What Happened on October 16th in History
30 historical events on this date
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...
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...
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 communityânumbering 363 men, 689 women, and 207 childrenâwere detained by the...
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...
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 2024 census, it has a population of 7,665 people, making...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
Yasunari Kawabata becomes the first Japanese person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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...
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....
Henry Kissinger and LĂȘ Äức Thá» are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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...
Indonesian troops kill the Balibo Five, a group of Australian journalists, in Portuguese Timor.
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...
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.
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...
Cardinal Karol WojtyĆa 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...
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...
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...
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...
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 BĂ n. The name is also used for the whole Skye Crossing, which further connects Eilean...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...