Today in History - October 16
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1323 Oct 16,
Amadeus V the Great, count of Flanders and Savoy, died at 74.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1384 Oct 16, The Polish
princess Hedwig was crowned King Jadwiga (d.1399) at age 10. She was
crowned as king to make it clear that she was a ruler, not a
consort.
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A10)(SSFC, 10/2/11,
p.N4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadwiga_of_Poland)
1492 Oct 16, Columbus' fleet
anchored at "Fernandina" (Long Island, Bahamas).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1551 Oct 16, Edward
Seymour, Duke of Somerset, was re-arrested.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1553 Oct 16, Lucas Cranach the
elder (b.1472), German painter and graphic artist, died at 81. His
work included "Madonna and Child in a Landscape."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)(WUD, 1994,
p.339)(http://tinyurl.com/ykv47h)
1555 Oct 16, Hugh Latimer (80),
Protestant royal chaplain of Anne Boleyn, was burned at stake at
Oxford for heresy under the Catholic rule of Mary, half-sister of
Edward VI.
(WSJ, 9/12/96,
p.A14)(www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/3859836193/)
1555 Oct 16, Nicholas Ridley,
Protestant English theologian and bishop of Rochester, was burned at
Oxford for heresy under the Catholic rule of Mary, half-sister of
Edward VI.
(WSJ, 9/12/96,
p.A14)(www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/3859836193/)
1590 Oct 16, Carlo Gesualdo
(~1566-1613), prince of Venosa, murdered his bride and her lover
after catching them in flagrante delicto. In 1995 Werner Herzog
covered this in his purported documentary “Death for Five Voices.”
In 2010 Glenn Watkins authored “The Gesualdo Hex: Music, Myth, and
Memory.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Gesualdo)(Econ, 1/23/10, p.79)
1594 Oct 16, William Allen
(62), English cardinal and founder of the seminary of Douai, died.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1621 Oct 16, Jan Pieterszoon
Sweelinck, organist and composer, died at about 59.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1679 Oct 16, Jan Dismas
Zelenka, composer, was born.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1701 Oct 16, Yale University
was founded as The Collegiate School of Kilingworth, Connecticut by
Congregationalists who considered Harvard too liberal. [see Oct 9]
(HN, 10/16/00)
1708 Oct 16, Albrecht von
Haller, Swiss experimental physiologist, was born.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1710 Oct 16, British troops
occupied Port Royal, Nova Scotia.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1758 Oct 16, Noah Webster
(d.1843), US teacher lexicographer and publisher, was born in
Hartford, Conn. He wrote the “American Dictionary of the English
Language.”
(AHD, 1971, p.1452)(AP, 10/16/08)
1793 Oct 16, During the French
Revolution, Marie Antoinette was beheaded. Prosecutors claimed she
had sexually abused her son and financially abused the French
Monarchy. In mourning for her husband, Louis XVI, who had been
guillotined the previous January, clad in rags, her once-dazzling
locks shorn by the executioner's assistant, she even suffered the
indignity of a crude sketch by the great French painter, Jacques
Louis David. Antoinette bore herself with a regal indifference to
her martyrdom. Madame Tussaud used her severed head as a model for
her wax bust death mask. In 2001 Antonia Fraser authored "Marie
Antoinette: The Journey."
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.T5)(AP, 10/16/97)(WSJ,
10/5/01, p.W13)
1797 Oct 16, Lord Cardigan,
leader of the famed Light Brigade which was decimated in the Crimean
War, who eventually had a jacket named after him, was born.
(HN, 10/16/98)
1810 Oct 16, Rabbi Nachman
(b.1772) of Bratslav died and was buried in Uman, Ukraine.
Nachman was renowned for his mystical interpretations of
Jewish texts and his belief that higher spirituality could be
achieved through a combination of prayer, meditation and good deeds.
On his deathbed, he is said to have promised to be an advocate for
anyone who would come and pray beside his tomb.
(AP,
9/9/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachman_of_Breslov)
1813 Oct 16-19, In the Battle
at Leipzig (aka Battle of the Nations) Napoleon faced Prussia,
Austria and Russia and suffered one of his worst defeats.
(DoW, 1999, p.325)
1821 Oct 16, Albert Franz
Doppler, composer, was born.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1825 Oct 16, Thomas Turpin
Crittenden (d.1905), Brig. Gen. (Union volunteers), was born.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1829 Oct 16, Tremont Hotel, 1st
US modern hotel, opened in Boston.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1834 Oct 16, In London the
Houses of Parliament caught fire and many historic documents were
burned. J.M.W. created two oil paintings of the burning of the
Houses of Parliament.
(www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/england/london/parliament/barry.html)(Econ,
9/29/07, p.90)
1846 Oct 16, Sulphurous ether
was first administered in public at the Massachusetts General
Hospital in Boston by dentist Dr. William Thomas Green Morton during
an operation performed by Dr. John Collins Warren. Morton was the
1st to take public credit for the use of ether in a medical
procedure and applied for a patent on its use, which was later
nullified. In 2001 Julie M. Fenster authored “Ether Day,” an account
of Dr. Morton and ether. [see Sep 30]
(HN, 10/16/98)(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A17)
1847 Oct 16, Charlotte Bronte's
book "Jane Eyre" was published. [see Oct 6]
(MC, 10/16/01)
1848 Oct 16, The 1st US
homeopathic medical college opened in Pennsylvania.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1849 Oct 16, George Washington
Williams, historian, clergyman and politician, was born.
(HN, 10/16/00)
1854 Oct 16, Abraham Lincoln
delivered a speech in Peoria, Ill., part of a series against
legislation proposed by Sen. Stephen Douglas that would allow
settlers to decide the status of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. In
2008 Lewis E. Lehrman authored “Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning
Point.”
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W9)
1854 Oct 16, Oscar Wilde (born
as Fingal O'Flahertie Wills, d.1900), dramatist, poet, novelist and
critic, was born in Dublin. His work included “The Picture of Dorian
Gray.” "Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write
it." [see 1856-1900]
(HN, 10/16/98)(AP, 2/16/99)(MC, 10/16/01)
1859 Oct 16, On Sunday evening
radical abolitionist John Brown and a tiny army of five black and 13
white supporters seized the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry,
Virginia (now West Virginia). Convinced that local slaves would rise
up behind him, Brown planned to establish a new republic of
fugitives in the Appalachian Mountains. Brown's plans immediately
went awry when the expected slave rebellion did not happen and the
townspeople trapped Brown's men inside the engine house at the
Federal arsenal. Within 24 hours, Brown and his four surviving men
were captured by a force of 90 U.S. Marines under the command of Lt.
Col. Robert E. Lee, pictured here. Brown, quickly convicted of
criminal conspiracy and treason and sentenced to death, was hanged
on December 2, 1859. As he went to the gallows, Brown handed a note
to one of his guards: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the
crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with
blood." The incident is the backdrop for George MacDonald Fraser’s
novel “Flashman and the Angel of the Lord.”
(WSJ, 4/10/95, p. A-16)(AP, 10/16/97)(HNPD,
10/16/98)
1861 Oct 16, The Confederacy
started selling postage stamps.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1863 Oct 16, Grant was given
command of Union forces in West. [see Oct 17]
(MC, 10/16/01)
1869 Oct 16, A hotel in Boston
became the 1st to have indoor plumbing.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1880 Oct 16, Edward Wolff,
composer, died at 64.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1886 Oct 16, David Ben-Gurion
(d.1973), Israeli statesman, was born in Plonsk, Poland. He was the
1st PM of Israel and served from 1948-53 and in 1955.
(HN, 10/16/00)(MC, 10/16/01)
1888 Oct 16, Eugene O'Neill
(d.1953), Nobel Prize-winning playwright (1936), was born in NYC.
His work includes “A Long Day's Journey Into Night” and “The Iceman
Cometh.”
(AP, 11/27/97)(HN, 10/16/00)(MC, 10/16/01)
1890 Oct 16, Michael Collins
(d.1922), Irish revolutionist, was born.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1898 Oct 16, William O.
Douglas, 81st U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1939-75), was born.
(HN, 10/16/00)(MC, 10/16/01)
1901 Oct 16, President Theodore
Roosevelt incited controversy by inviting black leader Booker T.
Washington to the White House.
(HN, 10/16/98)
1904 Oct 16, The Russian Baltic
fleet under Rear-Admiral Zinovi Rozhestvensky departed to lift the
Japanese blockade at Port Arthur, Manchuria.
(ON, 5/04, p.6)
1906 Oct 16, Cleanth Brooks,
Kentucky-born writer and educator, was born.
(HN, 10/16/00)
1908 Oct 16, The first airplane
flight in England was made at Farnsborough, by Samuel Cody, a U.S.
citizen.
(HN, 10/16/98)
1914 Oct 16, Christian J.
Modeste, Gypsy king, was born.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1915 Oct 16, Great Britain
declared war on Bulgaria.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1916 Oct 16, Margaret Higgins
Sanger opened the first birth control clinic at 46 Amboy St. in
Brooklyn. She spent 30 days in jail when she opened America's first
birth control clinic. Sanger coined the term "birth control" and
made the cause a worldwide movement. After opening her clinic in
Brooklyn, she was jailed for creating a public nuisance. Born in
Corning, New York, on September 14, 1883, Sanger died in 1966.
(AP, 10/16/97)(HNQ, 9/11/98)
1916 Oct 16, The Philippine
Commission was abolished and the Philippine Legislature was
inaugurated. It consisted of the Senate and the House of
Representatives. Native legislators were 1st elected but the US
governors general remained in charge for years.
(www.senate.gov.ph/about/history.asp)(SSFC,
5/11/03, p.D6)
1918 Oct 16, Felix Arndt,
composer, died at 29.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1919 Oct 16, Kathleen Winsor,
writer, was born. Her work includes “Forever Amber.”
