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16 October| 16 October 1311 | France [law and government] | The General Council of Vienne, an ecclesiastical assembly convoked by Pope Clement V under pressure from the French king Philip IV the Fair, opens in Vienne, France. It decides to create chairs in Arabic and Tatar at Paris, Louvain, and Salamanca; to suppresses the religious groups, the Béguins and Beghards; and to abolish the Knights Templars. | | 16 October 1793 | France, Holy Roman Empire [births and deaths] | Marie-Antoinette, Queen Consort of King Louis XVI of France, 11th daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Maria Theresa, is guillotined on the orders of the Committee of Public Safety in Paris, France (37). | | 16–19 October 1813 | France, Prussia, Austrian Empire, Russian Empire, Saxony, Confederation of the Rhine, Westphalia [Napoleonic Wars (1803–15)] | Opposed by the Prussian army in the northwest and Austro-Russian forces in the south, the French army under the emperor Napoleon I is heavily defeated in the ‘Battle of the Nations’ at Leipzig in Saxony, and retreats. Allied victory leads to the dissolution of the Confederation of the Rhine (the association of German states under French protection) and of the kingdom of Westphalia. | | 16 October 1834 | UK [everyday life] | The Houses of Parliament in London, England, are destroyed by fire. | | 16 October 1834 | UK [civic and commercial buildings] | A fire in London, England, destroys the Houses of Parliament and parts of the city. Reconstruction measures will include the building of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. | | 16 October 1856 | Ireland, UK [births and deaths] | Oscar O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Irish poet and dramatist, born in Dublin, Ireland (–1900). | | 16 October 1886 | Israel, Poland [births and deaths] | David Ben-Gurion, Zionist statesman and first prime minister of the newly formed state of Israel 1948–53 and 1955–63, born in Plonsk, Poland (–1973). | | 16 October 1888 | USA [births and deaths] | Eugene O'Neill, US dramatist, born in New York City (–1953). | | 16–20 October 1899 | USA, UK [sailing] | In the America's Cup, the US yacht Columbia defeats the British challenger Shamrock, owned by the British businessman Thomas Lipton, by three races to nil. Lipton makes further attempts, all unsuccessful, to win the trophy in 1901, 1903, 1920, and 1930. | | 16 October 1900 | UK [elections] | In the ‘khaki’ election in Great Britain, the Conservatives, successful in the Second Anglo-Boer War, remain in power with a majority of 134. The Conservatives and Unionists take 334 seats, the Liberal Unionists 68, the Liberals 184, the Irish Nationalists 82, and Labour 2. Prime Minister Lord Salisbury reconstructs his government, appointing Lord Lansdowne as foreign secretary. | | 16 October 1949 | Greece [wars] | The civil war in Greece between the monarchists and the rebel communists (ELAS) ends with the defeat of the rebels. | | 16 October 1964 | China [political events] | China explodes an atomic bomb, and becomes a nuclear power. | | 16 October 1973 | Israel, Egypt [Yom Kippur War (1973)] | Israeli forces cross the Suez Canal and invade Egypt in the Yom Kippur War. | | 16 October 1978 | Vatican [Catholicism] | Following the deaths of Pope Paul VI on 6 August and his successor John Paul I on 28 September, Karol Wojtyla, archbishop of Kraków, is elected as John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope since 1522. |
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