- October 16, 0456 Magister militum Ricimer defeats the Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the western Roman Empire.
- October 16, 1311 Council of Vienne opens
- October 16, 1775 “Portland, Maine burned by British”
- October 16, 1780 “Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont last major raid of the American Revolutionary War.”
- October 16, 1781 “George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia after the Siege of Yorktown.”
- October 16, 1793 Battle of Wattignies.
- October 16, 1793 “Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.”
- October 16, 1813 The Sixth Coalition attacks Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Leipzig.
- October 16, 1829 “Tremont Hotel, first US modern hotel opens in Boston”
- October 16, 1834 Much of the ancient structures of the Palace of Westminster in London is burnt down.
- October 16, 1841 “Queen’s University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.”
- October 16, 1843 “Sir William Rowan Hamilton comes up with the idea of quaternions, a non-commutative extension of complex numbers.”
- October 16, 1846 Dentist William T Morton demonstrated the effectiveness of ether
- October 16, 1849 “Avery College establishes in Allegheny, Pennsylvania”
- October 16, 1859 “John Brown leads 20 in raid on federal arsenal, Harper’s Ferry, Va”
- October 16, 1861 Confedercy starts selling postage stamps
- October 16, 1867 Alaska adopts the Gregorian calendar
- October 16, 1869 “Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is discovered.”
- October 16, 1869 “England’s first residential college for women, Girton College, Cambridge, is founded.”
- October 16, 1869 Hotel in Boston becomes the first to have indoor plumbing
- October 16, 1875 “Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.”
- October 16, 1882 The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business.
- October 16, 1905 The Partition of Bengal (India) occurred.
- October 16, 1906 The Captain of Kpenick fools the city hall of Kpenick and several soldiers by impersonating a Prussian officer.
- October 16, 1916 Margaret Sanger opens first birth control clinic in Brooklyn
- October 16, 1923 Disney Company is founded
- October 16, 1925 Germany Weimar Republic signs Lucarno agreement guaranteeing as equal partner with Western European states the frontiers of Western Europe and that no country will attack or invade the other.
- October 16, 1925 Texas School Board prohibits teaching of evolution
- October 16, 1926 “US Troop ship sinks in Yangtze River, killing 1,200”
- October 16, 1931 Trunk murderess Winnie Ruth Judd kills her first victim
- October 16, 1934 “Chinese Communists begin the Long March; it ended a year and four days later, by which time Mao Zedong had regained his title as party chairman.”
- October 16, 1940 Benjamin O. Davis Sr. named first African American general in the United States Army.
- October 16, 1940 Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr named first black general in regular army
- October 16, 1940 Lottery for first US WW II draftees held; #158 was drawn 1st
- October 16, 1940 Warsaw Ghetto established
- October 16, 1941 “””Gordo”” comic strip first appears in newspapers”
- October 16, 1941 General Hideki Tojo takes over as Japanese Premier.
- October 16, 1941 Germany advances within 60 miles of Moscow
- October 16, 1942 “Cyclone in Bay of Bengal kills 40,000 south of Calcutta India”
- October 16, 1943 Chicago opens new subway system