NOW & THEN
16 OCTOBER
1442: Christopher Columbus’s fleet anchored in the Bahamas at Long Island, which he renamed “Fernandina”.
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.
1869: Girton College, the oldest women’s college of Cambridge University, was opened.
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.
Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope in conclave in Vatican, taking name John Paul II – the first non-italian 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.
BIRTHDAYS
Tim Robbins, actor, 61; Peter Bowles, actor, 83; Professor Stefan Buczacki, biologist, broadcaster and writer, 74; Flea (Michael Balzary), bassist (Red Hot Chili Peppers), 57; Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, MP 1983-97, secretary of state for Scotland 1995-7, 65; Terry Griffiths OBE, snooker player and commentator, 72; Gary Kemp, actor and musician (Spandau Ballet), 60; Davina Mccall, television presenter, 52; John and Edward Grimes, singing twins “Jedward”, 28; Naomi Osaka, Grand Slam tennis champion, 22; Amelia Lily, singer, 25; Fred Turner, musician, singer-songwriter (Bachman-turner Overdrive), 76.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1430 King James II of Scotland; 1803 Robert Stephenson, civil engineer; 1854 Oscar Wilde, playwright and dramatist; 1890 Michael Collins, Irish politician and revolutionary; 1922 Max Bygraves OBE, entertainer; 1923 Bill Mclaren CBE, rugby commentator; 1943 Tommy Gemmell, Scottish footballer. Deaths: 1555 Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London and Oxford martyr; 1774 Robert Fergusson, poet; 1793 Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (guillotined); 1956 Jules Rimet, president of Fifa 1921 to 1954.