Friday 16th of October 1553

Painter Lucas Cranach der Ältere dies of unknown causes at the age of 81 in Cranachhaus, Marktplatz 10, Weimar, Thüringen, Germany.

Wednesday 16th of October 1591

229th Pope Gregorius XIV dies of gallstones at the age of 56 in Vatican City, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Tuesday 16th of October 1708

Anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet Albrecht von Haller aka The Father of Modern Physiology is born in Bern, Mittelland, Switzerland.

Sunday 16th of October 1791

Russian military leader and statesman Grigory Potemkin dies of fever at the age of 52 in Iași, Moldavia, Romania.

Supposedly Potemkin overate on a ham, a slated goose and three or four chickens.

Wednesday 16th of October 1793

Excessive Queen consort of France and Navarre Marie Antoinette is executed by the Guillotine at the age of 38 in Place de la Révolution, Paris, VIIIe, Île-de-France, France.

Marie Antoinette was accused of orchestrating orgies in Versailles, sending millions of livres of treasury money to Austria, plotting to kill the Duke of Orléans, orchestrating the massacre of the Swiss Guards in 1792, declaring her son to be the new king of France, and sexual abuse of her son Louis Charles. Marie Antoinette was declared guilty of treason and condemned to death.

Wednesday 16th of October 1799

Composer Antoine-Frédéric Gresnick dies of unknown causes at the age of 44 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Friday 16th of October 1846

After administration of ether by local dentist William Thomas Green Morton, MGH Chief of Surgery, John Collins Warren painlessly removed a tumor from the neck of local printer Edward Gilbert Abbott in Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

Since then the date is known as 'Ether Day'.

Monday 16th of October 1854

Poet and writer Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde is born in 21 Westland Row, Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

Wednesday 16th of October 1872

Circus acrobat and fantasist Otto Witte known for claiming to be the King of Albania is born in Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Sunday 16th of October 1881

Writer Pelham Grenville Wodehouse aka Plum is born in Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom.

Saturday 16th of October 1886

First Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion aka Israel's Founding Father is born as David Grün in Wspólna Street, Płońsk, Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland.

Tuesday 16th of October 1888

Unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper mails a human kidney, ripped from the body of Catherine Eddowes, "From Hell" to George Lusk, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee in London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Friday 16th of October 1908

First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania Enver Halil Hoxha is born in Hodza House, Rruga Hysen Hoxha 3, Gjirokastër, Qarku i Gjirokastrës, Albania.

Saturday 16th of October 1909

Murderer Rainey Bethea is born in Roanoke, Virginia, United States.

Bethea became the last person to be publicly executed in the United States.

Saturday 16th of October 1909

SS-Obersturmbannführer Ernst Boje Ehlers aka der Endlöser von Belgien is born in Pinneberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

Sunday 16th of October 1927

Writer and playwright Günter Wilhelm Grass known for Die Blechtrommel is born in Gdańsk, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland.

Friday 16th of October 1931

24-year-old Hedvig Sarah Samuelson aka Sammy is stabbed and shot dead by murderess Winnie Ruth Judd aka The Trunk Murderess in Phoenix, Arizona, United States.

Judd also killed Agnes Anne LeRoi in the same event. Judd cut the bodies in pieces and mailed them in trunks to Los Angeles, where they were discovered 3 days later, blood seeping from one of them.

Sunday 16th of October 1932

Präsident der Treuhandanstalt Detlev Karsten Rohwedder is born in Bahnhofstraße, Gotha, Thüringen, Germany.

Tuesday 16th of October 1934

130.000 soldiers of the First Red Army, which included the leaders of the Communist Party of China, and civilians led by Bo Gu and Otto Braun begin the Long March and the ascent to power of 41-year-old Communist revolutionary and father of the People's Republic of China Mao Zedong aka Mao Tse-Tung aka Chairman Mao in Yudu, Jiangxi, China.

The Communists traversed over 9.000 kilometers in 370 days under the  command of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.

Friday 16th of October 1936

Serial killer Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo aka The Rostov Ripper is born in Yabluchne, Sums'ka Oblast, Ukraine.

Saturday 16th of October 1937

24-year-old Roger LeBlond is shot in the head by kidnapper and multiple murderer Eugen Weidmann aka The Handsome Devil in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Île-de-France, France.

Sunday 16th of October 1938

Nico aka Das Einsame Mädchen is born as Christa Päffgen in Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Wednesday 16th of October 1946

Nazi leaders 53-year-old Joachim Von Ribbentrop, 64-year-old Wilhelm Keitel, 45-year-old Ernst Kaltenbrunner, 53-year-old Alfred Rosenberg, 69-year-old Wilhelm Frick, 47-year-old Hans Frank, 61-year-old Julius Streicher, 52-year-old Fritz Sauckel, 54-year-old Alfred Jodl and 54-year-old Arthur Seiss-Inquart are executed by hanging for crimes against humanity by 35-year-old Executioner John Clarence Woods in Zellengefängnis Nürnberg, Nürnberg, Bayern, Germany.

