What are the important events that happened on October 16? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.

October 16: Facts & Myths About This Day

October 16 is the 289^th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 76 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Thursday.

Under the Julian calendar, this day is October 3, 2025 – a Thursday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?

When this day started, 1,760,572,800 seconds has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.

Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘dihectaoctacontaenneagon’ day.

Libra is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Opal is the modern birthstone for this month. Jasper is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 124 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,682 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.

October 16 Historical Events

• 1590 –
  Carlo Gesualdo, composer, Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, murders his wife, Donna Maria d'Avalos, and her lover Fabrizio Carafa, the Duke of Andria at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples.
• 1846 –
  William TG Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome.
• 1869 –
  Girton College, Cambridge is founded, becoming England’s first residential college for women.
• 1905 –
  The Partition of Bengal in India takes place.
• 1934 –
  Chinese Communists begin the Long March; it ended a year and four days later, by which time Mao Zedong had regained his title as party chairman.
• 1944 –
  Wally Walrus, Woody Woodpecker’s first steady foil, was debuted at the The Beach Nut, a Walter Lantz’s cartoon.
• 1949 –
  Nikolaos Zachariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, announces a “temporary cease-fire”, effectively ending the Greek Civil War.
• 1975 –
  The Australian Coalition opposition parties using their senate majority, vote to defer the decision to grant supply of funds for the Whitlam Government’s annual budget, sparking the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.
• 1975 –
  The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists based in the town of Balibo in the then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), are killed by Indonesian troops.
• 1998 –
  Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a warrant from Spain requesting his extradition on murder charges.

Who were born on October 16?

• 1789 –
  William Burton, American politician (d. 1866)
• 1815 –
  Francis Lubbock, American politician (d. 1905)
• 1863 –
  Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1937)
• 1883 –
  Vasiliki Maliaros, Greek actress (d. 1973)
• 1919 –
  Kathleen Winsor, American writer (d. 2003)
• 1934 –
  Peter Ashdown, British racing driver
• 1940 –
  Ivan Della Mea, Italian singer-songwriter (d. 2009)
• 1969 –
  Takao Ōmori, Japanese professional wrestler
• 1972 –
  Tomas Lindberg, Swedish musician (At the Gates)
• 1981 –
  Gregory Sedoc, Dutch athlete

Who died on October 16?

• 1591 –
  Pope Gregory XIV (b. 1535)
• 1750 –
  Sylvius Leopold Weiss, German composer and lutenist (b. 1687)
• 1865 –
  Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, philosopher, and sociologist (b. 1781)
• 1908 –
  Joseph Leycester Lyne (Father Ignatius), a restorer of monastic life in the Church of England (b. 1837)
• 1946 –
  Nuremberg trial executions of the Main Trial: Wilhelm Frick, German war criminal (b. 1877)
• 1971 –
  Robin Boyd, Australian architect (b.1919)
• 1983 –
  Jakov Gotovac, Croatian composer (b. 1895)
• 2006 –
  Ross Davidson, Scottish actor (b. 1949)
• 2007 –
  Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress (b. 1921)
• 2007 –
  Toše Proeski, Macedonian music star and humanitarian (b. 1981)