October 16
1793
French queen Marie Antoinette was guillotined for treason.
1859
Abolitionist John Brown and his men captured the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry.
1916
Margaret Sanger opened the first birth-control clinic in New York City.
1962
The Cuban Missile Crisis began.
1964
China detonated its first atomic bomb.
1978
John Paul II was elected pope.
1995
Hundreds of thousands of black men gathered in Washington for the “Million Man March” led by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
2001
Twelve Senate offices were closed when a letter to Sen. Tom Daschle was found to contain anthrax.
2002
The White House announced that North Korea had disclosed the existence of a secret nuclear weapons program.
Birthdays
Noah Webster
1758–1843, American lexicographer and philologist, born in West Hartford, Conn., graduated Yale, 1778.
Oscar Wilde
author (1854)
David Ben-Gurion
statesman (1886)
Eugene O’Neill
playwright (1888)
Paul Strand
photographer (1890)
William O. Douglas
jurist (1898)
Angela Lansbury
actor (1925)
Suzanne Somers
actor (1946)
Tim Robbins
actor (1958)
John Mayer
singer, songwriter (1977)