Woods may have miscalculated the lengths for the ropes used for the executions such that some of the men did not die quickly of an intended broken neck but instead strangled to death slowly. Additionally the trapdoor was too small such that several of the condemned suffered bleeding head injuries when they hit the sides of the trapdoor while dropping through.

Wednesday 16th of October 1946

Sex killer Neville Clevely Heath aka The Sadistic Romeo is executed by hanging at the age of 29 in HM Prison Pentonville, Caledonian Road, London, Islington, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Sunday 16th of October 1955

Irish republican hunger striker Kieran Doherty is born as Ciaran O Dochartaigh in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

Friday 16th of October 1959

20-year-old Assassin Lee Harvey Oswald arrives in Moscow, Central Federal District, Russia.

Wednesday 16th of October 1963

Victim of Andrew Cunanan aka American Gigolo/American Psycho David Samuel Madson is born in Waterloo, Iowa, United States.

Friday 16th of October 1970

32-year-old Wiener Aktionist Hermann Nitsch performs his 34. Aktion in Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, Binghamton, New York, United States.

Nitsch' 34. Aktion lasted two hours. The 'exhibition,' as it was also dubbed, was observed at first by about 300 students, but after the actual work on the carcass began, the number dwindled to barely half that figure. During the show, several students became ill. Some of the girls in the crowd were sobbing.

Wednesday 16th of October 1974

35-year-old Karen Wine and her 16-year-old daughter Dawn are raped and strangled by 28-year-old Serial killer Paul John Knowles aka The Casanova Killer in Marlborough, Connecticut, United States.

Friday 16th of October 1981

Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Kitaigorodsky Dayan dies of a heart attack at the age of 66 in Tel Aviv, Gush Dan, Israel.

In 2005 Dayan's eye patch was offered for sale on Ebay with a starting bid of 75.000 U.S. dollars.

Wednesday 16th of October 1985

Murderer William E. Vandiver is executed by Old Sparky at the age of 37 in Indiana State Prison, 1 Park Row, Michigan City, Indiana, United States.

Vandiver was still breathing after the first administration of 2.300 volts and the current had to be applied three more times before he died.

Wednesday 16th of October 1991

Mass murderer George Jo Hennard commits suicide a shot in the head at the age of 35 in Luby's Cafeteria, Killeen, Texas, United States.

Hennard drove his blue 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck through the plate-glass front window of the cafetaria while yelling "All women of Killeen and Belton are vipers! This is what you've done to me and my family! This is what Bell County did to me...This is payback day!" Hennard then opened fire with both a 9mm Glock 17 pistol and a 9mm Ruger P89 pistol killing 23 people and wounding another 27.

Monday 16th of October 1995

A Syrian general practitioner is wounded by a bomb sent by 46-year-old Xenophobic serial bomber Franz Fuchs in Stronsdorf, Niederösterreich, Austria.

In all Fuchs sent out three mail bombs that day. At the Poysdorf post office 71-year-old Maria Loley is injured while opening a package. In Mistelbach a South-Korean doctor escapes another mail bomb.

Monday 16th of October 1995

43-year-old Member of the Rote Armee Fraktion Knut Detlef Folkerts is released from prison in Justizvollzugsanstalt Stammheim, Asperger Straße 60, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Wednesday 16th of October 1996

83 die in FIFA World Cup qualification match between Guatemala and Costa Rica stampede in Estadio Mateo Flores, Guatemala City, Guatemala.

47.000 soccer fans tried to squeeze in the 36.000 seat stadium, many having bought counterfeit tickets.

Wednesday 16th of October 1996

35-year-old Sharon Rina Lopatka is tortured and strangled by murderer Robert Frederick Glass aka Slowhand in Lenoir, North Carolina, United States.

Lopatka met Glass in an internet chatroom and agreed to be killed in a sado-masochistic sex encounter.

Thursday 16th of October 1997

70-year-old Serial killer András Pándy aka Father Bluebeard is arrested in Brussel, Brabant, Belgium.

Thursday 16th of October 1997

39-year-old Serial killer Bai Baoshan is arrested in Beijing, Hebei, China.

Baoshan was charged with 14 murders and sent to Xinjiang province for trial.

Thursday 16th of October 1997

Giorgio Centanaro is suffocated by serial killer Donato Bilancia aka Il Mostro della Liguria in Genova, Liguria, Italy.

Saturday 16th of October 2004

46-year-old Only child of actor Marlon Brando and Anna Kashfi Christian Devi Brando marries 47-year-old Deborah Presley in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.

Deborah Presley was an actress who had won the right to be known as daughter of Elvis Presley in 1989 in Tennessee Supreme court. The marriage lasted a short time and was annulled in June 2005.

Sunday 16th of October 2005

Drying of fresh corn along the country road in Yang Zhen, Shunyi, China.

Friday 16th of October 2009

My sculpture 'The Beast of Jersey', consisting of a wooden box with two large chicken feet jerking in and out randomly on two metal rods connected to an electric motor inside. It dates from the late 1980's and was still alive and kicking in an exhibition in Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussel, Brabant, Belgium.