What happened on 16 October?

30 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1853 Crimean War Britain and France defeat Russia in Crimea; brutal mismanagement (Light Brigade, Nightingale's hospitals) reshapes army and nursing.
2. 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Thirteen days of confrontation over Soviet missiles in Cuba, resolved by a deal: Soviet withdrawal in return for a US pledge not to invade Cuba and the secret later removal of US m
3. 1846 First public demonstration of surgical anaesthesia William Morton demonstrates ether anaesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital, making painless surgery possible and transforming medicine.
4. 1813 Battle of Leipzig Allied victory over Napoleon; largest battle in Europe before WWI.
5. 1934 Long March Communist retreat across China that builds Mao's authority within the CCP.
6. 690 Reign of Empress Wu Zetian Only female emperor in Chinese history; founded short-lived Zhou interregnum; reigned in her own right 690-705.
7. 1962 Kennedy learns of the Soviet missiles in Cuba National security adviser McGeorge Bundy brings the U-2 photographs of Soviet missile sites in Cuba to Kennedy's bedroom at 8:45 am. By late morning the president has secretly conv
8. 1905 Partition of Bengal Curzon partitions Bengal along religious lines; massive protest.
9. 1964 Harold Wilson's first premiership The white heat of technology, the permissive-society reforms, devaluation and a refusal to send troops to Vietnam.
10. 1922 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot's fragmented, polyglot post-war modernist poem.
11. 1978 Election of Pope John Paul II Karol Wojtyła becomes the first non-Italian pope in 455 years; his Polish papacy would help undermine Soviet communism.
12. 1964 China's first nuclear test China detonates an atomic bomb at Lop Nur, becoming the fifth nuclear power and reshaping Asian security.
13. 1859 John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry Brown seizes the federal arsenal to arm a slave rising; hanged within seven weeks, he goes to the gallows predicting the land will be purged 'with blood' — sixteen months before Su
14. 1793 Execution of Marie Antoinette The former queen, tried for treason, is guillotined nine months after her husband.
15. 690 Wu Zetian declares Zhou dynasty China's only ruling empress overthrows the Tang and founds her own Zhou dynasty.
16. 2016 Battle of Mosul (2016-17) Iraqi/coalition forces retake Mosul from ISIS.
17. 1805 Battle of Ulm Napoleon envelops an Austrian army at Ulm in three weeks; Mack surrenders with some 25,000 men; opens the road to Vienna.
18. 1950 C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe First-published Narnia book - defining children's fantasy of the 20th c.
19. 1555 Burning of Latimer and Ridley Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley burned at Oxford under Mary I; "play the man, Master Ridley".
20. 1968 Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise gloved fists on the Mexico City podium, an iconic image of the civil-rights era.
21. 1986 Wole Soyinka awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature Soyinka becomes the first African laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
22. 1953 'History will absolve me' Defending himself at his trial for the Moncada attack, the 27-year-old lawyer Castro delivers a four-hour speech that becomes the manifesto of his movement.
23. 1912 Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire Atonal song cycle for sprechstimme and chamber ensemble.
24. 1843 Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard wrestles with Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac: the 'leap of faith' beyond ethics — a founding text of existentialism.
25. 1984 Tutu awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu honoured for nonviolent opposition to apartheid.
26. 1934 Breakout from Jiangxi Encircled by Nationalist forces, the Communist Red Army breaks out and begins the Long March.
27. 1913 Shaw's Pygmalion Phonetics professor Henry Higgins bets he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a duchess — Shaw's comedy of class and speech, later reborn as My Fair Lady.
28. 1973 Kissinger and Le Duc Tho awarded the Nobel Peace Prize The prize for the Paris Peace Accords causes uproar; two committee members resign and Le Duc Tho refuses to share it while the war goes on.
29. 1942 Copland's Rodeo Copland's cowboy ballet, choreographed by Agnes de Mille for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo — its 'Hoe-Down' becomes a byword for the sound of the American West.
30. 2004 Messi's Barcelona debut Brought from Rosario at thirteen with Barcelona paying for his growth-hormone treatment, the seventeen-year-old makes his first-team league debut against Espanyol.