu then consolidated power and prevented her sons from ruling. In 690, she proclaimed the Zhou dynasty in place of the Tang and crowned herself emperor. During her 45-year de facto rule over China, Wu institutionalized the use of informants and enforced stringent legal measures, purged members of the Tang royal house and veteran officials from earlier administrations, reformed the civil service system to promote merit, patronized Buddhism as well as literature and the arts, and conducted military campaigns against Turkic and Tibetan incursions. Her rule formed part of the High Tang period, a historic peak in China's political power and cultural influence. In her later years, her governance became increasingly autocratic and extravagant. She was removed from power in the Shenlong Coup, which abolished the Zhou dynasty and restored the Tang, and she died a few months later.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Marwānī al-Umawī al-Qurashī (Arabic: عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن عبد الله بن محمد بن عبد الرحمن بن الحكم بن هشام بن عبد الرحمن المرواني، الأموي، القرشي; 890–961), or simply ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III, was the eighth and final Emir of Córdoba from 912 to 929. In 929, he elevated the emirate to the Caliphate of Córdoba, serving as its first caliph until his death. Abd al-Rahman won the laqab (sobriquet) al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh (lit. 'the Defender of God's Faith') 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. Domestically, Abd al-Rahman crushed internal rebellions and constructed the palace-city of Medina Azahara. Northern Christian kingdoms engaged him in military conflict, such as at the Battle of Valdejunquera and the Battle of Simancas, before ultimately submitting to his diplomatic supremacy by the end of his reign, leading neighboring Christian rulers to pay him homage.

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.

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 (the previous two had been held in Lyon, which was under the Kingdom of Burgundy). 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. Church reform was represented by the decision concerning the Franciscans, allowing abbots to decide how to interpret their Rule. The Beguines and Beghards of Germany were condemned as heretics, while the council forbade marriage for clerics, concubinage, rape, fornication, adultery, and incest. The council addressed the possibility of a crusade, hearing from James II of Aragon and Henry II of Cyprus, before deciding to assign Philip of France as its leader. It was through Philip's influence that Clement finally canonized Pietro Angelerio, taking care not to use his papal title Celestine V. The final act of the council was to establish university chairs for Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic languages.

Pope Urban V (Latin: Urbanus V; born Guillaume de Grimoard, 1310 – 19 December 1370) was head of the Catholic Church from 28 September 1362 until his death on 19 December 1370. He was a member of the Order of Saint Benedict and the only Avignon pope to be beatified. Even after his election as pontiff, he continued to follow the Benedictine Rule, living simply and modestly. This frequently brought him into conflict with his ecclesial peers, who were often accustomed to affluent lifestyles. Urban V pressed for reform throughout his pontificate and also oversaw the restoration and construction of churches and monasteries. One of the goals he set himself upon his election to the Papacy was the reunion of the Eastern and Western Churches. He came as close as some of his predecessors and successors, but did not succeed.

Jadwiga (Polish: [jadˈviɡa] ; 1373/1374 – 17 July 1399), also known as Hedwig (from German, Hungarian: Hedvig), was Queen of the Kingdom of Poland, as well as its last hereditary ruler. Crowned "King" (in regem Poloniae coronata) to highlight her sovereign status, she reigned from 16 October 1384 until her death. Born in Buda, she was the youngest daughter of Louis I of Hungary and Elizabeth of Bosnia. Jadwiga was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou and had forebears among the Polish Piasts. In 1375, Louis I of Hungary planned for Jadwiga to marry William of Austria, to whom she was symbolically married in 1378; she subsequently lived in Vienna from 1378 to 1380. Louis is sometimes thought to have regarded her and William as his favoured successors in Hungary after the 1378 death of her eldest sister, Catherine of Hungary, since the following year the Polish nobility had pledged their homage to Louis I's second daughter, Mary, and her fiancé, Sigismund of Luxembourg. However, in 1382, Louis I died and his widow, Elizabeth of Bosnia, had Mary crowned "King of Hungary". Sigismund of Luxembourg tried to take control of Poland, but the Polish nobility countered that they would only be obedient to a daughter of Louis I, provided she settled in Poland. Elizabeth then chose Jadwiga to reign in Poland, but did not send her to Kraków to be crowned. During the interregnum, Siemowit IV, Duke of Masovia, became a candidate for the Polish throne. The nobility of Greater Poland favoured him and proposed that he marry Jadwiga. However, Lesser Poland's nobility opposed him, and they persuaded Elizabeth to send Jadwiga to Poland. Jadwiga was crowned "King" in Poland's capital, Kraków, on 16 October 1384. With her mother's consent, Jadwiga's advisors opened negotiations with Władysław II Jagiełło, Grand Duke of Lithuania, concerning his potential marriage to Jadwiga. Władysław II Jagiełło, who was a pagan, signed the Union of Krewo, pledging to convert to Catholicism and to promote the conversion of his pagan subjects. Meanwhile, William hastened to Kraków, hoping to make his childhood wedding with Jadwiga valid by consummation of their union, but the Polish nobles expelled him in late August 1385. Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila), who took the Catholic baptismal name Władysław, married Jadwiga on 15 February 1386, after she renounced her union with William. Legend says that she had agreed to marry him only after a lengthy prayer, seeking divine inspiration. Jogaila, now styled in Polish as Władysław II Jagiełło, was crowned King of Poland on 4 March 1386 as Jadwiga's co-ruler. Władysław II Jagiełło worked closely with his wife in that role. In any case, her real political power was limited. She remained passive when the rebellious nobles of the Kingdom of Hungary-Croatia murdered her mother in early 1387. After that, Jadwiga marched into the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which had been under Hungarian rule, and persuaded most of the inhabitants to become subjects of the Polish Crown. She mediated between her husband's quarrelling kin and between Poland and the Teutonic Order. After her sister Mary died in 1395, Jadwiga and Władysław II Jagiełło laid claim to Hungary against the widowed Sigismund of Luxembourg, but the Hungarian lords did not support their claim. Jadwiga died four years later due to postpartum complications. As her only daughter predeceased her, the Queen was the last hereditary monarch of Poland, and with her death, the throne of Poland became elective. In 1997, she was canonised by the Catholic Church.