(HN, 10/16/00)
1923 Oct 16, Walt Disney and
his brother Roy O. Disney founded The Disney Company.
(MC, 10/16/01)(WSJ, 2/13/04, p.A8)
1923 Oct 16, John Harwood
patented a self-winding watch in Switzerland.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1925 Oct 16, Angela Lansbury,
actress (Jessica-Murder She Wrote), was born in London, England.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1925 Oct 16, The Texas School
Board prohibited the teaching of evolution.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1926 Oct 16, Mohammed Nadir
Khan began a coup in Afghanistan and 1200 were killed.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1926 Oct 16, A troop ship sank
in the Yangtze River killing 1,200.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1927 Oct 16, Günter Grass,
novelist, playwright, painter and sculptor, was born in Danzig,
Germany. He is best known for his first novel “The Tin Drum.”
(HN, 10/1/00)(MC, 10/16/01)
1928 Oct 16, Benjamin Strong
(b.1872), American economist and 14-year head of the US Federal
Reserve of New York, died in NYC.
(Econ, 1/10/09,
p.73)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Strong_Jr.)
1930 Oct 16, Dan Pagis,
Romanian-born Israeli poet, was born.
(HN, 10/16/00)
1932 Oct 16, Henry Jay Lewis,
conductor and bass player (LA Philharmonic 1955-59), was born in LA,
Calif.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1934 Oct 16, Mao Tse-tung
decided to abandon his base in Kiangsi due to attacks from Chiang
Kai-shek's Nationalists. With his pregnant wife and about 30,000 Red
Army troops, he set out on the "Long March." In late 1935, with
8,000 survivors, he reached Hanoi in northwest China, and
established Chinese Communist headquarters. In 2006 Andrew McEwen
and Ed Jocelyn authored “The Long March: The Story Behind the
Legendary Journey That Made Mao’s China.” Also in 2006 Sun Shuyun
authored “The Long March.”
(HN,
10/16/98)(www.kimsoft.com/korea/eyewit03.htm)
1938 Oct 16, Billy the Kid, a
ballet by Aaron Copland, opened in Chicago.
(HN, 10/16/98)
1939 Oct 16, The comedy "The
Man Who Came to Dinner," by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, opened
on Broadway.
(AP, 10/16/99)(WSJ, 8/2/00, p.A20)
1940 Oct 16, Benjamin O. Davis
became the U.S. Army’s first African American Brigadier General.
(HN, 10/16/98)
1940 Oct 16, The 1st lottery
for US WW II draftees was held; #158 drawn 1st.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1940 Oct 16, The Warsaw Ghetto
was formed by Nazi SS troops.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1941 Oct 16, Germany advanced
within 60 miles of Moscow.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1941 Oct 16, Antanas Gustaitis
(b.1898), Lithuanian aviation engineer, was shot to death in Moscow.
He had designed 9 ANBO airplanes.
(LHC, 3/26/03)
1942 Oct 16, The ballet
"Rodeo," with music by Aaron Copland and choreography by Agnes de
Mille, premiered at New York's Metropolitan Opera House.
(AP, 10/16/02)
1942 Oct 16, In India a cyclone
devastated Bengal and about 40,000 lives were lost.
. (www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1943 Oct 16, Chicago Mayor
Edward J. Kelly officially opened the city’s new subway system
during a ceremony at the State and Madison street station.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1943 Oct 16, In Italy the Nazi
SS police and Waffen SS began rounding up the Jews of Rome. There
was an anti Jewish riot in Rome as the Jewish quarter was surrounded
by Nazis, and Jews were evacuated to Auschwitz. Pope Pius XII made
no public protest, though he did send some messages of disapproval
through intermediaries.
(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A46)(MC, 10/16/01)
1944 Oct 16, In Hungary the
Horthy government fell and Nazi Count Szalasi became premier.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1946 Oct 16, Ten Nazi war
criminals condemned during the Nuremberg trials were hanged. The
defendants included: Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring, who
was sentenced to death but committed suicide the morning of the
execution; former deputy Führer Rudolph Hess, sentenced to life
imprisonment; Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, hanged; head
of the armed forces high command Wilhelm Keitel, hanged; writer and
"philosopher" of National Socialism Alfred Rosenberg; U-boat Admiral
Karl Dönitz, 10-year imprisonment; Grand Admiral Erich Raeder,
life imprisonment; Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Shirach, 20-year
imprisonment; procurer of slave labor Fritz Sauckel, hanged; and
Alfred Jodl, chief of staff of the German high command, hanged. The
hanging was badly botched as most Nazis slowly strangle to death.
(AP, 10/16/97)(HN, 10/16/98)(HNPD, 10/20/99)(MC,
10/16/01)
Also hanged were: Hans Frank, Governor-General of
occupied Poland; Wilhelm Frick, Hitler's Minister of the Interior;
Julius Streicher, rabid anti-Semite editor of Der Sturmer; Alfred
Rosenberg, Nazi philosopher and war criminal; Arthur Seyss-Inquart
(54), Nazi leader of occupied Holland; Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Austrian
Nazi and SS leader.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1948 Oct 16, Moscow Jews held a
demonstration honoring Israeli ambassador Golda Meir.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1951 Oct 16, Pakistan’s PM
Liaquat Ali Khan (b.1896), son of a Punjabi prince, was assassinated
in Rawalpindi, ushering in a period of political instability.
(WSJ, 1/28/08,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaquat_Ali_Khan)
1953 Oct 16, Fidel Castro in
Havana was sentenced to 15 years.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1957 Oct 16, Britain's Queen
Elizabeth II and Prince Philip began a visit to the United States
with a stopover at the site of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia.
(AP, 10/16/07)
1958 Oct 16, Tim Robbins, West
Covina, Ca., actor (Bull Durham, Shawshank Redemption), was born.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1962 Oct 16, The Cuban missile
crisis began as President Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance
photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba.
(AP, 10/16/97)
1964 Oct 16, The New York
Yankees fired manager Yogi Berra one day after their World Series
loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
(http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr1964ws.shtml)
1964 Oct 16, Harold Wilson of
the Labor Party assumed office as prime minister of Great Britain,
succeeding Conservative Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Wilson’s Labor
government took over from Harold MacMillan’s Conservatives.
(AP, 10/16/99)(WSJ, 7/26/00, p.A26)
1964 Oct 16, Red China
detonated its first atomic bomb, codenamed "596," on the Lop Nur
Test Ground, and became the world's 4th nuclear power.
(TMC, 1994, p.1964)(AP, 10/16/07)
1965 Oct 16, The world’s first
acid rock dance was held at Longshoreman’s Hall. Top band on the
bill was the Charlatan’s with Dan Hicks, a house band from the Red
Dog Saloon in Virginia City. The Jefferson Airplane also made its
first concert appearance. Alton Kelley (1940-2008) and 3 other
people, under the name Family Dog, staged the dance concert.
(www.chickenonaunicycle.com/FD%20Shows%20Full%20List.htm)(SFC,
6/3/08, p.B5)
1966 Oct 16, Joan Baez and 123
other anti-draft protestors were arrested in Oakland.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1968 Oct 16, American athletes
Tommie Smith and John Carlos (23) sparked controversy at the Mexico
City Olympics by giving "black power" salutes during a victory
ceremony after they'd won gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter
race. In 2011 John Carlos with Dave Zirin authored “The John Carlos
Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World.”
(AP, 10/16/08)(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.G4)
1969 Oct 16, The New York Mets
capped a miraculous season, winning the World Series in Game 5, a
5-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.
(AP, 10/16/99)
1971 Oct 16, H. Rap Brown
(b.1943) was captured following a shootout with police in NYC. He
was charged with inciting a riot and carrying a gun across state
lines. Brown converted to Islam in jail and became Jamil Abdullah
Al-Amin.
(SSFC, 1/6/02,
p.A13)(http://americanascherrypie.tripod.com/id3.html)
1972 Oct 16, A light plane
carrying House Democratic leader Hale Boggs (b.1914) of Louisiana
and three other men were reported missing in Alaska. Nick Begich,
Alaska congressman, his aide, Russell Brown, and the pilot, Don Jonz
were also on the plane and later presumed dead. The plane was never
found.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Begich)(Econ,
9/6/08, p.35)
1973 Oct 16, Henry Kissinger,
US Secretary of State (1973-77), and Le Duc Tho were named winners
of the Nobel Peace Prize; however, the Vietnamese official declined
the award.
(AP,
10/16/98)(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1973/press.html)
1973 Oct 16, Maynard Jackson
(1938-2003) was the elected 1st black mayor of Atlanta.
(www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/jackson-jr-maynard-1938-2003)
1973 Oct 16, Gene Krupa
(b.1909), US jazz and big band drummer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Krupa)
1973 Oct 16, OPEC, the Arab
oil-producing nations, announced they would begin cutting back on
oil exports to Western nations and Japan. The next day, the five
Arab members of the OPEC committee were joined in Kuwait by the oil
ministers of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. The result
was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974 and caused oil
prices to quadruple.
(www.harvardir.org/articles/1659/)(AP,
10/17/97)(WSJ, 7/28/03, p.A8)
1975 Oct 16, In East Timor five
Australian journalists were killed when Indonesian troops overran
the border town of Balibo. A 6th died weeks later when Jakarta
launched a full-scale assault on Dili. In 2009 the film “Balibo,” by
Australian director Rob Connolly, depicted the killings.
(AP,
7/22/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balibo_Five)
1975 Oct 16, Vittorio Gui
(b.1885), Italian composer (Batture d'aspetto), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Gui)
1976 Oct 16, In Alabama Sheryl
Lynn Payton (24) was abducted, raped and murdered. In 1977 Thomas
Whisenhant (29) was convicted after he confessed to her murder and
that of 2 other convenience store clerks. Whisenhant's original
conviction was overturned by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.
He was convicted again at a retrial in 1981. On May 27, 2010,
Whisenhant was executed by lethal injection.
