On This Day in History
Today is Wednesday, Oct. 16, the 290th day of 2024 with 76 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
Those born on this day are under the sign of Libra. They include lexicographer Noah Webster in 1758; writer Oscar Wilde in 1854; British statesman/Nobel Peace Prize laureate Austen Chamberlain in 1863; writer Eugene O'Neill in 1888; Irish revolutionist Michael Collins in 1890; Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1898; actor Angela Lansbury in 1925; actor Barry Corbin in 1940 (age 84); musician Charles Frederick "C.F." Turner (Backman-Turner Overdrive) in 1943 (age 81); actor Suzanne Somers in 1946; musician Bob Weir (Grateful Dead) in 1947 (age 77); filmmaker David Zucker in 1947 (age 77); actor Tim Robbins in 1958 (age 66); musician Gary Kemp (Spandau Ballet) in 1959 (age 65); musician Flea, born Michael Balzary, (Red Hot Chili Peppers) in 1962 (age 62); musician Wendy Wilson (Wilson Phillips) in 1969 (age 55); actor Paul Sparks in 1971 (age 53); actor Kellie Martin in 1975 (age 49); musician John Mayer in 1977 (age 47); former WNBA star/Olympian Sue Bird in 1980 (age 44); actor Caterina Scorsone in 1981 (age 43); auto racer Charles Leclerc in 1997 (age 27); tennis player Naomi Osaka in 1997 (age 27).
On this date in history:
In 1701, Yale University was founded.
In 1793, following her conviction for treason, French Queen Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, was beheaded on the Place de la Revolution.
In 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Va. He was later convicted of treason and hanged.
In 1875, Brigham Young University was founded in Provo, Utah.
In 1916, the nation's first birth-control clinic was opened in New York by Margaret Sanger and two other women. Officials shut down the clinic 10 days later.
In 1934, about 100,000 men and women belonging to the communist Red Party in China began what would later be called The Long March . The followers of Mao Zedong marched some 6,000 miles fleeing the Nationalist forces.
In 1946, at Nuremberg, Germany, 10 high-ranking Nazi officials were executed by hanging for World War II war crimes. Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and chief of the German air force, was to have been among them but killed himself in his cell the night before.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photographs, collected by a U-2 spy plane two days earlier, had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba. This would mark the start of the most fraught 13 days of the 20th century, the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis .
In 1964, China detonated its first atomic bomb , dubbed Project 596.
In 1968, American track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in the Black Power salute during the medal ceremony for the 200-meter dash at the Mexico City Olympics. Smith said the gesture was meant to show that "we are black and we are proud of it."
In 1972, a light plane carrying U.S. House Democratic leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana, fellow Democratic Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska and his aide Russell Brown and pilot Don Jonz was reported missing on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau in Alaska. The plane was never found.
In 1973, North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger, U.S. national security adviser, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their Paris negotiations that led to a Vietnam War cease-fire agreement. Le Duc Tho refused to accept the award, saying ''peace has not yet been established.''
In 1978, Karol Jozef Wojtyla was elected pope and took the name John Paul II.
In 1984, Black Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa won the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle against apartheid .
In 1987, 18-month-old Jessica McClure was rescued from an abandoned well in Texas, 58 hours after she first fell into it. Her ordeal captured national attention and she came to be known affectionately as "Baby Jessica."
In 1991, police said George Hennard shot and killed 23 people and then took his own life after driving his pickup truck through the front window of Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history.
In 2003, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution endorsing a U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq.
In 2011, British race car driver Dan Wheldon, 33-year-old two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500, died after a 15-car pileup at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
In 2013, all 44 people aboard a Lao Airlines plane died after the ATR twin-turbo crashed just before landing at its destination in Pakse, Laos.
In 2021, NASA launched its Lucy spacecraft on a 12-year mission to visit eight mysterious Trojan asteroids, which orbit Jupiter.
A thought for the day: "If an expert says it can't be done, get another expert." - Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion