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (between 8 March 1566 and 30 March 1566 – 8 September 1613) 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 (having sex).

William Whiston (9 December 1667 – 22 August 1752) 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 attempts to win the rewards that it promised) and his important translations of the Antiquities of the Jews and other works by Josephus (which are still in print). He was a prominent exponent of Arianism and wrote A New Theory of the Earth. Whiston succeeded his mentor Newton as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. In 1710 he lost the professorship and was expelled from the university as a result of his unorthodox religious views. Whiston rejected the notion of eternal torment in hellfire, which he viewed as absurd, cruel, and an insult to God. What especially pitted him against church authorities was his denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, which he believed had pagan origins.

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.

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. The hurricane struck Barbados likely as a Category 5 hurricane, with one estimate of wind gusts as high as 200 mph (320 km/h), before moving past Martinique, Saint Lucia, and Sint Eustatius, and causing thousands of deaths on those islands. Coming in the midst of the American Revolution, the storm caused heavy losses to the British fleet contesting for control of the area, significantly weakening British control over the Atlantic. The hurricane later passed near Puerto Rico and over the eastern portion of Hispaniola, causing heavy damage near the coastlines. It ultimately turned to the northeast and was last observed on October 20 southeast of Atlantic Canada. The death toll from the Great Hurricane alone exceeds that of many entire decades of Atlantic hurricanes. Estimates are significantly higher than for the 1998 Hurricane Mitch, the second-deadliest Atlantic storm, for which figures are likely more precise. The hurricane was part of the disastrous 1780 Atlantic hurricane season, with two other deadly storms occurring in October.

Marie Antoinette (Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was Queen of France as the wife of Louis XVI from 10 May 1774 until the abolition of the French monarchy in 1792 during the French Revolution. Born in November 1755 at the Hofburg in Vienna, Marie Antoinette was the fifteenth child and youngest daughter of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa. By right of her birth, she was an Austrian archduchess of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. In 1769, Marie Antoinette was betrothed to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, in order to strengthen the Franco–Austrian alliance. The two were married in 1770, thus making Marie Antoinette dauphine of France at the age of fourteen. In 1774, Louis-Auguste inherited the French throne as Louis XVI, becoming king of France, and Marie Antoinette queen consort. As queen, Marie Antoinette became increasingly a target of criticism by opponents of the domestic and foreign policies of Louis XVI and those opposed to the monarchy in general. The French libelles accused her of being profligate, promiscuous, having illegitimate children, and harboring sympathies for France's perceived enemies, including her native Austria. She was falsely accused of defrauding the Crown's jewelers in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, but the accusations still damaged her reputation. During the French Revolution, she became known as Madame Déficit because the country's financial crisis was blamed on her lavish spending and her opposition to social and financial reforms proposed by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Jacques Necker. Several events were linked to Marie Antoinette during the Revolution after the government placed the royal family under house arrest in the Tuileries Palace in October 1789. The June 1791 attempted flight to Varennes and her role in the War of the First Coalition were immensely damaging to her image among French citizens. On 10 August 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the royal family to take refuge at the Legislative Assembly, and they were imprisoned in the Temple Prison on 13 August 1792. On 21 September 1792, France was declared a republic and the monarchy was abolished. Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 and Marie Antoinette moved to the Conciergerie. Her trial began on 14 October 1793; two days later, she was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed by guillotine on 16 October 1793 at the Place de la Révolution.