(http://tinyurl.com/39dbsea)(SFC, 5/28/10, p.A8)
1978 Oct 16, The College of
Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church chose Cardinal Wojtyla (58),
Archbishop of Cracow, to become Pope. He took the name John Paul II.
The first non-Italian since Adrian VI of Utrecht died in 1523.
(AP, 10/16/97)(HN, 10/16/98)
1978 Oct 16, An attempted coup
against President Ali Abdullah Saleh of North Yemen was crushed.
(http://archive.gulfnews.com/indepth/30thyear/onthisday/10160457.html)
1981 Oct 16, Harvey Fierstein's
"Torch Song Trilogy," premiered off-Broadway in NYC.
(www.matthewbroderick.net/credit/stage/torchsong.html)
1981 Oct 16, William Holden
(b.1918), actor (Network), died at 63.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981)
1981 Oct 16, Israeli war hero
Moshe Dayan died in Tel Aviv at age 66.
(AP, 10/16/01)
1982 Oct 16, Mario del Monaco
(b.1915), Italian opera singer, died of kidney disease.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_del_Monaco)
1983 Oct 16, George Liberace
(b.1911), American violinist, died. He was the older brother of
Liberace (1919-1987), the famed pianist.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Liberace)
1984 Oct 16, Desmond Tutu,
black Anglican Archbishop in South Africa, won the Nobel Peace Prize
for his decades of non-violent struggle for racial equality.
(SFC, 6/23/96, BR, p.32)(AP, 10/16/04)
1985 Oct 16, Intel introduced
its 32-bit 80386 microcomputer chip.
(www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/micropro/proc1980.htm)
1986 Oct 16, The US government
closed down due to budget problems.
(www.ssa.gov/legislation/history/99.htm)
1986 Oct 16, Arthur Grumiaux
(b.1921), Belgian violinist, died at 65.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Grumiaux)
1986 Oct 16, Ron Arad, an
Israeli airman, was the navigator in a plane that was shot down
while bombing a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. He was
reportedly handed over to a Lebanese Shiite group led by Mustafa
Dirani. In 2004 it was reported that Arad died in 1996 , sometime
after he was handed by Lebanese fighters to their Iranian sponsors.
In 2008 a Hezbollah report said Arad had escaped from a holding cell
in 1988 and probably died while trying to make his way home through
difficult terrain.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.A14)(AP,
10/25/04)(http://tinyurl.com/yz3zza)(AP, 10/8/08)
1987 Oct 16, A 58 1/2-hour
drama in Midland, Texas, ended happily as rescuers freed Jessica
McClure, an 18-month-old girl trapped in an abandoned well.
(AP, 10/16/97)
1987 Oct 16, 175-kph winds
caused a blackout in London and much of southern England. At least
13 people died.
(http://tinyurl.com/h29j)
1987 Oct 16, In the Persian
Gulf, an Iranian missile hit a re-flagged Kuwaiti ship in the first
direct attack on the tanker fleet guarded by the U.S.
(AP, 10/16/97)
1988 Oct 16, The Los Angeles
Dodgers shut out the Oakland A's, 6-0, in game two of the World
Series.
(AP, 10/16/98)
1988 Oct 16, Rescue workers
near Point Barrow, Alaska, continued their efforts to save three
California gray whales trapped in Arctic Ocean ice [see Oct 26].
(AP, 10/16/98)
1989 Oct 16, President Bush
signed an order cutting federal programs by $16.1 billion under the
Gramm-Rudman budget-reduction law.
(AP, 10/16/99)
1990 Oct 16, The
Cincinnati Reds beat the Oakland A’s 7-to-0 in game one of the World
Series.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1990 Oct 16, US forces reached
200,000 in Persian Gulf.
(http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2004w05/msg00102.htm)
1990 Oct 16, Comedian Steve
Martin and his wife, actress Victoria Tennant, visited American GI’s
in Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1990 Oct 16, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev submitted to the Soviet legislature a
scaled-back plan to transform the Soviet economy to a free-market
system.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1991 Oct 16, In Killeen, Texas,
George Jo Hennard (35) crashed his pickup truck into a Luby's
Cafeteria and opened fire, killing 23 people before taking his own
life. Another 20 people were wounded.
(AP, 10/16/97)(SFC, 4/17/07, p.A8)
1992 Oct 16, The Nobel Peace
prize was awarded to Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan Indian who spoke
on behalf of indigenous people and victims of government repression.
(AP, 10/16/97)
1993 Oct 16, The Toronto Blue
Jays defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-5, in game one of the
World Series.
(AP, 10/16/98)
1993 Oct 16, The U.N. Security
Council endorsed the deployment of U.S. warships to block arms and
oil shipments to Haiti in an attempt to increase pressure on Haiti's
military leaders.
(AP, 10/16/98)
1994 Oct 16, Heavy rains began
drenching southeast Texas, resulting in floods that left 20 dead and
forced 14,000 from their homes in 35 counties.
(AP, 10/16/99)
1994 Oct 16, German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl was elected to a fourth term.
(AP, 10/16/99)
1995 Oct 16, A vast throng of
black men gathered in Washington D.C. for the "Million Man March,"
"A Day of Atonement," led by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
(AP, 10/16/97)(HN, 10/16/98)
1995 Oct 16, In California the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory released a $450,000 story
that said leaks from underground gas storage tanks were not as bad
as once believed. The tests did not include the effects of MTBE in
leaking into ground water.
(SFC, 9/15/97, p.A9)
1995 Oct 16, Ethnic riots
continued for a second day in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, between the
Luos and the Nubians.
(WSJ, 10/17/95, A1)
1995 Oct 16, Bosnian Serb
leader Karadzic fired four generals for battlefield losses. Appeals
were made to Serbian leader Milosevic for protection.
(WSJ, 10/17/95, A1)
1995 Oct 16-18, Richard
Holbrooke and other international mediators met in Moscow and
traveled to the main capitals of the former Yugoslavia. The US named
the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, as the site for
the peace talks.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)
1996 Oct 16, The “Day of
Atonement” rally, a one year commemoration of the million-man-march,
was led by Louis Farrakhan near the UN in New York and about 25
thousand attended.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A3)
1996 Oct 16, Republican Bob
Dole challenged President Clinton's ethics and honesty in their
final debate.
(AP, 10/16/97)
1996 Oct 16, In Australia it
was reported that fossilized footprints of a stegosaurus dinosaur
were discovered stolen last week from Aboriginal grounds near
Broome.
(SFC, 10/16/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 16, In Australia the
Senate called for self-determination in East Timor and supported
independence from Jakarta. The government had earlier recognized the
incorporation of East Timor into Indonesia.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Oct 16, The Council of
Europe, a promoter of democracy and human rights admitted Croatia as
its 40th member.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Oct 16, In Egypt two
girls, 4 & 3, died from bleeding after being circumcised at
their homes by a government doctor.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1996 Oct 16, Soccer fans at a
World Cup qualifying match trying to squeeze into Mateo Flores
National Stadium in Guatemala City stampeded, killing [83] 84
people. 180 were injured.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A1)(AP, 10/16/97)
1996 Oct 16, In Somalia an
agreement was reached by faction leaders Hussein Aidid, Ali
Mahdi Mohamed and Ali Hassan Osman Atto, to implement a peace
accord.
(SFC, 10/17/96, A11)
1997 Oct 16, Pres. Clinton
designated Argentina a “non-NATO ally” during a speech in Buenos
Aires.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)
1997 Oct 16, US doctors
reported that a Georgia woman (39) was first to give birth using a
frozen egg in the US. The egg was supplied by a woman (29) and
had been frozen for 25 months before it was thawed and fertilized.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A3)(AP, 10/16/98)
1997 Oct 16, In Humboldt
County, Ca., 4 protestors staged a sit-in in the office of
Republican Representative Frank Riggs in Eureka. Sheriff’s deputies
applied pepper spray directly to the eyes of the protestors using
cotton swabs and Q-tips.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 16, James A. Michener,
American novelist, died at 90 in Texas. He wrote some 47 books that
began with “Tales of the South Pacific” in 1947.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A1,17)(AP, 10/16/98)
1997 Oct 16, It was reported
that the US Agency for Int’l. Development donated $1 million to
Bosnian Serb Pres. Biljana Plavsic for reconstruction in Banja Luka.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A14)
1997 Oct 16, Bosnian Serb
hard-liners launched a guerrilla-style TV broadcast and attacked the
West’s efforts to silence them.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.D2)
1998 Oct 16, The Nobel Peace
Prize was awarded to John Hume, head of the Irish Catholic Social
Democratic and Labor Party, and to David Trimble, leader of the
Protestant Ulster Unionist Party.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.D1)(AP, 10/16/99)
1998 Oct 16, Congress passed
legislation to extend copyrights for corporations to 95 years from
75, and for individuals to 70 years after death, rather than 50. It
became known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. In 2003
the Supreme Court upheld the extension.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A1)(NW, 10/21/02, p.40)(SFC,
1/16/03, p.A1)
1998 Oct 16, It was reported
that a growing number of lobsters in Maine were being found sick and
dying from undetermined causes.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.C1)
1998 Oct 16, In Brazil imports
exceeded exports by over 4% of the economy and the inflation rate
exceeded that of the US. This indicated that the real was overpriced
and that devaluation was needed.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 16, After receiving a
Spanish extradition warrant, British police arrested former Chilean
dictator Augusto Pinochet in London for questioning about
allegations that he had murdered Spanish citizens during his years
in power. Pinochet was held for 16 months as courts decided whether
he could be extradited to Spain; he was allowed in 2000 to return to
Chile, where a court later held that he could not face charges
because of his deteriorating health and mental condition.
