On this day in history, October 16

Did you know

Most of the lipsticks made are the byproduct of fish scales called pearl essence or pearlessence as it turns out that the stuff that makes the fish scales shine makes one’s lips shiny as well. Pearlessence comes from commercially fished herring. There are synthetic versions available as well but they are not widely used.

On this day in history

1384 Despite being a girl, Jadwiga, 10, is crowned King of Poland and goes onto become an exceptional ruler.

1793 One day after her trial, French Queen Marie Antoinette is executed.

1815 Cape-Dutch settler Cornelis Bezuidenhout is shot dead by Khoi soldiers, led by a white lieutenant, when he resists arrest for mistreating a servant at Baviaans River.

1840 Two Voortrekker states, east and west of the Drakensberg, form the Republic of Natalia.

1836 The Voortrekkers and Ndebele clash at the Battle of Vegkop, near Heilbron.

1853 The Ottomans, supported by Britain and France, declare war on the Russian Empire. It is the start of the Crimean War (1853-1856).

1916 TE Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) arrives in Cairo with a British fact-finding mission charged with finding ways to support the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

1934 Chinese Communists begin the Long March; it ends a year and four days later.

1939 No. 603 Squadron RAF intercepts the first Luftwaffe raid on Britain, marking the end of the so-called ‘Phoney War’.

1939 Charlotte Maxeke, the ‘Mother of Black Freedom’ and the founder of the Bantu Women’s League, dies in Johannesburg.

1943 After an anti-Semitic riot, Rome’s Jewish quarter is surrounded by Nazis and the inhabitants shipped of to Auschwitz.

1978 Pole Karol Wojtyla is elected John Paul II, the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523.

1984 Desmond Tutu wins Nobel Peace Prize.

1997 James Michener (90), the author of sweeping epic historical fiction, like The Covenant – about the Voortrekkers, dies.

2001 The US Coast Guard lifts a ban on LNG tankers in Boston Harbour in the wake of 9/11.

2017 Creating an eerie red sun and yellow sky from Sahara dust, Hurricane Ophelia leaves 360 000 Irish homes without power.

2020 French teacher Samuel Paty is beheaded by an 18 year-old Islamist militant in Paris

2024 Italian fashion house Prada and aerospace company Axiom Space unveil, in Milan, the spacesuit for Nasa’s Artemis III mission to the Moon, which is to lift-off in late 2026 or early 2027.