The Battle of Wattignies (15–16 October 1793) 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. Coburg's main army encircled 25,000 French soldiers in Maubeuge while about 22,000 Austrians under Clerfayt were formed in a semi-circle, covering the southern approaches to the fortress. On the first day, 45,000 French soldiers mounted a clumsy attack which was easily repulsed, except near the village of Wattignies. On the second day, Jourdan concentrated half his army at Wattignies and after a tough fight, forced Coburg to concede defeat. Though the Coalition army was better trained than the French, its units were spread out too thinly and the different nationalities failed to cooperate. Soon the Coalition army went into winter quarters, finishing a campaign that started with great promise and ended in disappointment. Carnot rewrote history so that he and the political representatives got most of the credit for the triumph; Jourdan was dismissed in January 1794.

The Battle of Ulm on 16–20 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.

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 (mainly Saxony and Württemberg). 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. Decisively defeated, Napoleon was compelled to return to France while the Sixth Coalition kept up its momentum, dissolving the Confederation of the Rhine and invading France early the next year. Napoleon was forced to abdicate and was exiled to Elba in May 1814.

Giovanni Battista Belzoni (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni batˈtista belˈtsoːni]; 5 November 1778 – 3 December 1823), sometimes known as The Great Belzoni, was a Venetian 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 (still sometimes known as "Belzoni's Tomb"), 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’.

Manuel Carlos María Francisco Piar Gómez (April 28, 1774 – October 16, 1817) was General-in-Chief of the army fighting Spain during the Venezuelan War of Independence.

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. The resulting fire spread rapidly throughout the complex and developed into the largest conflagration in London between the Great Fire of 1666 and the Blitz of the Second World War; the event attracted large crowds which included several artists who provided pictorial records of the event. The fire lasted for most of the night and destroyed a large part of the palace, including the converted St Stephen's Chapel—the meeting place of the House of Commons—the Lords Chamber, the Painted Chamber and the official residences of the Speaker and the Clerk of the House of Commons. The actions of Superintendent James Braidwood of the London Fire Engine Establishment ensured that Westminster Hall and a few other parts of the old Houses of Parliament survived the blaze. In 1836 a competition for designs for a new palace was won by Charles Barry. Barry's plans, developed in collaboration with Augustus Pugin, incorporated the surviving buildings into the new complex. The competition established Gothic Revival as the predominant national architectural style and the palace has since been categorised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site of outstanding universal value.

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 (3,500 acres) of land throughout Ontario and owns Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England. Queen's is organized into eight faculties and schools. The Church of Scotland established Queen's College in October 1841 via a royal charter from Queen Victoria. The first classes, intended to prepare students for the ministry, were held 7 March 1842, with 15 students and two professors. In 1869, Queen's was the first Canadian university west of the Maritime provinces to admit women. In 1883, a women's college for medical education affiliated with Queen's University was established after male staff and students reacted with hostility to the admission of women to the university's medical classes. In 1912, Queen's ended its affiliation with the Presbyterian Church, and adopted its present name. During the mid-20th century, the university established several faculties and schools and expanded its campus with the construction of new facilities. Queen's is a co-educational university with more than 33,842 students and over 131,000 alumni living worldwide. Notable alumni include government officials, academics, business leaders and 62 Rhodes Scholars. As of 2022, five Nobel Laureates and one Turing Award winner have been affiliated with the university. The university funds several magazines and journals, among which are the Queen's Quarterly that has been published since 1893.

Sir William Rowan Hamilton (4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) 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. Hamilton was Andrews Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin. He was also the third director of Dunsink Observatory from 1827 to 1865. The Hamilton Institute at Maynooth University is named after him. He received the Cunningham Medal twice, in 1834 and 1848, and the Royal Medal in 1835. He was also knighted in 1835. Hamilton remains arguably the most influential Irish physicist, along with Ernest Walton. Since his death, he has been commemorated throughout the country, with several institutions, streets, monuments, and stamps bearing his name.

William Thomas Green Morton (August 9, 1819 – July 15, 1868) 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.

