October 16 is the 289th day of the year (290th in leap years), with 77 days remaining until year’s end. (Illustration: The beheading of Marie Antoinette.)

Today in History

• Marie Antoinette is guillotined (1793)
• Ether anesthesia is demonstrated for the first time (1846)
• John Brown leads a raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (1859)
• The Cardiff Giant, a “petrified man” later revealed as a fake, is supposedly discovered in New York (1869)
• Bengal is partitioned by the British (1905)
• Margaret Sanger opens the first family planning clinic in the United States (1916)
• The Walt Disney Company is founded (1923)
• Chinese communists begin the 長征 (Long March) (1934)
• The Luftwaffe make their first attack on British territory (1939)
• Ten top Nazi leaders (including Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, and Joachim von Ribbentrop) are hanged after being convicted of war crimes at Nürnberg (1946)
• China detonates its first nuclear weapon (1964)
• Two US athletes are kicked off the Olympic team for giving a Black Power salute (1968)
• Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ win the Nobel Peace Prize (1973)
• রহিমা বানু বেগুম (Rahima Banu) contracts the last known case of naturally occurring smallpox, but recovers (1975)
• Karol Wojtyła is elected Pope John Paul II (1978)
• Desmond Tutu receives the Nobel Peace Prize (1984)
• The Million Man March attracts between 670,000 and 1 million people to the National Mall in Washington, DC (1995)
• Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London (1998)
• The extrasolar planet Alpha Centauri Bb is discovered (2012)

Birthdays

• Noah Webster, lexicographer (1758)
• Oscar Wilde, poet and playwright (1854)
• דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן‎ (David Ben-Gurion), first prime minister of Israel (1886)
• Eugene O’Neill, playwright (1888)
• Mícheál Ó Coileáin (Michael Collins), Irish revolutionary leader (1890)
• William O. Douglas, Supreme Court justice (1898)
• Goose Goslin, baseball player (1900)
• Cecile de Brunhoff, Babar the Elephant co-creator (1903)
• Enver Hoxha, Albanian ruler (1908)
• George Turner, Australian science fiction writer (1916)
• Kathleen Winsor, Forever Amber author (1919)
• Linda Darnell, actress (1923)
• Bert Kaempfert, composer (1923)
• Angela Lansbury, actress (1925)
• Günter Grass, author (1927)
• Charles Colson, Watergate figure (1931)
• Barry Corbin, actor (1940)
• Suzanne Somers, actress (1946)
• Bob Weir, Grateful Dead member (1947)
• David Zucker, director (1947)
• Ron Taylor, actor (1952)
• Tim Robbins, actor (1958)
• Manute Bol, basketball player (1962)
• Wendy Wilson, singer (1969)
• John Mayer, singer-songwriter (1977)

Deaths

• Nicholas V, antipope (1333)
• Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, explorer and car namesake (1730)
• Григо́рий Потёмкин (Grigory Potemkin), Russian nobleman (O. S. 1791*)
• Jean de Brunhoff, Babar the Elephant co-creator (1937)
• لیاقت علی خان‎ (Liaquat Ali Khan), assassinated first prime minister of Pakistan (1951)
• George Marshall, military officer and US Secretary of State (1959)
• Ellis Kinder, baseball player (1968)
• Leo G. Carroll, actor (1972)
• Gene Krupa, drummer (1973)
• Dan Dailey, actor (1978)
• משה דיין (Moshe Dayan), Israeli military leader and politician (1981)
• Walter Farley, Black Stallion author (1989)
• Scott O’Dell, young adult fiction author (1989)
• Cornel Wilde, actor (1989)
• Art Blakey, drummer (1990)
• Shirley Booth, actress (1992)
• Audra Lindley, actress (1997)
• James A. Michener, author (1997)
• Jean Shepherd, raconteur, A Christmas Story author (1999)
• Pierre Salinger, White House press secretary (2004)
• Deborah Kerr, actress (2007)
• Barbara Billingsley, Leave It to Beaver mother (2010)
• Eddie Yost, baseball player (2012)

Holidays

• Air Force Day (Bulgaria)
• Boss’ Day (US and Canada)
• Ada Lovelace Day (International)
• Day of Pope John Paul II (Poland)
• Death Anniversary of Liaquat Ali Khan (Pakistan)
• Dictionary Day and Learn a Word Day (US)
• Feasts of Balderic, Dulcidius, Eliphius, Gall, Lull, Magnobodus, and Mummolinus (Catholicism)
• Feral Cat Day (US)
• Festival of St. Gerald Majella and Hurricane Thanksgiving Day (US Virgin Islands)
• Let Them Eat Cake Day and Liqueur Day (unofficial)
• St. Gallus Day (Switzerland)
• St. Hedwig’s Day (Bavaria)
• Teachers’ Day (Chile)
• World Food Day (International)
• World Anaesthesia Day and Ether Day (International)