Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Nine months after the execution of her husband, the former King Louis XVI of France, Marie Antoinette follows him to the guillotine on October 16, 1793. The daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, she married Louis in 1770 to strengthen the French-Austrian alliance. At a time of economic turmoil in France, she lived […]

On October 16, 1854, an obscure lawyer and Congressional hopeful from the state of Illinois named Abraham Lincoln delivers a speech regarding the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which Congress had passed five months earlier. In his speech, the future president denounced the act and outlined his views on slavery, which he called “immoral.” Under the terms of […]

On October 16, 1906, Wilhelm Voigt, a 57-year-old German shoemaker, impersonates an army officer and leads an entire squad of soldiers to help him steal 4,000 marks. Voigt, who had a long criminal record, humiliated the German army by exploiting their blind obedience to authority and getting them to assist in his audacious robbery. Wearing […]

Mao Zedong begins leading his Communists followers on a 6,000 mile trek from southeastern to northwestern China.

On October 16, 1946, Alfred Rosenberg, the primary fabricator and disseminator of Nazi ideology, is hanged as a war criminal. Born in Estonia in 1893, Rosenberg studied architecture at the University of Moscow. After receiving his degree, he stayed in Russia through the early days of the Russian Revolution and may have even flirted with […]

The People’s Republic of China joins the rank of nations with atomic bomb capability, after a successful nuclear test on October 16, 1964. China is the fifth member of this exclusive club, joining the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France. U.S. officials were not terribly surprised by the test; intelligence reports since […]

On October 16, 1970, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice release a double-LP “concept” album called Jesus Christ Superstar, which only later would become the smash-hit Broadway musical of the same name. The duo would go on to become the most successful composer-lyricist team in modern theater history. From the late 1950s to the mid […]

George Jo Hennard drives his truck through a window in Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, and then opens fire on a lunch crowd of over 100 people, killing 23 and injuring 20 more. Hennard then turned the gun on himself and died by suicide. The incident was one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history. […]

A stampede of soccer fans before a World Cup qualifying match in Guatemala City kills 84 people and seriously injures more than 100 on October 16, 1996. The Guatemala national team was set to face off against Costa Rica on a Wednesday night in Guatemala City. Approximately 60,000 fans, most dressed in blue and white, […]