NOW & THEN
16 OCTOBER
1775: British naval forces landed at Falmouth (now Portland), Maine during the American War of Independence and, within two days had burned the town, leaving three-quarters of it in ashes. 1793: Marie Antoinette, Queen of France as wife of Louis XVI, was convicted of treason and guillotined in Paris.
1834: The Palace of Westminster was burned down; firemen managed to save Westminster Hall and St Stephen’s Chapel. 1847: Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre, was published. 1859: American anti-slavery campaigner John Brown, who inspired the song John Brown’s Body, raided the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He was later hanged for the offence.
1900: Great Britain and Germany signed the Anglo-german Treaty, in which they agreed to maintain the territorial integrity of China.
1902: The first young offenders’ home opened in the village of Borstal, Kent.
1908: The first aeroplane flight in Britain was made, at Farnborough in Hampshire, by American Samuel Frank Cody.
1916: World’s first birth control clinic opened in Brooklyn, New York.
1922: The world’s longest mainline tunnel, the Simplon II under the Alps, was completed after four years’ work.
1923: The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio was founded. 1942: A cyclone in the Bay of Bengal resulted in 40,000 deaths in the region south of Calcutta, India.
1946: The Nuremberg executions took place. The war criminals hanged included Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Wilhelm Keitel.
1949: Civil war ended in Greece. 1950: The first edition of CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was published in London.
1958: Blue Peter started on BBC television with presenters Leila Williams and Christopher Trace. 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis was sparked when US president John F Kennedy was made aware of the missiles.
1964: Harold Wilson became Labour prime minister.
1964: Rod Stewart released his first single, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.
1978: Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope, taking the
name John Paul II – the first nonitalian Pope since 1522.
1994: A biography of the Prince of Wales by broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby said he was forced into a loveless marriage by the Duke of Edinburgh. The Prince described life at Gordonstoun school as “absolute hell”. 1997: The government announced it would ban highcalibre handguns and semiautomatic weapons after Lord Cullen’s report into the Dunblane massacre in which 16 children and a teacher died. Labour and the SNP called for a total ban on guns.
1998: Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London on a warrant from Spain requesting his extradition on murder charges. 2014: New Zealand, Malaysia, Angola, Spain and Venezuela joined UN Security Council.
BIRTHDAYS
Peter Bowles, actor, 85; Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, MP 198397, secretary of state for Scotland 1995-7, 67; Terry Griffiths OBE, snooker player and commentator, 74; Gary Kemp, actor and musician (Spandau Ballet), 62; Dame Angela Lansbury DBE, actress, 96; Davina Mccall, TV presenter, 54; John and Edward Grimes, singing twins Jedward, 30; Naomi Osaka, Grand Slam tennis champion, 24; Amelia Lily, singer, 27; Shayne Ward, singer, 37; Jeremy Jackson, US actor, 41; Bob Weir, singer-songwriter (Grateful Dead), 74; Pamela Bach, actress, 58; Jacques Kallis, South African cricketer, 46.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1430 King James II of Scotland; 1803 Robert Stephenson, civil engineer; 1854 Oscar Wilde, playwright; 1922 Max Bygraves OBE, entertainer; 1927 Günter Grass, German novelist; 1943 Tommy Gemmell, Scottish footballer.
Deaths: 1978 Dan Dailey, actor; 1981 Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader and politician; 2006 Ross Davidson, Airdrie-born actor (Eastenders); 2007 Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress; 2016 Anthony Foley, Irish rugby union international; 2017 Roy Dotrice OBE, British actor.