Unix Timestamp: 1066262400
Thursday, October 16. 2003, 12:00:00 AM UTC

War in Somalia (2009-): Kenyan Army troops advance up to 100 kilometers into Somalia to pursue Al-Shabab militants. //english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/10/20111016115410991692.html (Al Jazeera)

Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer says President Václav Klaus's disruption of the Treaty of Lisbon is harming the country's credit. //www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/zpravy/klaus-s-pledge-to-sign-treaty-might-be-enough-for-czech-govt/403079 (Ceske Noviny)

Treaty of Lisbon:

Iraq War Resolution is authorized by a majority of the U.S. Congress.

British police place General Augusto Pinochet under house arrest during his medical treatment in the UK.

The first color photograph appears on the front page of the New York Times.

The Million Man March is held in Washington, D.C. The event was conceived by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

George Hennard guns down 24 people in Killeen, Texas before killing himself.

The International Olympic Committee chooses Albertville, France to be the host city of the 1992 Winter Olympics and Barcelona, Spain to be the host city of the 1992 Summer Olympics. The IOC also announces that the summer and winter games will separate with the winter games on every even, common year starting from 1992.

Gas explosions at a coal mine at Hokutan, Yūbari, Hokkaidō, Japan kill 93.

A tsunami in Nice, France kills 23 people.

Pope John Paul II succeeds Pope John Paul I as the 264th pope. He is the first Polish pope in history, and the first non-Italian in more than 450 years.

FiveAustralian-based journalists are killed at Balibo by Indonesian forces, during their incursion into Portuguese Timor.

Anwar Sadat officially becomes President of Egypt.

Egyptian president Anwar Sadat names Mahmoud Fawzi as his prime minister.

October Crisis: The Canadian government declares a state of emergency and outlaws the Quebec Liberation Front.

A cholera epidemic breaks out in Istanbul.

October Crisis: Pierre Laporte is found murdered in south Montreal.

The Soviet Union launches the "Zond 8" lunar probe.

The miracle New York Mets win the World Series, beating the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 1.

Willy Brandt becomes Chancellor of West Germany.

General Siad Barre comes to power in Somalia in a coup, 6 days after the assassination of President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke.

Willard S. Boyle and George Smith invent the CCD at Bell Laboratories (30 years later, this technology is widely used in digital cameras).

Fourteen black athletes are kicked off the University of Wyoming football team for wearing black armbands into their coach's office.

Vietnam War: Battle of Ong Thanh

Vietnam War: Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison protest over recruitment by Dow Chemical on the University cus. 76 are injured in the resulting riot.

Walt Disney's 19th full-length animated feature "The Jungle Book", the last animated film personally supervised by Disney, is released and becomes an enormous box-office and critical success. On a double bill with the film is the (now) much less well-known true-life adventure, "Charlie the Lonesome Cougar".

The musical "Hair" opens off-Broadway. It moves to Broadway the following April.

Thirty-nine people, including singer-activist Joan Baez, are arrested in Oakland, California, for blocking the entrance of that city's military induction center.

Grace Slick performs live for the first time with Jefferson Airplane.

The thousandth day of John F. Kennedy's presidency.

Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos on Oct. 14 of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed. A stand-off then ensues for another 12 days after President Kennedy is told of the pictures, between the United States and the Soviet Union, threatening the world with nuclear war.

First broadcast of the long-running BBC Television children's programme "Blue Peter".ref name=Pocket On This Day

"Limelight" opens in London writer/actor/director/producer Charlie Chaplin arrives by ocean liner in transit his re-entry permit to the USA is revoked by J. Edgar Hoover.

Civil war ends in Greece with a communist surrender.

The 57th Street Art Fair, the oldest juried art fair in the American Midwest, is founded.

FAO established as a specialized agency of the United Nations.

A hurricane and flood in Bombay kill 40,000.

WWII: The Soviet Union government moves to Kuibyshev (modern Samara), but Joseph Stalin remains in Moscow.

The draft registration of approximately 16 million men begins in the United States.

Winston Churchill, in a broadcast address to the United States, condemns the Munich Agreement as a defeat and calls upon America and western Europe to prepare for armed resistance against Hitler.

The Long March of the Chinese Communists begins.

Margaret Sanger opens the first U.S. birth control clinic - a forerunner of Planned Parenthood.

HMS \'\'Queen Elizabeth\'\' launched at Portsmouth Dockyard as the first oil-fired battleship.

Bulgarian pilots Radul Minkov and Prodan Toprakchiev perform the first bombing with an airplane in history, at the railway station of Karaagac near Edirne against Turkey.

Mexican Revolution: Felix Diaz, nephew of Porfirio Diaz, occupies the port of Veracruz as a sign of rebellion against Madero.

Imposter Wilhelm Voigt impersonates a Prussian officer and takes over the city hall in Köpenick for a short time.

Russian Revolution of 1905: The Russian army opens fire in a meeting on a street market in Tallinn, killing 94 and injuring over 200.

The first Borstal (youth offenders' institution) opens in Borstal, Kent, U.K.

The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business.

Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.

England's first residential university-level women\\\'s college, the College for Women, predecessor of Girton College, Cambridge, is founded at Hitchin by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon.

John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.

John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.

Queen's University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, by Rev. Thomas Liddell, who carries a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria and becomes the school's first principal.

Queen\\\\\\'s University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, by Rev.Thomas Liddell, who carries a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria and becomes the school's first principal.

The Palace of Westminster is destroyed by fire.

October 19 ndash Battle of Leipzig: Napoleon is defeated.

Seven Years' War ndash Battle of Kloster-K: Ferdinand of Brunswick is beaten back from the Rhine by a French army.

Smeaton's Tower, John Smeaton’s Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of South West England, is first illuminated.

Seven Years' War ndash Battle of Closterc: The French defeat the combined forces of Great Britain, Prussia, Hanover, Brunswick, and Hesse-Kassel.

Seven Years' War: Hungarian raiders plunder Berlin.

Seven Years' War: Hungarian raiders plunder Berlin.

An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 9.3 occurs off the shore of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. Tsunamis up to 60m (200 ft) high followed in the Pacific ocean.//www.fathom.com/feature/122490/ Tsunami: Where they Happen and Why- Fathom

Two of the Oxford Martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, are burned at the stake in England.

Pope Urban V makes the first attempt to move the Papacy back to Rome from Avignon. This move is reversed in 1370 when he is forced to return to Avignon and shortly afterwards dies.

Otto I, the Evil, becomes Duke of the independent city of Göttingen (now in Germany) after the death of his father, Ernst I.

Charles V creates the first royal library in France.

A stone Kremlin Wall is built around Moscow to resist invasion by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

A university is founded in PécsHungary (not to be confused with the present University of Pécs, which was founded in 1921)

After a report of the apparition of the archangel, the island Mont Tombe is dedicated to Michael and renamed Mont Saint-Michel.