This Day in History

[Gravdigr]

October 16

Today is World Food Day, celebrating the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. So, today, think of the starving Pygmies in New Guinea.

Today also marks World Anaesthesia Day, so, knock somebody out.

Events

1780 – Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont are the last major raids of the American Revolutionary War.

1793 – Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.

1834 – Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London burns to the ground.

1846 – William T. G. Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome.

1869 – The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is "discovered".

1875 – Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.

1909 – William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz hold a summit, a first between a U.S. and a Mexican president, and they only narrowly escape assassination.

1916 – In Brooklyn, New York, Margaret Sanger opens the first family planning clinic in the United States.

1923 – The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.

1964 – China detonates its first nuclear weapon.

1968 – United States Olympic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked off the US team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.

1975 – Rahima Banu, a two-year-old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, is the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.

1978 – Karol Wojtyla is elected Pope John Paul II after the October 1978 Papal conclave, the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523.

1984 – The Bill debuts on ITV, eventually becoming the longest-running police procedural in British television history.

1991 – Luby's shooting: George Hennard runs amok in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 and wounding 20 in Luby's Cafeteria.

1995 – The Million Man March takes place in Washington, D.C.

1995 – The Skye Bridge is opened.

2002 – Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.

2012 – The extrasolar planet Alpha Centauri Bb is discovered.

Births

1758 – Noah Webster; 1815 – Francis Lubbock (namesake of Lubbock, Texas); 1854 – Oscar Wilde; 1886 – David Ben-Gurion (Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport is named in his honor); 1888 – Eugene O'Neill; 1890 – Paul Strand; 1925 – Angela Lansbury; 1938 – Nico♪ ♫; 1940 – Barry Corbin; 1943 – Fred Turner(the 'Turner' in Bachman-Turner Overdrive); 1945 – Roger Hawkins(Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section); 1945 – Dave Hill (The Full Monty); 1946 – Suzanne Somers; 1947 – Bob Weir(The Grateful Dead); 1947 – David Zucker; 1948 – Bruce Fleisher; 1952 – Cordell Mosson(Parliament-Funkadelic); 1953 – Tony Carey(Rainbow); 1958 – Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption); 1960 – Bob Mould(Husker Du); 1962 – Flea(Red Hot Chili Peppers); 1962 – Manute Bol; 1971 – Chad Gray♪ ♫(Mudvayne); 1977 – John Mayer; 1985 – Casey Stoner

Deaths

1791 – Grigory Potemkin; 1793 – Marie Antoinette; 1972 – Hale Boggs; 1972 – Leo G. Carroll (Topper, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.); 1973 – Gene Krupa:drummer); 1978 – Dan Dailey♪ ♫; 1981 – Moshe Dayan; 1989 – Cornel Wilde; 1992 – Shirley Booth (Hazel); 1996 – Jason Bernard; 1997 – Audra Lindley ('Mrs. Roper' on Three's Company, The Ropers); 1997 – James A. Michener; 1999 – Jean Shepherd (narrated and co-scripted A Christmas Story); 2004 – Pierre Salinger; 2007 – Deborah Kerr; 2010 – Barbara Billingsley ('June Cleaver' on Leave It To Beaver); 2011 – Dan Wheldon; 2013 – Ed Lauter; 2014 – Allen Forte♪ ♫