In 1793, Marie Antoinette's last words before meeting the guillotine were, "Pardon, sir. I did not do it on purpose", then she was beheaded. Whether her words mollified the headsman, the guillotine made a clean stroke. It would come down hard on the necks of dozens during the "Reign of Terror."
In 1813, during the Napoleonic Wars, France suffers a major defeat to the Austrians, Prussians, Russians and Swedes at the Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of Nations.
In 1846, William T. Morton demonstrated the effectiveness of ether as an anesthetic by administering it to a patient undergoing jaw surgery before an audience of doctors in Boston.
In 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a group of about 20 men in a raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia in an effort to liberate and arm African American slaves. The incident was a source of greatly increased tensions shortly before open hostilities in the War of Northern Aggression.
In 1861, the Confederacy starts selling postage stamps.
In 1923, John Harwood patents the self-winding watch in Switzerland.
In 1933, President Roosevelt established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
In 1934, Mao Tse-tung and his 25,000-man army begin the Liang Wan Wu- Ch'ien-Li Ch'ang Ch'eng - the Long March. China's Great Wall Industries would later name their launch vehicles after this Long March.
In 1941, Germany advanced to within 60 miles of Moscow and Romanians entered Odessa, USSR, to begin the extermination of 150,000 Jews.
In 1956, An 11,000-carat emerald is found in northern Transvaal, South Africa, by Charles Kempt and J. Botes.
In 1957, the first American objects launched into space are two aluminum pellets lofted to altitude by the U.S. Air Force.
In 1957, Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain visits Jamestown, Virginia celebrating the 350th anniversary of the first English settlement. Yes, the 400th Anniversary will be in 2007.
In 1962, the Cuban missile crisis began as President Kennedy was informed by his aides that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
In 1964, China became the world's fifth nuclear power after detonating its first atomic bomb at Lop Nor.
In 1982, the Mt. Palomar Observatory is the first to detect Halley's comet on its 13th return.
In 1984, a baboon heart transplant to a human, the first operation of its kind, is performed on 15-day-old Baby Fae who lived until November 15.
In 1985, Intel introduces the 32-bit 80386 microcomputer chip.
In 1990, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev submitted to the Soviet legislature a scaled-back plan to transform the Soviet economy to a free-market system.
Noah Webster: 1758
Author, Journalist, Politician, Teacher, Lexicographer, American Dictionary of the English Language.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde: 1854
Dramatist/Playwright, Author, Poet, Critic, Irish.
David Green Ben-Gurion: 1886
Statesman, Prime Minister, Polish, rea last name was Green; Israel's founding father, the first Prime Minister 1948-53, 55.
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill: 1888
Dramatist/Playwright, the Ice Man Cometh.
William Orville Douglas: 1898
Supreme Court Justice, Author, 81st Supreme Court justice (1939-75)
Charles W. Colson: 1931. Former presidential advisor and Watergate figure, he served time in prison for handling one FBI file on an American citizen in 1973. Clinton's goons would later handle hundreds of such files with comparative impunity.
Born 16 October
Albrecht Von Haller: 1708
Scientist, Poet, Swiss, Experimental Physiology founder
Thought for Today: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892.
