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16th October

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1793: Marie-Antoinette is beheaded


Nine months after the execution of her husband, the former King Louis XVI of France, Marie-Antoinette follows him to the guillotine. The daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, she married Louis in 1770 to strengthen the French-Austria alliance. At a time of economic turmoil in France, she lived extravagantly and encouraged her husband to resist reform of the monarchy. The increasing revolutionary uproar convinced the king and queen to attempt escape to Austria in 1791, but they were captured by revolutionary forces and carried back to Paris. In 1792, the French monarchy was abolished and Louis and Marie-Antoinette were condemned for treason.

1996

British Home Secretary Michael Howard announces stringent new gun controls following the mass shooting of children at a school in Dunblane, Scotland.

1996

A stampede of soccer fans before a World Cup qualifying match in Guatemala City kills 84 people and seriously injures more than 100.

1991

In Texas, America George Hennard shoots dead 22 people in a random attack on Cafeteria, Hennard then kills himself. 

1987

18 people are killed as hurricane strength winds batter southern England.

1978

In the Vatican, Polish born Cardinal Karol Wojtyla is elected Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian Pope since 1542.

1974

In Northern Ireland, rioting prisoners set fore to the Maze prison.

1973

Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1964

China explodes its first atomic bomb.

1951

Liaquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, is assassinated in Rawalpindi.

1946

10 Nazi war criminals are executed in accordance with the sentences handed down by the Nuremburg trials. Among those hanged are General Alfred Jodl, Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Frick and Julius Streicher.

1934

The embattled Chinese communists break through Nationalist enemy lines and begin an epic flight from their encircled headquarters in southwest China, known as Long March.

1916

In New York, U.S.A. Margaret Sanger opens her first birth control clinic.

1859

In America, abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite an insurrection and destroy the institution of slavery.

1834

In Britain, the Houses of Parliament in London are almost completely destroyed by a fire.

1813

The start of the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig during the Napoleonic Wars.

1793

Marie Antoinette is beheaded by guillotine.