October 16 Through History

Explanation: Marie-Antoinette was guillotined at the Place de la Révolution (today the Place de la Concorde) in Paris. She was 37 years old. Ironically, that same day saw the Battle of Wattignies, where the republican armies drove back the Austrians, compatriots of the late queen.

Explanation: Walt Disney and his brother Roy founded The Walt Disney Company in 1923 under the name Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. The studio's first major worldwide success was Mickey Mouse, who appeared in 1928 in the short film Steamboat Willie, the first animated cartoon synchronized with sound.

Explanation: The first Chinese atomic bomb, tested on October 16, 1964 in the Xinjiang desert, had the code name "596". This test made China the 5th nuclear power in the world, after the United States, the USSR, the United Kingdom and France.

Explanation: After his defeat at Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena, a volcanic British island isolated in the South Atlantic. He died there on 5 May 1821, officially of stomach cancer, though theories of arsenic poisoning have been put forward.

Explanation: Oscar Wilde, né à Dublin en 1854, fut l'un des plus brillants représentants de l'esthétisme victorien. Condamné en 1895 pour ses relations avec Lord Alfred Douglas, il fut emprisonné deux ans à Reading, ce qui inspira sa célèbre Ballade de la geôle de Reading. Il mourut à Paris en 1900.

Explanation: The Locarno Agreements were signed between Germany, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Italy. They enshrined the inviolability of Germany's western borders as established by the Treaty of Versailles and allowed Germany to join the League of Nations in 1926. Austen Chamberlain, also born on October 16, received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in these negotiations.

Explanation: The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was erected in Alexandria, Egypt, near the presumed site of the ancient great Library of Alexandria, founded under the Ptolemies in the IIIrd century BC. The ancient library is often considered the greatest center of knowledge in the ancient world, before it disappeared probably through several successive fires.

Explanation: Eugene O'Neill is considered the father of modern American theater. His major works include Mourning Becomes Electra and Long Day's Journey Into Night, the latter being partly autobiographical. He was the first American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature for his theatrical work.

Explanation: The Battle of Leipzig, nicknamed the "Battle of Nations", united against Napoleon the armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden. With around 600,000 combatants in total, it remains the largest battle of the Napoleonic era. The French defeat sealed the fate of the Empire and led to Napoleon's first abdication in April 1814.

Explanation: Günter Grass, a German writer born in Danzig (now Gdańsk in Poland), published The Tin Drum in 1959, a founding novel of Group 47 and a masterpiece of postwar German literature. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. In 2006, he belatedly revealed that he had been a member of the Waffen-SS in his youth.