Today is Sunday, October 16th, the 289th day of 2005. There are 76 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1793 - Queen Marie Antoinette is beheaded during the French Revolution.
1846 - American dentist William Morton demonstrates the effectiveness of ether as an anesthetic by administering it to a patient undergoing jaw surgery.
1916 - Margaret Sanger opens the first birth-control clinic, in New York City.
1946 - Ten Nazi war criminals condemned during the Nuremberg trials are hung.
1952 - An estimated 10,000 Communist-led Viet Minh troops launch an offensive in northwestern Indochina, overrunning French Union forces in the Nghialo basin.
1962 - The Cuban missile crisis begins when U.S. President John F. Kennedy is informed by his aides that reconnaissance photographs reveal the presence of missile bases in Cuba.
1964 - China detonates its first atomic bomb.
1973 - Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a cease-fire in the Vietnam war; the Vietnamese official declines the award saying the Vietnamese don't have peace, so he can't accept a peace award. The war continues for a few more years.
1978 - The College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church choose Cardinal Karol Wojtyla to be the new Pope; he takes the name John Paul II. He is the first non-Italian pope in 456 years.
1987 - Rescuers free Jessica McClure, an 18-month-old girl trapped in an abandoned well for 58 hours in Midland, Texas.
1990 - U.S. President George Bush signs the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, prohibiting employers from discriminating against older workers in providing pensions and disability payments.
1995 - A vast throng of black men gather in Washington for the "Million Man March" led by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
1996 - Our Kid born in Jakarta
1997 - Swiss investigators freeze the bank accounts of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her family after allegations surrounding the illegal obtaining of $13.8 million while she was in office.
1998 - British police arrest former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London for questioning about allegations that he had murdered Spanish citizens during his years in power.
1999 - A New York Air National Guard plane rescues Dr. Jerri Nielsen from a South Pole research center after she spent five months isolated by the Antarctic winter, forcing her to treat herself for breast cancer.
2004 - A U.S.-Russian crew has to turn off autopilot and manually moor their Soyuz spacecraft to the international space station after an unidentified glitch results in a dangerously high approach speed - a tough test for two Russians and an American, none of whom have flown the ship before.
Holidays and observances
* R.C. Saint Days - St. Hedwig of Andechs, St. Margaret Marie Alacoque, Saint Gall
* Bahá'í Faith - Feast of 'Ilm (Knowledge) - First day of the 12th month of the Bahá'í Calendar
* National Feral Cat Day
* United Nations - World Food Day aka World Food Prize Day
Today's Birthdays
Oscar Wilde, British writer (1854 -1900)
David Ben-Gurion, first prime minister of Israel (1886 -1973)
Eugene O'Neill, U.S. playwright and Nobel laureate (1888 -1953)
Michael Collins, Irish patriot (1890 -1922)
Angela Lansbury, English-born U.S. actress (1925 -)
Gunther Grass, German writer (1927 -)