(AP, 10/16/03)
1998 Oct 16, In Colombia red
ants, called “crazy ants” by farmers in the Santander and Boyaca
provinces, had destroyed some 10,000 acres of crops and threatened
an additional 100,000 acres.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.C1)
1998 Oct 16, In the Republic of
Congo a court indicted 100 members of the recently ousted government
on charges of assassination, torture, rape, fraud and theft.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 16, It was reported
that Bobi Ladawa Mobutu, wife of Mobutu Sese Seko, and son, Nazanga,
had established a Mobutu Family Foundation to carry out charitable
programs in the US and Africa for young Africans. The former
dictator was believed to have taken $10 billion from the Congo.
(SFC, 10/16/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 16, Lawmakers in
Ecuador and Peru agreed to let their border dispute be resolved by
the US, Brazil, Chile and Argentina.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 16, In Haiti a former
judge, Luckner Pierrex, was arrested for the 1982 slaying of
journalist Richard Brisson.
(SFC, 10/20/98, p.C12)
1998 Oct 16, In Italy Massimo
D’Alema, head of the Democratic Left Party, was asked by Pres.
Scalfaro to form a new government.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A13)
1998 Oct 16, In Japan the Diet
approved laws to pump $517 billion in public money into the
country’s cash-strapped banks.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 16, It was reported
that fires in Russia were burning in the Sikhote-Alin wildlife
reserve and threatened Siberian tigers of which only an estimated
450 remained.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.C1)
1998 Oct 16, Serbian Pres.
Milosevic was given an additional 10 days to withdraw forces from
Kosovo and comply with UN demands.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A1)
1999 Oct 16, A New York Air
National Guard plane rescued Dr. Jerri Nielsen from a South Pole
research center after she’d spent five months isolated by the
Antarctic winter, which forced her to treat herself for a breast
lump.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1999 Oct 16, Hurricane Irene
rumbled up the East Coast.
(AP, 10/16/00)
1999 Oct 16, A 7.0 earthquake,
centered near Joshua Tree, Ca., struck in the Mohave Desert. An
Amtrak train was derailed, but there were no deaths.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 16, Jean Shepherd,
radio personality, died in Sanibel, Florida, at age 78. His
syndicated PBS TV programs included "Jean Shepherd's America" and
"Shepherd's Pie."
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.D10)(AP, 10/16/00)
1999 Oct 16, In Afghanistan the
Taliban rejected the UN ultimatum to surrender Osama bin Laden and
castigated the UN for threatening sanctions.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.A22)
1999 Oct 16, The 1st graduate
class of the Kosovo Police Service School was honored in Pristina.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, p.A21)
2000 Oct 16, The New York Mets
beat the St. Louis Cardinals 7-to-0 to win the National League
championship series four games to one.
(AP, 10/16/01)
2000 Oct 16, President Clinton
launched a fresh effort to try to cool Middle East tensions at an
emergency summit in Egypt that included Israeli and Palestinian
leaders, as well as the leaders of Egypt and Jordan and U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
(AP, 10/16/01)
2000 Oct 16, Louis Farrakhan
planned a one million family march in Washington to seek spiritual
strength and political empowerment. Thousands gathered in the
National Mall to celebrate the American family.
(SFC, 10/14/00, p.A3)(SFC, 10/17/00, p.A3)
2000 Oct 16, Missouri Gov. Mel
Carnahan, his son, Roger Carnahan, and chief of staff Chris Sifford
were killed in a plane crash near St. Louis. Roger Carnahan piloted
the twin-engine Cessna in stormy weather.
(SFC, 10/17/00, p.A1)(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A3)
2000 Oct 16, The Chinese press
endorsed the building of a $12 billion river project to divert water
from the Yangtze north to the Yellow River.
(SFC, 10/19/00, p.C3)
2000 Oct 16, A Middle East
summit was planned to begin at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. Violent
demonstrations continued in the West Bank and Gaza and 2
Palestinians were killed.
(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.A1)(SFC, 10/17/00, p.A13)
2000 Oct 16, Israel announced
the kidnapping by Hizbullah of Elchanan Tannenbaum (b.1946), a
colonel in Israel’s reserves. He was kidnapped in Dubai and taken to
Lebanon. Tannenbaum was released in January 2004 as part of a
prisoner swap with Hezbollah. The swap exchanged 435 prisoners held
by Israel in return for Tannenbaum's release and the return of the
bodies of 3 soldiers killed during an ambush along the
Israeli-Lebanese border.
(Econ, 9/6/08,
p.99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elchanan_Tennenbaum)
2000 Oct 16, In Lagos, Nigeria,
over 100 people died in clashes between Hausas and Yorubas. Most of
the dead were believed to be Hausas.
(SFC, 10/17/00, p.A16)(WSJ, 10/18/00, p.A1)(SFC,
10/20/00, p.D8)
2000 Oct 16, Milosevic allies
agreed to share power until elections. A German newspaper reported
that the Milosevic family had $100 million in foreign accounts with
some of the money from drug trafficking. Swiss authorities had
already frozen 100 bank accounts worth $57 million linked to
Milosevic and his allies.
(WSJ, 10/17/00, p.A1)(SFC, 10/21/00, p.A12)
2000 Oct 16, In Spain Col.
Antonio Munoz Carinanos (58), a military doctor, was killed in
Seville by 3 suspected Basque gunmen. 2 suspects were arrested.
(WSJ, 10/17/00, p.A1)(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A26)
2000 Oct 16, Hundreds rampaged
in eastern Harare over food prices. Opposition leaders called for
the resignation of Pres. Mugabe.
(SFC, 10/17/00, p.A16)(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A26)
2001 Oct 16, A wing of the US
Senate building was closed following confirmation that a letter to
Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., carried anthrax. It was later found that
the anthrax contained the additive bentonite to enhance suspension
in air. 12 Senate offices were closed as hundreds of staffers
underwent anthrax tests.
(SFC, 10/17/01, p.A1)(SFC, 10/25/01, p.A1)(WSJ,
10/26/01, p.A1)(AP, 10/16/02)
2001 Oct 16, Over 100 aircraft
struck targets in Afghanistan and 2 gunships fired on Taliban and al
Qaeda troops. U.S. bombs struck the Red Cross compound in
Afghanistan, injuring a guard.
(WSJ, 10/17/01, p.A1)(AP, 10/16/02)
2001 Oct 16, It was reported
that the US strategy in the bombing of Afghanistan was failing
because it contradicted a Pashtun code of honor known as
Pashtunwali. Central to the code is nang, where death is taught to
be preferable to a life without honor. A 2nd tenet called badal,
revenge, taught that only way to redeem honor is to avenge it. A 3rd
tenet called melmastiya, hospitality, was exploited by Osama bin
Laden as a guest in the country.
(SFC, 10/16/01, p.A17)
2001 Oct 16, US Customs at JFK
found $140,763 in the luggage of Basam Nahshal who was bound for
Yemen. A 2nd man Ali Alfatimi claimed the money was his and was
being smuggled to Yemen as part of his travel business.
(SFC, 10/20/01, p.A5)
2001 Oct 16, Robert Durst
failed to appear for a court hearing in the dismemberment death of
Morris Black (71) in Galveston, Texas. Durst was also a suspect in
the Dec, 2000, shooting death of author Susan Berman. In 1982
Kathleen Durst (29) had disappeared after spending a weekend at the
family cottage in South Salem. Robert Durst, her husband, reported
her missing Feb 5. Durst was arrested Nov 30, 2001, in Bethlehem,
Pa., for shoplifting. A Texas jury acquitted Durst of Black's murder
in 2003.
(SFC, 10/13/01, p.A15)(SFC, 12/1/01, p.A3)(SFC,
11/12/03, p.A1)
2001 Oct 16, Enron Corp.
reported a 3rd quarter loss of $618 million and reduced shareholder
equity by $1.2 billion to account for transactions involving limited
partnerships.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A18)
2001 Oct 16, Etta Jones (72),
jazz vocalist, died in Manhattan.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A21)
2001 Oct 16, In Israel PM
Sharon said he would accept the creation of a Palestinian state if
Israeli security needs were met.
(WSJ, 10/17/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 16, It was reported
that flooding in North Korea had killed at least 81 people and
damaged vast amounts of cropland over the last week. This portended
an 8th year of food shortages.
(WSJ, 10/16/01, p.A1)
2002 Oct 16, President Bush
signed a congressional resolution authorizing war against Iraq.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2002 Oct 16, A Bush
administration official reported that North Korea had told the
United States it has a secret nuclear weapons program in violation
of a 1994 agreement signed with the Clinton administration.
(AP, 10/16/02)(SFC, 10/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 16, The US offered a
compromise proposal at the UN that called for serious consequences
if Iraq does not comply with weapons inspections.
(SFC, 10/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 16, In Baltimore
Angela Dawson (36) burned to death with 4 of her children after a
drug pusher, Darrell Brooks (21), set fire to her home. Carnell
Dawson Sr. (43) died from his burns Oct 23.
(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A3)(SFC, 10/24/02, p.A6)
2002 Oct 16, In Colombia more
than 1,000 police and soldiers backed by helicopter gunships stormed
Comuna 13, a violence-plagued neighborhood in Medellin, exchanging
heavy fire with leftist rebels. Authorities said at least nine
people were killed, including a 16-year-old boy. In 2009 Diego
Fernando Murillo, a Colombian warlord awaiting sentencing in New
York City after pleading guilty to drug-trafficking charges, said
former army chief Gen. Mario Montoya mounted the joint operation
with his illegal, far-right militia.
(AP, 10/16/02)(SFC, 10/17/02,
p.A16)(www.colombiajournal.org/colombia137.htm)(AP, 3/3/09)
2002 Oct 16, Egypt inaugurated
the new $230 million Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a modern version of
the ancient library known for a freedom of thought and expression
lacking in today's Middle East. It was funded mostly by Iraq, the
UAR and Saudi Arabia. The planned capacity was 4 million books.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.D11)(AP, 10/16/02)
2002 Oct 16, Rebels controlling
the northern half of Ivory Coast agreed to a truce with the
government they attempted to overthrow.