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, including 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." Background factors in the run up to the Civil War were partisan politics, abolitionism, nullification versus secession, Southern and Northern nationalism, expansionism, economics, and modernization in the antebellum period. As a panel of historians emphasized in 2011, "while slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election as an opponent of the extension of slavery into the U.S. territories. His victory triggered declarations of secession by seven slave states of the Deep South, all of whose riverfront or coastal economies were based on cotton that was cultivated by slave labor. They formed the Confederate States of America after Lincoln was elected in November 1860 but before he took office in March 1861. Nationalists in the North and "Unionists" in the South refused to accept the declarations of secession. No foreign government ever recognized the Confederacy. The refusal of the U.S. government, under President James Buchanan, to relinquish its forts that were in territory claimed by the Confederacy, proved to be a major turning point leading to war. The war itself began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces bombarded the Union's Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

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 pounds (1,400 kg) 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 a tourist attraction. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P. T. Barnum are still being displayed.

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 (LDS Church). BYU offers a variety of academic programs including those in the liberal arts, engineering, agriculture, management, physical and mathematical sciences, nursing, music, and law. Its undergraduate and graduate programs are organized into 11 colleges and schools at its main Provo campus, with some colleges and divisions defining their own admission standards. The university also administers four satellite campuses in Jerusalem, Salt Lake City, Washington, D.C., and London, while its parent organization, CES, sponsors sister schools in Hawaii and Idaho. The university is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research spending and doctorate production". Almost all BYU students are members of the LDS Church. Students attending BYU agree to follow an honor code, which mandates behavior in line with teachings of the church, such as academic honesty, adherence to dress and grooming standards and abstinence from extramarital sex, same-sex romantic behavior, and consumption of alcohol and other drugs. Undergraduate students are also required to complete curriculum in LDS religious education for graduation regardless of their course of study. Due in part to the church's emphasis on missionary service, nearly 50% of BYU students have lived outside the United States, 65% speak a second language, and 63 languages are taught at the university regularly. BYU's athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the BYU Cougars. All sports teams compete in the Big 12 Conference except for men's volleyball which is a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. BYU's sports teams have won a total of 14 NCAA championships and 26 non-NCAA championships.

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.

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.

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. Announced on 16 October 1905 by Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, the reorganization separated the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas, creating West Bengal for Hindus and East Bengal for Muslims. The reorganization was undone a mere six years later. The Partition was undertaken primarily for administration purposes but in fact was treated as a divide and rule policy and further agitated people, who perceived that it was a deliberate attempt to divide the Bengal Presidency on religious grounds, with a Muslim majority in the east and a Hindu majority in the west, thereby weakening the nationalist cause. The Hindus of West Bengal, who dominated Bengal's business and rural life, complained that the division would make them a minority in a province that would incorporate the province of Bihar and Orissa. Hindus were outraged at this "divide and rule" policy, even though Curzon stressed it would produce administrative efficiency. The partition animated the Muslims to form their own national organization along communal lines. To appease Bengali sentiment and in response to the Swadeshi movement's riots in protest against the policy, Bengal was reunited by the British government in 1911. The Bengal Presidency encompassed Bengal, Bihar, parts of present-day Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and Assam. With a population of 78.5 million, it was British India's largest province. For decades British officials had maintained that the huge size created difficulties for effective management and had caused neglect of the poorer eastern region. The idea of the partition had been brought up only for administrative reasons. Therefore, Curzon planned to split Orissa and Bihar and join fifteen eastern districts of Bengal with Assam. The eastern province held a population of 31 million, most of which was Muslim, with its centre at Dhaka. Curzon pointed out that he thought of the new province as Muslim. Lord Curzon's intention was to divide Bengalis, but not specifically Hindus from Muslims. The western districts formed the other province with Orissa and Bihar. The union of western Bengal with Orissa and Bihar reduced the speakers of the Bengali language to a minority. Muslims, led by the Nawab Sallimullah of Dhaka, supported the partition, and Hindus opposed it.

