This Day In European History

16th October

Events
1834: Britain's Westminster Palace – home of Parliament – is burned to the ground by staff attempting to just burn the archive of tally sticks.
1902: Britain opens its first young offenders institute.
1978: Karol Wojtyla is elected as Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope for over four hundred years.

Births
1708: Albrecht von Haller, Swiss biologist.
1803: Robert Stephenson, English engineer.
1854: Oscar Wilde, Irish poet.
1886: David Ben-Gurion, Polish prime minister of Israel.

Deaths
1553: Lucas Cranach the Elder, German painter.
1555: Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, both Protestant bishops burnt at the stake in Oxford, England.
1591: Pope Gregory XIV.
1594: William Allen, English biblical scholar.
1621: Jan Sweelinck, Dutch composer.
1628: François de Malherbe, French poet.
1791: Prince Grigory Potemkin, Russian soldier and statesman.
1793: John Hunter, English surgeon.
1793: Marie Antoinette, Queen-consort of France, by guillotine.

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