(AP, 10/16/02)
2002 Oct 16, In Jamaica Prime
Minister P.J. Patterson's party became the country's first leader
elected to three straight terms. Jamaicans turned out in large
numbers to vote despite pelting rains and concerns of violence in an
election they hoped would revive a sagging economy and ease
spiraling crime.
(AP, 10/17/02)
2002 Oct 16, The Dutch
government collapsed amid infighting in the List party.
(WSJ, 10/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 16, Paraguay's vice
president Julio Cesar Franco resigned after months of political
feuding, to meet a deadline to run for the presidency.
(AP, 10/16/02)
203 Oct 16, The New York
Yankees won the American League Championship Series, defeating the
Boston Red Sox 6-5 in Game 7.
(AP, 10/16/04)
2003 Oct 16, Pres. Bush met
with Calif. Gov-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger during a stopover at the
start of a weeklong trip to Asia and Australia.
(ST, 10/17/03, p.A5)
2003 Oct 16, The Bridgeport,
Conn. Diocese announced a $21 million settlement with 40 people who
said they had been molested by priests when they were children.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A7)
2003 Oct 16, Alan Mulally, CEO
of Boeing, announced that production of the Boeing 757 would end in
late 2004.
(ST, 10/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 16, In Azerbaijan
rioting protesters clashed with police in the capital, Baku, after
Ilham Aliev was elected to succeed his father as president. At least
2 people were reported killed. The vote was marred by fraud. Closest
rival Isa Gambar had 11% of the vote.
(AP, 10/16/03)(SFC, 10/16/03, p.A3)(ST, 10/17/03,
p.A14)
2003 Oct 16, Canada's 2
conservative parties agreed to unite to give the governing Liberal
Party a competitive race in 2004 national elections.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 16, In northern
Colombia suspected paramilitary gunmen shot and killed Esperanza
Amaris (40), a women's rights activist.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 16, Iraqi police
backed by American tanks forced out the renegade Sadr City council.
(WSJ, 10/20/03, p.A9)
22003 Oct 16, In Iraq 3
American soldiers were killed during a clash at a Shiite Muslim
cleric's headquarters in Karbala.
(AP, 10/16/04)
2003 Oct 16, Laos and Thailand
signed a pact aimed at stamping out border attacks by unknown
militants.
(ST, 10/17/03, p.A13)
2003 Oct 16, Malaysian Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad told a summit of Islamic leaders that
"Jews rule the world by proxy" and the world's 1.3 billion Muslims
should unite, using nonviolent means for a "final victory."
(AP, 10/16/03)
2003 Oct 16, Palestinian police
arrested 7 suspects in Jebaliya for a deadly attack on US diplomats,
briefly exchanging fire with the militants during a nighttime raid.
The suspects were members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a
group of dozens of armed men from various factions, former members
of the security forces and disgruntled followers of Yasser Arafat.
(AP, 10/16/03)(WSJ, 10/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 16, The UN Security
Council unanimously adopted a resolution aimed at attracting aid to
stabilize Iraq and putting it on the road to independence.
(AP, 10/16/03)
2003 Oct 16, Pope John Paul II
celebrated his 25th anniversary, reaching a milestone matched by
only three of his predecessors.
(AP, 10/16/03)
2004 Oct 16, In Arizona a
stolen truck filled with suspected illegal immigrants sped away from
deputies and rolled over at a busy intersection near an Army post,
causing an 11-car crash that killed six people and seriously injured
15.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2004 Oct 16, Pierre Salinger
(79), who served as press secretary to US presidents Kennedy and
Johnson, died of a heart attack near his home in Le Thon, France.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2004 Oct 16, Congo Pres. Joseph
Kabila visited northeastern territory formerly held by rebels. The
army claimed to have retaken a village near Zambia and killed at
least 20 militiamen.
(AP, 10/16/04)
2004 Oct 16, In India the
ruling Congress party won power in Maharashtra, a victory that will
boost the fortunes of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi's party and
strengthen PM Manmohan Singh's minority national coalition.
(AP, 10/16/04)
2004 Oct 16, In Iraq a Fallujah
delegation offered to resume peace talks with the government if the
US ceases attacks against the city and releases the chief
negotiator. 2 US Army helicopters crashed in Baghdad and 2 soldiers
were killed.
(AP, 10/16/04)(SSFC, 10/17/04, p.A3)
2004 Oct 16, Russia’s Soyuz
spacecraft was forced to manually dock with the international space
station after it closed in on the station at a dangerously high
speed.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2004 Oct 16, Saudi security
forces captured four suspected militants in the Khaleej neighborhood
of Riyadh.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2005 Oct 16, The Chicago White
Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels 6-3 to win the American League
Championship Series in five games, their first pennant since 1959.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2005 Oct 16, In Wisconsin a bus
carrying Chippewa Falls High School students home from a band
competition collided with a semi truck, killing five passengers near
Osseo.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, In SF Andre
Daniels (31) was robbed and his wife was raped at 73 Brookdale Ave,
in the Sunnyside housing project in Visitacion Valley. Daniels
identified Laron Lewis (26) as one of the assailants and a tip led
police to Damien Ramond (23). On May 20, 2007, Daniels was shot and
killed outside his unit at the Alice Griffith project in the Bayview
district. His death doomed the sexual assault case against Lewis and
Ramond.
(SSFC, 11/23/08, p.A14)
2005 Oct 16, Elmer "Len"
Dresslar Jr. (80), the booming voice of the Jolly Green Giant, died.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2005 Oct 16, Gordon Lee
(b.1933), child actor who played Porky in the “Our Gang” shorts
(Little Rascals), died in Minneapolis, Min. Porky was the little
brother of Spanky McFarland.
(SFC, 10/22/05, p.B5)
2005 Oct 16, Afghanistan's
election authority announced final results for two of the country's
34 provinces as hundreds of protestors blocked roads in two key
cities alleging fraud in the count. Officials said election
authorities have fired about 50 employees for suspected fraud in
last month's legislative polls. About 3% of votes, have been taken
out of the counting process because of suspicions that they were
stuffed.
(AP, 10/16/05)(AFP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, In Argentina a
fire apparently set by rebellious inmates swept through a prison
southeast of Buenos Aires, killing at least 17 inmates.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, Britain’s Sunday
Telegraph said satellite broadcaster BSkyB will muscle in on the
lucrative Internet broadband market by announcing next week the
takeover of Easynet, the London-listed telecoms company.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, In China top US
economic officials, led by Treasury Secretary John Snow and Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, began talks with their Chinese
counterparts on rancorous economic issues, including Beijing's
currency controls and its huge and growing trade surplus. This is
the 17th meeting of the U.S.-China Joint Economic Commission since
the forum was founded in 1979 to thrash out economic issues.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, Iraq's
constitution seemed assured of passage despite strong opposition
from Sunni Arabs, who voted in surprisingly high numbers in an
effort to stop it.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, Italy held
primaries to select the center-left's candidate to challenge
conservative Premier Silvio Berlusconi in next year's election.
Former Italian premier Romano Prodi made a sweeping victory in a
nationwide primary.
(AP, 10/16/05)(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 16, In Italy
center-left politician Francesco Fortugno was shot as he voted in a
nationwide primary in the small Calabrian town of Locri. In March
2006 police arrested 5 suspects in Reggio Calabria.
(AP, 10/22/05)(AP, 3/21/06)
2005 Oct 16, A Japanese
newspaper reported that the US and Japan have reached a basic
agreement on relocating two US military bases on the southern island
of Okinawa, where the US presence has frequently provoked protests.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, Palestinian gunmen
killed three Israelis and wounded five in drive-by attacks near
Jewish settlements.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 16, Alexander
Slesarev, a Russian businessman believed to be the true owner of
Sodbiznesbank, was shot to death outside Moscow along with his wife
and young daughter.
(http://english.pravda.ru/topic/Kozlov-264/)(WSJ,
9/22/06, p.A6)
2005 Oct 16, Rebels and
Sudanese forces clashed in North Darfur with artillery fire killing
a number of civilians.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 16, Polish television
broadcast a recorded interview with Pope Benedict XVI, who said that
he planned to visit Poland, the homeland of his predecessor, John
Paul II (it's believed to be the first TV interview by a pope).
(AP, 10/16/06)
2005 Oct 16, In Syria a
pro-democracy group issued the Damascus Declaration for Democratic
National Change. The group came to be called the Damascus
Declaration.
(AP, 10/29/08)(http://tinyurl.com/5jc9vh)
2005 Oct 16, In Tanzania 4
British tourists and a Canadian pilot who were killed in a weekend
plane crash in the western part of the country.
(AFP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 16, In southern
Thailand about 20 suspected Muslim separatists stormed a monastery,
hacked an elderly Buddhist monk to death and fatally shot two temple
boys.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2006 Oct 16, President Bush
personally assured Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki by phone that he had set
no timetable for pulling troops out of Iraq.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2006 Oct 16, A lawyer said
Lester Crawford, former US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner
who resigned last year, will plead guilty to two counts of
misdemeanor over his ownership of stock in companies regulated by
the agency.
(Reuters, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, Lynne Stewart, a
firebrand civil rights lawyer, was sentenced in New York to 28
months in prison for helping an imprisoned terrorist sheik
communicate with his followers on the outside.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2006 Oct 16, The US Defense
Dept. said that it would resume mandatory anthrax immunizations for
military personnel serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea.
(SFC, 10/17/06, p.A11)
2006 Oct 16, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger announced that he was planning to set up an
emissions-trading scheme between California and other states to try
to curb the output of greenhouse gases.
(Econ, 10/21/06, p.14)
2006 Oct 16, In southeast Texas
heavy rains and a tornado left 3 people dead.
