Browse events, births, deaths and holidays on October 16 throughout history.
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…
Storm Ophelia strikes the U.K. and Ireland causing major damage and power loss.
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 …
Lao Airlines Flight 301 crashes on approach to Pakse International Airport in Laos, killing 49 people.
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 Alexand…
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina opens in Egypt, commemorating the ancient library of Alexandria.
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 f…
The magnitude 7.1 Hector Mine earthquake strikes Southern California
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 Salvad…
Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a murder extradition warrant.
The Estadio Doroteo Guamuch Flores disaster was a crowd disaster that occurred on 16 October 1996 in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
Eighty-four football fans die and 180 are injured in a massive crush at a match in Guatemala City.
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 Nati…
The Million Man March takes place in Washington, D.C. About 837,000 attend.
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 furthe…
The Skye Bridge in Scotland is opened.
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 perpetr…
George Hennard runs amok in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 and wounding 20.
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 t…
Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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 car…
Cardinal Karol Wojtyła is elected to the papacy as Pope John Paul II, he becomes the first non-Italian pontiff since…
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 murde…
Indonesian troops kill the Balibo Five, a group of Australian journalists, in Portuguese 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.
Three-year-old Rahima Banu, from Bangladesh, is the last known case of naturally occurring smallpox.
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 Si…
The Australian Coalition sparks a constitutional crisis when they vote to defer funding for the government's annual…
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…
Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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 …
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act during the October Crisis.
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…
Tommie Smith and John Carlos are ejected from the US Olympic team for participating in the Olympics Black Power salute.
The Rodney riots were riots and civil disturbances in Kingston, Jamaica in October 1968.
Kingston, Jamaica is rocked by the Rodney riots, inspired by the barring of Walter Rodney from the country.
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 au…
Yasunari Kawabata becomes the first Japanese person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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 dev…
China detonates its first nuclear weapon.