William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) 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. Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father, Alphonso Taft, was a U.S. attorney general and secretary of war. Taft attended Yale and joined Skull and Bones, of which his father was a founding member. After becoming a lawyer, Taft was appointed a judge while still in his twenties. He continued a rapid rise, being named solicitor general and a judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1901, President William McKinley appointed Taft civilian governor of the Philippines. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt made him Secretary of War, and he became Roosevelt's hand-picked successor. Despite his personal ambition to become chief justice, Taft declined repeated offers of appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States, believing his political work to be more important. With Roosevelt's help, Taft had little opposition for the Republican nomination for president in 1908 and easily defeated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency in that November's election. As president, he focused on East Asia more than European affairs and repeatedly intervened to prop up or remove Latin American governments. While Taft sought reductions to trade tariffs, the resulting bill was heavily influenced by special interests. His administration was filled with conflict between the Republican Party's conservative wing, with which Taft often sympathized, and its progressive wing, towards which Roosevelt increasingly gravitated. Controversies over conservation and antitrust cases filed by the Taft administration served to further separate the two men. The 1912 presidential election was a three-way race, as Roosevelt challenged Taft for renomination. Taft used his control of the party machinery to gain a bare majority of delegates and Roosevelt bolted the party. The split left Taft with little chance of reelection, and he took only Utah and Vermont in his loss to Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson. After leaving office, Taft returned to Yale as a professor, continuing his political activity and working against war through the League to Enforce Peace. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft chief justice, an office he had long sought. Chief Justice Taft was a conservative on business issues, and under him there were advances in individual rights. His work towards administrative reform of the court culminated in the Judiciary Act of 1925. In poor health, he resigned in February 1930, and died the following month. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the first president and first Supreme Court justice to be interred there. Taft is generally listed near the middle in historians' rankings of U.S. presidents; his work as chief justice has been evaluated more positively. In popular memory his political achievements and role in Republican Party history have been overshadowed by his weight and physical appearance.

Margaret Sanger (née Higgins; September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) 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. In the early 1900s, contraceptives, abortion, and birth control literature were illegal in much of the U.S. Working as a nurse in the slums of New York City, Sanger often treated mothers desperate to avoid conceiving additional children, many of whom had resorted to back-alley abortions. Sanger was a first-wave feminist and believed that women should be able to decide if and when to have children, leading her to campaign for the legalization of contraceptives. As an adherent of the eugenics movement, she argued that birth control would reduce the number of unfit people and improve the overall health of the human race. She was also influenced by Malthusian concerns about the detrimental effects of overpopulation. To promote birth control, Sanger gave speeches, wrote books, and published periodicals. Sanger deliberately flouted laws that prohibited distribution of information about contraceptives, and was arrested eight times. Her activism led to court rulings that legalized birth control, including one that enabled physicians to dispense contraceptives; and another – Griswold v. Connecticut – which legalized contraception without a prescription for couples nationwide. Sanger established a network of dozens of birth control clinics across the country, which provided reproductive health services to hundreds of thousands of patients. She discouraged abortion, and her clinics never offered abortion services during her lifetime. She founded several organizations dedicated to family planning, including Planned Parenthood and International Planned Parenthood Federation. In the early 1950s, Sanger persuaded philanthropists to provide funding for biologist Gregory Pincus to develop the first birth control pill. She died in Arizona in 1966.

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.

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.

Háry János is a Hungarian folk opera in four acts by Zoltán Kodály with a libretto by Béla Paulini and Zsolt Harsányi. The opera is in the Singspiel style. The libretto is based on János Garay's comic poem "The Veteran" about a drunkard named Háry János. The subtitle of the piece is Háry János Kalandozásai Nagyabonytul a Burgváráig – Háry János: his Adventures from Nagyabony to the Vienna Burg.

The Long March was a military retreat by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese Red Army from advancing Kuomintang (KMT) National Revolutionary Army 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.

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, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. 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.

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.

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.

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.

Turtle Islands, officially the Municipality of Turtle Islands (Sama: Lahat Pūꞌ Payukan; Tagalog: Bayan ng mga Pulo ng Pawikan, Bayan ng mga Pulong Pawikan, Bayan ng Kapuluan ng Pawikan, Bayan ng Kapuluang Pawikan; Filipino: Bayan ng Turtle Islands; Malay: Perbandaran Pulau Penyu, Perbandaran Kepulauan Penyu, is a municipality in the province of Tawi-Tawi, Philippines. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 7,665 people, making it the least populated town in the province.

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.

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.

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. Cuba is the largest country in the Caribbean by area and the third-largest by population, after Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Culturally, Cuba is considered to be part of Latin America. Its capital and largest city is Havana.

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.

Project 596 was the first nuclear test of the nuclear weapons program of China, detonated on 16 October 1964, at the Lop Nur test site in Xinjiang. It was an implosion fission device containing about 15 kg weapons-grade uranium (U-235), produced at the Lanzhou enrichment plant.

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 was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration.

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.

Yasunari 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.

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.

Henry Alfred Kissinger was an American diplomat, political scientist, and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 7th national security advisor from 1969 to 1975 and as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977, serving under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

The Balibo Five was a group of Commonwealth journalists - two Australian, two British, and one New Zealander - working for Australian commercial television networks who were murdered by the Indonesian military 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 worked with scores of civil rights organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to form 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.

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.

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean army officer and military dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He led the Chilean Army in the overthrow of President Salvador Allende in 1973 and established a military junta. He was proclaimed President of Chile by the junta 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.

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.

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.

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.