(WSJ, 10/17/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 16, Suicide bombers
struck in Afghanistan's two main cities, killing three civilians and
wounding six. Elsewhere, seven suspected militants died in fighting
with coalition and NATO forces.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, Australia said it
will ban North Korean ships from entering its ports, toughening its
response to the North's reported nuclear test.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, Queen Elizabeth II
kicked off her first-ever visit to the Baltic states as Lithuania’s
PM Gediminas Kirkilas welcomed the British monarch to the northern
European region.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, The biggest
underwater gas pipeline in the world, transporting gas from Norway
750 miles (1,200 kilometers) under the North Sea to Britain, was
officially opened by PM Tony Blair and PM Jens Stoltenberg.
Construction of the pipeline by Norwegian firm Hydro began in 2004.
The Langeled pipeline is expected to supply one fifth of Britain's
total gas requirements in the coming decades.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, In northern China
a fire in a coal mine trapped 28 miners.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, A US-based rights
group accused soldiers in Congo's postwar, national-unity army of
abducting civilians and forcing them to serve as personal attendants
and mine workers in the troubled Central African country.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, In Costa Rica
several operators of Internet gambling sites known as "sportsbooks"
say their businesses will not be significantly affected by a new US
law prohibiting bank and credit card payments to the sites.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, Egypt's President
Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi held talks on how to
resolve the Darfur crisis in Sudan without intervention from outside
Africa.
(AFP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, The UN accused
Eritrea of moving 1,500 troops and 14 tanks into a buffer zone
established after a 2 1/2-year border war with Ethiopia in "a major
breach" of a cease-fire agreement reached in 2000.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, Guatemala topped
Venezuela in the first round of voting for a UN Security Council
seat, but it failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority to win
a two-year term on the decision-making body. The 192-nation General
Assembly elected South Africa, Indonesia, Italy and Belgium for the
four other open seats in a secret ballot. 10 rounds of voting failed
to anoint a winner to fill the spot reserved for Latin America.
(AP, 10/16/06)(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 16, In central
Indonesia an unidentified gunman killed a Christian priest, where
religious tensions have been mounting since the executions last
month of three Roman Catholic militants.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, Saddam Hussein
issued an open letter, saying Iraq's "liberation is at hand" and
calling for an end to sectarian killings. The brother of the
prosecutor in his genocide trial was shot to death at home, the
latest death linked to proceedings against the deposed leader.
Unidentified gunmen in police uniforms hijacked 13 civilian cars and
abducted their occupants at a checkpoint outside Balad after the
post had shut down for the night. Sunnis fleeing Balad across the
Tigris River to Duluiyah said Shiite police in the city had teamed
up with death squads who killed at least 74 Sunnis. A pair of
roadside bombs exploded near a bank in central Baghdad, killing a
policeman, while the bullet-riddled bodies of eight men were found
dumped around the Iraqi capital overnight. Across Iraq bombings and
shootings killed at least 32 people, including 10 who died in
shootings in the predominantly Shiite city of Basra. In Karmah a
roadside bomb killed five Iraqi soldiers as their convoy passed
through the town. Gunmen stormed into the house of a Shiite family
in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad before dawn, killing the
mother and four adult sons and injuring the father. 708 Iraqis have
been reported killed in war-related violence this month, or more
than 44 a day.
(AP, 10/16/06)(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 16, Cocoa farmers
across Ivory Coast went on strike, holding back their crops to
protest low retail prices and high export taxes in a move that could
affect the world market.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, In Moldova an
appeals court overturned a guilty verdict against the former defense
minister, clearing him of charges he sold 21 fighter planes too
cheaply to the US. Valeriu Pasat, who was defense minister from 1997
to 1999 and head of the country's spy services from 1999 to 2002,
claimed the case against him was politically motivated because of
his support for a movement opposed to Communist President Vladimir
Voronin.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, In central Myanmar
Thet Win Aung (34), who had been serving a 59-year sentence since
1998 after protesting for educational reform, died in jail.
(AP, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 16, In Nigeria
legislators in southwest Ekiti state voted to remove Gov. Ayo Fayose
on after finding him guilty of siphoning state funds into personal
bank accounts and receiving kickbacks.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 16, Eight Pakistanis
released from US detention facilities in Afghanistan and Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, returned home.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, In Peru former
President Valentin Paniagua (69) died. The unassuming former law
professor shepherded Peru back to democracy as interim president
following the 2000 collapse of Alberto Fujimori's autocratic regime.
Paniagua governed Peru from November 2000 to July 2001.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, Russia demanded
that the US lift sanctions against two Russian companies accused of
making deals with Iran involving sensitive technology and hinted
that a US refusal could affect negotiations on a U.N. sanctions
resolution against Tehran.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, The business chief
of Russian state news agency Itar-Tass was found knifed to death at
his flat in central Moscow. Police in Russia’s North Caucasus region
of Ingushetia arrested rights activists and violently broke up a
rally in memory of slain reporter Anna Politkovskaya.
(AP, 10/16/06)(Reuters, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, In Sri Lanka Tamil
rebels rammed a truck packed with explosives into a convoy of
military buses, killing at least 103 people and wounding 150 more in
one of the deadliest insurgent attacks since the 2002 cease-fire.
(AFP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, Sweden’s Culture
Minister Cecilia Stego Chilo issued a statement saying she could not
carry out her duties after it was revealed that she evaded taxes by
paying a nanny under the table and failed to pay her mandatory TV
license fee. Surveys showed about one-third of Swedes have bought
"black market services," mostly for cleaning, painting or carpentry
jobs. Hiring a cleaner legally costs around $40 an hour, including
taxes, while a black market hire will do the job for less than $14,
tax-free.
(AP, 10/16/06)(AP, 10/20/06)
2007 Oct 16,
President Bush and the Dalai Lama met with a ceremony planned
for tomorrow to award the spiritual leader the Congressional Gold
Medal. China warned that the events are bad for US-Chinese ties.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, In California a
blinding sandstorm north of Los Angeles caused a pileup of some 15
vehicles leaving at least 2 people dead and 16 injured.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.B4)
2007 Oct 16, The Oakland, Ca.,
the City Council adopted an ordnance banning smoking in ATM lines,
parks, bus stops and municipal golf courses.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.B1)
2007 Oct 16, Oil prices reached
another record high closing at 87.61 per barrel in the NY Mercantile
Exchange.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 16, A Taliban ambush
on a police patrol in southern Afghanistan left one officer dead and
four others wounded.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 16, Barbara West
Dainton (96), believed to be one of the last two survivors from the
sinking of the Titanic in 1912, died in Camborne, England.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2007 Oct 16, British actress
Deborah Kerr (b.1921) died. She shared one of cinema's most famous
kisses with Burt Lancaster in "From Here to Eternity" (1953). Her
many films included “The King and I” with Yul Brynner.
(AP, 10/18/07)(SFC, 10/19/07, p.A11)
2007 Oct 16,
Burundi's last active rebel group said it will shun a weekend
meeting to put the central African nation's derailed peace process
back on track as the South African mediator was biased.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16,
Chad's government declared a state of emergency along its
eastern border with Sudan's Darfur and in its remote desert north to
tackle a fresh flare-up of ethnic violence that killed at least 20
people.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, A boat from
Guatemala with over 20 migrants capsized. Mexican authorities by the
end of the week recovered the bodies of 15 migrants. The vessel was
believed to be carrying more than 20 people. There were 2 survivors.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 16,
A study in Hong Kong reportedly found that Lupeol, a compound
in fruits like mangoes, grapes and strawberries, appears to be
effective in killing and curbing the spread of cancer cells in the
head and neck.
(Reuters, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16,
India and Nigeria reaffirmed their stance in favor of UN
Security Council reform and signed up to a slew of cooperation
agreements on day two of a state visit to Nigeria by Indian PM
Manmohan Singh.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, India's PM
Manmohan Singh raised fresh doubts about a landmark nuclear energy
accord with the US, telling President Bush that his government is
having "certain difficulties" finalizing the deal, which has faced
mounting domestic opposition.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, In
Iran Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian
counterpart and implicitly warned the US not to use a former Soviet
republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said nations should not
pursue oil pipeline projects that are not backed by regional powers.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16,
A car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad,
killing at least six people and wounding 25.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, Anne Enright,
Irish author, won the Man Booker prize for her novel “The
Gathering.”
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.A2)
2007 Oct 16,
Japan, Myanmar's largest aid donor, said it had canceled a
multimillion dollar grant to protest the military-ruled nation's
crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, Libya, a former
pariah state condemned by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism, won a
seat on the UN Security Council without opposition from the Bush
administration.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, In Myanmar
relatives said 5 pro-democracy activists had been sentenced to long
jail terms.
(WSJ, 10/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 16, A revolt at a
Russian prison for minors, in the Sverdlovsk region in the Ural
Mountains, swelled into a mass uprising that left two people dead
and buildings gutted before guards and riot police restored order.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 16, In Sudan 2 truck
drivers working for the UN's World Food Program were killed in an
ambush near the South Darfur town of Ed Daien. A 3rd was killed on
Oct 12.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2008 Oct 16, Pres. George W.
Bush signed the 315-page Rail Safety Improvement Act. The bill
introduced a new rail safety system called Positive Train Control
(PTC).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_train_control)(Econ, 7/24/10,
p.70)
2008 Oct 16, The US FDA said it
would open its first office in China before the end of the year.
Over 60 FDA would be placed world-wide over the next year.
(SFC, 10/17/08, p.A4)
2008 Oct 16, Nasdaq filed with
the SEC to temporarily suspend rules to remove securities trading
below a dollar. The Sec approved the change effective this day.
(SFC, 10/25/08, p.C1)
2008 Oct 16, The annual TED
prize was awarded to Sylvia Earl, Deep ocean explorer; Jill Cornell
Tarter, astronomer; and Jose Antonio Abreu, classical music maestro.
