16 October

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 16 October:

1. French Queen Marie Antoinette, 37, wife of King Louis XVI, was beheaded for treason on this date in 1793. Her last words before meeting the guillotine were, "Pardon, sir. I did not do it on purpose."
2. Born this day in 1854 was Oscar Wilde. His full name was Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde and he was an Irish writer known for his biting wit. His works include The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Picture of Dorian Gray, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest He said: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
3. Blue Peter started on BBC TV on this date in 1958. The presenters were Leila Williams and Christopher Trace.
4. In 1845, Edgar Allen Poe gave the first public reading of The Raven in his home town of Boston. Most of the audience walked out.
5. In 1976, Kathy Wafler of New York set a record for the longest unbroken Apple peel (172ft 4in), from a 20oz apple.
6. The Tremont Hotel, the first modern hotel in the US, opened in Boston on this date in 1829. For $2 a night, guests could take advantage of washbowls in each room and 8 bathrooms in the basement, since this hotel was the first to have indoor plumbing. They also got 4 meals a day included in the price.
7. In 1922, the longest railway tunnel in the world, the Simplon II under the Alps, was completed, linking Switzerland and Italy.
8. In 2010, Auburn University graduate student Justin Havird named a new species of fish, Lepidocephalichthys zeppelini, because the fish's pectoral fin reminded him of the double-neck guitar used by Jimmy Page.
9. The first department store in the US opened on this date in 1868, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Called Zion’s Co-operative Mercantile Institution, founded by Brigham Young, it is still trading today.
10. In 1997, Michael Jackson became an honorary member of the South African Bafokeng tribe, people of the Crocodile.

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