St Donat's Castle in St Donats, Wales, is a medieval castle in the Vale of Glamorgan, about 16 miles (26 km) west of Cardiff, and about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east of Llantwit Major. The site, on cliffs overlooking the Bristol Channel, has been occupied since the Iron Age, and was by tradition the home of the Celtic chieftain Caradog. In the 12th century, the de Haweys began the present castle's development, followed by Peter de Stradling. The Stradlings held the castle for 400 years, until the death of Sir Thomas Stradling in a duel in 1738. By the early 19th century it was only partly habitable. William Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper tycoon, bought it in 1925 and expanded it with elements from other ancient structures, such as the roofs of Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and St Botolph's Church in Lincolnshire. Bernard Shaw described the castle after Hearst's reconstruction as "what God would have built if he had had the money". (Full article...)

1655 engraving by Merian

• ... that Schloss Weilburg, a Baroque garden palace, contains a Renaissance palace (engraving pictured)?
• ... that Reggie Upshaw was considered one of Tennessee's best high school athletes in American football, basketball, and the high jump?
• ... that Pope Pius XII did not condemn the roundup and deportation of more than a thousand Jews "under his very windows" 75 years ago today?
• ... that former ballerina Miranda Esmonde-White claims that people can practice "aging backwards" through eccentric exercise?
• ... that the German-language weekly Der Nordstern (The North Star) was founded in 1874 to serve the Minnesota area's large German immigrant community?
• ... that Tan Tjoen Tiat, the second Majoor der Chinezen of Batavia, advised the colonial government in 1870 that women should not act as guardians for minors?
• ... that the adventure video game Unavowed uses pixel art because the development studio lacked the resources to create a 3D video game?
• ... that Mary Jane Reoch rode 12 miles (19 km) to the hospital on her racing bike to give birth to her daughter?

Soyuz MS-10 launch

• Both crew members survive an emergency landing when Soyuz MS-10 suffers a booster failure shortly after launch (pictured) from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
• Hurricane Michael makes landfall in Florida, United States, as a Category 4 storm, causing 18 deaths after killing at least 15 people in Central America.
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases a report on actions urgently needed to confine global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).
• The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is awarded to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer for integrating climate change and technological innovation, respectively, into "long-run macroeconomic analysis".

October 16

Marie Antoinette

• 1384 – Jadwiga was officially crowned as "King of Poland" instead of "Queen" to reflect the fact that she was a sovereign in her own right.
• 1793 – Marie Antoinette (pictured), queen consort of Louis XVI, was guillotined at the Place de la Révolution in Paris at the height of the French Revolution.
• 1875 – Brigham Young University, the largest religious university in the United States, was founded in Provo, Utah.
• 1923 – Roy and Walt Disney founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Hollywood; it eventually grew to become one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world.
• 1978 – Polish Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła became Paul II, the first non-Italian pope in over 450 years and the first ever from a Slavic country.

Pedro González de Lara (d. 1130) · Lucy Stanton (b. 1831) · Angela Lansbury (b. 1925)