(SFC, 10/17/08, p.C3)
2008 Oct 16, Hawaii state
officials said they will stop giving health coverage to the 2,000
children enrolled by Nov. 1, but private partner Hawaii Medical
Service Association will pay to extend their coverage through the
end of the year without government support. Hawaii lawmakers had
approved the health plan in 2007 as a way to ensure every child can
get basic medical help.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 16, The Hubble Space
Telescope went into the final stages of recovery after NASA
successfully bypassed a faulty computer and resurrected an
18-year-old spare from orbital hibernation.
(Reuters, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, Edie Adams
(b.1927), actress and singer, died. The blonde beauty had won a Tony
Award for bringing Daisy Mae to life on Broadway and played the
television foil to her husband, comedian Ernie Kovacs.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 16, In southern
Afghanistan an insurgent's rocket hit Lashkar Gah, capital of the
world's largest opium producing region, killing a civilian and
wounding five other people. An Afghan policeman killed a US soldier
on foot patrol in Paktika province and a second international troop
was killed by a mortar in another "possible friendly fire" incident.
Air strikes in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province reportedly
killed 17 civilians. 18 insurgents were killed in fighting in Kunar
province.
(AP, 10/16/08)(AFP, 10/16/08)(SFC, 10/18/08,
p.A9)
2008 Oct 16, Brazil's President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived in Mozambique to launch a project
to make anti-AIDS drugs in the southern African country.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 16, Around one million
Burundian children under the age of five suffer chronic
malnutrition, the UN food agency announced as it marked World Food
Day in the tiny central African nation.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, Cambodia and
Thailand agreed to joint patrols of disputed border areas after
deadly clashes, but made little progress toward resolving their
long-standing territorial spat.
(AFP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, Canadian police
said a bomb damaged a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia,
describing the overnight attack as the second of its kind in the
same area in a week.
(Reuters, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, In Dubai a British
couple was sentenced to three months in jail in a case that has
caused controversy because the two were charged in July with having
sex on the beach. The Dubai Court of Appeals upheld the guilty
verdict but dropped the prison sentences for Michelle Palmer and
Vince Acors, though it ruled the couple must still be deported from
the United Arab Emirates and pay a fine of about $272 each.
(AP, 10/15/08)(AP, 11/25/08)
2008 Oct 16, The European
Commission announced 15 million euros (20 million dollars) of
emergency food aid for victims of drought and soaring food prices in
five east African countries. The biggest share will go to Ethiopia
and Somalia and smaller amounts to Kenya, Uganda and Djibouti.
(AFP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, The European
Central Bank extended emergency loans to Hungary’s central bank. The
ECB said it will lend up to $6.75 billion.
(SFC, 10/17/08, p.A5)
2008 Oct 16, The International
Committee of the Red Cross said Iran and Iraq have signed an
agreement to trace missing persons from the war between the two
countries. About 1 million people died in the eight-year war that
began when Saddam Hussein launched an attack on Iran in 1980.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, A heavy sandstorm
turned Iraq's capital into a pinkish haze, sending dozens of people
to the hospital with respiratory problems and delaying a number of
international flights. The US military detained 2 more suspected
insurgents in raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq's leadership in the
northern Iraqi city of Mosul. A US soldier was killed in Diyala
province.
(AP, 10/16/08)(SFC, 10/15/08, p.A9)
2008 Oct 16, Israeli troops
shot and killed a Palestinian man in Kufr Malek, a village near
Ramallah. An army patrol spotted three men carrying firebombs and
troops shot one man after the trio ignored warning shots. The other
two escaped. A Palestinian man died in a Ramallah hospital a day
after being shot by troops in the nearby Jelazoun refugee camp.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, Italian police
arrested Antonio Pelle (46), an alleged fugitive mobster, believed
to be the head of an organized crime clan involved in the slaying of
six people in Germany last year. His family was involved in a feud
that led to the Aug. 15, 2007 killing of six Italians outside a
restaurant in Duisburg, Germany.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, In Kenya violence
re-started between the Murule and Garre in Mandera town triggered by
need for space for 920 families displaced by flash floods. A
security operation was then set up to intervene following a request
by the area members of parliament when the conflict took a
cross-border dimension with one clan getting support from Al-Shabaab
militants from Somalia. In 2009 Human Rights Watch issued a 51-page
report, called "Bring the Gun or You'll Die," saying Kenyan security
forces tortured hundreds of civilians and raped at least a dozen
women during a three-day operation to disarm militias in the Mandera
region.
(www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MYAI-7LQ47Q?OpenDocument)(AP,
6/29/09)
2008 Oct 16, Authorities in
Malaysia and Singapore said they will guarantee all foreign currency
and local currency bank deposits.
(WSJ, 10/17/08, p.A5)
2008 Oct 16, An influential
council of Malaysia's state rulers warned people not to question the
supremacy of Islam or the special privileges enjoyed by the
country's ethnic Malay majority.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 16, In Mexico six
people were lined up and gunned down outside a business in the
border city of Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 16, Pirates in
southern Nigeria seized eight fishing vessels with a total of 96
crew and later threatened to seriously harm them if ransom is not
paid.
(AFP, 10/18/08)
2008 Oct 16, The Pakistani
rupee dropped to more than 82 to the dollar, continuing a slide that
has seen it lose more than 30% of its value this year. A suspected
US missile strike killed a purported foreign militant in South
Waziristan, a tribal area considered a haven for the Taliban and
al-Qaida. A suicide bombing in the Swat Valley left four security
personnel dead. In Bajur 7 militants were killed by plane and
helicopter gunship attacks.
(AP, 10/16/08)(SFC, 10/17/08, p.A4)
2008 Oct 16, In Somalia at
least 23 people were killed in Mogadishu when insurgents attacked
camps housing African Union and Ethiopian troops, triggering heavy
clashes.
(AFP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, Somali pirates
released 22 sailors they kidnapped on Sep 10, after the South Korean
ship owner paid a ransom. Koo Ja-Woo, an executive director of J and
J Trust, which owns the ship, said his company paid an unspecified
sum to the pirates through a foreign middleman with experience in
dealing with the seizure of ships.
(AFP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 16, Spain's leading
judge agreed to investigate the disappearances of tens thousands of
people during the 1936-39 civil war and the ensuing Franco
dictatorship, many of whom are believed to be buried in mass graves.
Spanish police arrested 13 men accused of harboring Islamic
extremists and helping them flee the country, including several
suspects in the Madrid terror bombings of 2004.
(AFP, 10/16/08)(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, Sri Lankan troops
captured the rebel-held town of Maniyakkulam, in the island's north
following heavy fighting that killed a large group of guerrillas.
(AFP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 16, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir launched his "people's initiative" for peace in
Darfur with an elaborate ceremony attended by regional dignitaries
but no rebels involved in fighting.
(AFP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 16, Switzerland
launched a massive recapitalization of UBS AG saying it will invest
$5.3 billion in UBS in return for a 9% stake.
(WSJ, 10/17/08, p.A3)
2008 Oct 16, Hurricane Omar
passed the Virgin Islands overnight leaving oil spills in St. Croix
as 40 boats sank or washed ashore.
(AP, 10/18/08)
2009 Oct 16, President Barack
Obama signed a 7.5 billion dollar aid package for Pakistan after the
US Congress acted to placate critics in the strife-torn nation who
warned it violated Pakistani sovereignty. The aid legislation
insisted that the civilian government of Pakistan control the army.
(AFP, 10/16/09)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.33)
2009 Oct 16, US federal
prosecutors unveiled a broad criminal case against billionaire hedge
fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, head of Galleon Partners in Manhattan,
and 5 others accused of netting over $20 million by trading based on
insider information. Investigators had used wiretaps to gain
evidence. The trial of Rajaratnam opened on March 8, 2011, as the
case grew to involved 22.
(SFC, 10/17/09, p.D1)(Econ, 3/5/11, p.83)
2009 Oct 16, Two US civil and
constitutional rights groups called for Keith Bardwell, a justice of
the peace in Louisiana, to resign for refusing to issue a marriage
license to an interracial couple. Bardwell held that most
interracial marriages failed and had told the couple to go seek
another justice of the peace.
(SFC, 10/17/09, p.A4)
2009 Oct 16, In Daly City, Ca.,
a 5-day event to help struggling borrowers drew thousands to the Cow
Palace to the Save the Dream tour sponsored by the Neighborhood
Assistance Corp. of America, a non-profit aimed at helping people
modify their home loans.
(SFC, 10/17/09, p.A1)
2009 Oct 16, Bank of America
Corp. said it lost more than $2.2 billion in the third quarter as
loan losses kept rising, providing further evidence that consumers
are still struggling to pay their bills. The nation's second-largest
bank said it wrote down loans on its books by almost $10 billion
during the July-September period, up almost $1 billion from the
second quarter.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, Four Afghans,
including at least two civilians, died during a firefight between
militants and a joint international-Afghan force in Ghazni province.
IED bomb attacks claimed the lives of 3 US soldiers. An air strike
killed 20 militants in Urgun district, in southern Paktika province.
5 militants were killed in an Afghan army commando operation in the
Gereshk district of Helmand province. In Sangin district, also in
Helmand, one Afghan soldier was killed and another injured during a
small-arms attack.
(AP, 10/16/09) (AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 16, In Australia 5
Muslim men were convicted of plotting the country’s largest
terrorist conspiracy as part of a bid to force the government to
change its policy on Middle East conflicts. The men, aged 25-44,
were arrested in a series of raids on their homes in 2005. On Feb
15, 2010, the 5 men were sentenced to 23 to 28 years in prison for
stockpiling explosive chemicals and firearms for terrorist attacks
on unspecified targets.
(AP, 10/16/09)(AP, 2/15/10)
2009 Oct 16, Bosnia's war
crimes court jailed Milorad Trbic (51), a former Serb army captain,
for 30 years for killing dozens and taking part in the persecution
and detention of thousands during the July, 1995, Srebrenica
massacre of some 8,000 Muslims. The court acquitted Trbic of
genocide charges due to lack of evidence.
(Reuters, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, Botswana held
parliamentary elections. On Oct 18 the independent electoral
commission announced that the governing party, which has been in
power for more than four decades, once again swept the elections.
The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) won 45 out of the 57 seats. This
paved the way for legislators to select incumbent President Seretse
Ian Khama to continue as leader of the world's largest
diamond-producing country.
(AP, 10/18/09)
2009 Oct 16, Queen Elizabeth II
formally opened Britain's new Supreme Court in a ceremony attended
by several US Supreme Court justices.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, Canada detained
the rusting merchant vessel named Ocean Lady, believed to be trying
to smuggle 76 migrants from Sri Lanka onto its Pacific coast at
Vancouver Island.
(Reuters, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 16, In China former
university professor and judge Guo Quan was sentenced to 10 years in
prison for "subversion of state power" by a court in eastern Jiangsu
Province.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 16, The European
Commission called for sharp cuts in cod quotas, up to 25% in some
areas, saying the prized fish is sliding toward commercial
extinction in several historic Atlantic fishing grounds.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, French farmers
struggling with slumping grain prices blanketed the Champs-Elysees
with bales of hay and set them ablaze, and blocked highways around
the country as they demanded government help.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, In Guinea 2
cabinet ministers resigned and France urged its citizens to leave
the former French colony as armed attacks increased in the aftermath
of a bloody rally last month where soldiers fired on pro-democracy
demonstrators.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, In southern India
a blaze erupted at a fireworks warehouse in Pallipat near Chennai,
killing at least 32 people and injuring 10 others as millions of
Hindus prepared to celebrate Deepavali, the festival of lights.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 16, In northern Iraq a
suicide bomber opened fire on worshippers during prayers at a mosque
in Tal Afar and then blew himself up after running out of
ammunition, killing at least 15 people. 65 were wounded in the
attack. A government aide said Mohammed al-Dayni, a Sunni lawmaker
accused of being an insurgent ringleader, has been detained in
Malaysia.
(AP, 10/16/09)(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 16, Eight countries
called on Tokyo to allow divorced foreign parents access to their
children living in Japan and to sign a treaty against international
parental child abductions.
(AFP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, Kosovo's
authorities said they have demarcated a disputed border with
Macedonia, a scene of tensions in the past.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, Libya's Oea
newspaper said Saif al-Islam, the reform-minded son of Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi, has been named overall coordinator of a grouping of
the country's most influential tribal, political and business
leaders.
(Reuters, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, A Mexican
government report said the use of cocaine doubled in Mexico over the
last six years, partly because the drug became more available in the
country. The Mexican navy enacted new rules prohibiting sailors from
shooting at vehicles that try to evade land checkpoints unless they
are fired on or feel that their lives or others' are in danger.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 16, Nigeria’s
anti-graft agency EFCC arrested two sacked bank chiefs and a senior
stockbroker for alleged fraud running into several millions of
dollars. EFCC said the former managing director of Bank PHB, Francis
Atuche, Charles Ojo of Finbank and Peter Ololo of Falcon Securities
would be prosecuted for alleged fraud and granting loans without
collateral.
(AFP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 16, In northern
Nigeria the toll in a cholera outbreak rose to 149 with 52 more
deaths recorded. The disease was first reported on September 10 in
Gwoza local government on the border with Cameroon from where it
spread to six other districts.
(AFP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, The girlfriend of
a Northern Ireland police officer was slightly injured when a bomb
exploded under her car in Belfast, sparking fears of a resurgence of
violence here.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, In northwestern
Pakistan 3 suicide attackers, including a woman, attacked a police
station in Peshawar city, killing 13 people, including 3 police
officers, 2 women and 2 children. Army airstrikes killed a dozen
suspected militants in South Waziristan ahead of an expected ground
offensive.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, A Russian court
sentenced an army sergeant to nine years in jail for passing on
information to Georgia during the time of its war with Russia.
Aleksandar Georgijevic, a Serbian national, was jailed for 8 years
for attempting to collect information on a number of Russian
military projects in 1998.
(Reuters, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 15, Somali pirates
seized the Kota Wajar, a Singapore-flagged container ship, in the
Indian Ocean about 300 miles (480km) north of the Seychelles
islands.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 16, A top southern
Sudanese official said former enemies in north and south Sudan have
reached agreement on details for a key referendum on the south’s
full independence. Clashes broke out in the remote border region
between southern Sudan and north-west Kenya. At least three Kenyan
soldiers were reported killed in cross border raids. An officer was
killed when security forces tracked down raiders in south Darfur,
shooting dead two of the attackers in an exchange of fire. Two
officers were killed a day earlier as up to four men raided a
guesthouse in the south Darfur town of Kass.
(AFP, 10/16/09)(AFP, 10/17/09)(Reuters, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 16, The UN Human
Rights Council voted to endorse a Gaza war crimes report and send it
to the Security Council, possibly setting up international
prosecution of Israelis and Palestinians accused of war crimes.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, Zimbabwe PM Morgan
Tsvangirai suspended cooperation with President Robert Mugabe's
"dishonest and unreliable" camp but said he will not quit the unity
government. The snub was sparked by the renewed detention of
Tsvangirai's top aide Roy Bennett.
(AFP, 10/16/09)
2010 Oct 16, In Afghanistan a
bomb blast struck the police headquarters in the southern city of
Kandahar, killing one civilian and wounding 4 others. Two Taliban
commanders, identified as Kaka Abdul Khaliq and Kako, were killed in
an operation in Kandahar's Zhari district. Taliban fighter, Mullah
Rahmatullah, was captured in the raid. Afghan and American troops
made an air assault on the horn of Panjwai, a Taliban base. A
motorized rickshaw carrying explosives was detonated behind police
headquarters in Kandahar killing one bystander. Insurgents attacked
an oil tanker on the other side of the city. The resulting explosion
killed one civilian.
(AP, 10/16/10)(AP, 10/17/10)(SSFC, 10/17/10,
p.A10)
2010 Oct 16, Armenia's
president has opened an aerial tramway that the country claims is
the world's longest. The tramway across the Vorotan River gorge in
the country's south spans 5.7 km (3.5 miles), longer than the 4.5 km
(2.8 mile) Sandia Peak Tramway in New Mexico, known as the world's
longest passenger tramway. The $45 million tramway links the highway
from the capital of Yerevan with the 9th century Tatev Monastery.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Belarus
visiting Pres. Chavez of Venezuela promised that Belarusian
refineries, the backbone of the country's economy, would see no oil
shortages for the next 200 years.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, Thousands of
Chinese marched in the streets in sometimes violent protests against
Japan and its claim to disputed islands. Thousands of protesters
marched through Tokyo to demonstrate against what they called
China's invasion of disputed islands that both countries claim.
Beijing expressed "deep concern" at anti-China protests by Japanese
nationalists over a diplomatic spat centered on a group of disputed
islands.
(AP, 10/16/10)(Reuters, 10/16/10)(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, In central China
rescuers battled dangerous levels of gas, tons of coal dust and the
risk of falling rocks as they worked to free 11 miners trapped by an
explosion at a mine. 26 miners were confirmed killed at the
state-run Pingyu Coal & Electric Co. Ltd mine.
(AP, 10/16/10)(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, In China Li Qiming
(22) reportedly hit two students with his car at a university campus
in the northern province of Hebei. Chen Xiaofeng (20) was killed.
The drunk man shouted "sue me if you dare" when a crowd stopped him
from fleeing. On Oct 26 state media reported that Qiming, the son of
a senior police officer, was arrested after the incident sparked
outrage on the Internet. The young woman’s father, Chen Guangqian,
said on Nov 18 that Li Gang gave him 460,000 yuan, or more than
$69,250. On Jan 30 Qiming was sentenced to six years in prison.
(AFP, 10/26/10)(AP, 11/18/10)(AP, 1/30/11)
2010 Oct 16, In France diesel
and jet fuel supplies were running low in parts of the country as
workers took to the streets for another nationwide protest against
President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age to 62.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel told a meeting of young members of her conservative
Christian Democratic Union that while immigrants are welcome,
they must learn the language and accept the country's cultural
norms. "This multicultural approach, saying that we simply live side
by side and live happily with each other has failed. Utterly
failed."
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, German Economy
Minister Rainer Bruederle said Germany will help Japan gain access
to vital rare earth minerals which are being withheld by China in a
territorial dispute.
(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, Iranian local
media reported that a judge has ordered the amputation of the hand
of a man (21) who confessed to robbing a candy shop. The ruling came
days after authorities amputated the hand of another man convicted
of theft in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Mexico gunmen
in the border city of Ciudad Juarez killed a local official and his
son. Rito Grado Serrano was regional president of the community of
El Porvenir outside Ciudad Juarez but lived with his family in
Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Mexico the body
of Lane Gilbert (46) of Marin County, Ca., was discovered in a lot
behind a police station in Santa Maria Coyotepec, a town southwest
of Oaxaca City. He had suffered multiple machete wounds. Gilbert was
last seen leaving his home in San Andres Huayapan on Aug 27.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 16, A Nigerian army
spokesman said soldiers have arrested this month about 100 suspected
kidnappers and armed robbers in the southeastern state of Abia,
including a Roman Catholic priest. Nigerian investigators raided a
Lagos home of Charles Okah, the brother of former militant group
leader Henry Okah, taking him into custody over his alleged role in
funding the Oct 1 bombings that struck independence anniversary
celebrations in Abuja.
(AFP, 10/16/10)(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, North Korea said
it is willing to resume six-nation nuclear disarmament talks but
would not be "hasty" because the US and some other parties were not
ready. North Korean media threatened a "1,000-fold" military buildup
as the US ruled out lifting sanctions to try to coax the North into
resuming talks aimed at its nuclear weapons programs.
(AP, 10/16/10)(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, Russia’s
state-owned RIA news agency reported that flooding in the southern
region of Krasnodar has killed 11 people with three missing.
(Reuters, 10/16/10)
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