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Angela Lansbury (October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022) was an Irish-British and American actress, producer, and singer whose career spanned 80 years. To escape the Blitz, she moved to the U.S. in 1940, studying acting in New York City. She received three Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nominations for her roles in Gaslight (1944), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), and The Manchurian Candidate (1962). On television, she starred as the sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the CBS whodunit series Murder, She Wrote (1984–1996), for which she was nominated for 12 consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Among Lansbury's numerous accolades were five Tony Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award, as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, 18 Primetime Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and a Grammy Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1997, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2013. (Full article...)

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In the news

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Michael Randrianirina becomes President of Madagascar after Andry Rajoelina (pictured) flees the country following mass protests and a military coup.
Hamas and Israel commence a ceasefire and release hostages and prisoners as part of the Gaza peace plan.
Flooding and landslides in Mexico leave more than 60 people dead.
María Corina Machado is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy activism in Venezuela.

On this day

October 16

Jadwiga of Poland

1384 – Jadwiga (pictured) was officially crowned as "King of Poland" instead of "Queen" to reflect the fact that she was a sovereign in her own right.
1875 – Brigham Young University, the largest religious university in the United States, was founded in Provo, Utah.
1905 – Authorities of the British Raj partitioned the Bengal Presidency, separating the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas.
1950 – The first novel of the The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was released in the United Kingdom.
2017 – The Maltese journalist and anti-corruption activist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bomb attack in Bidnija.

Oscar Wilde (b. 1854)
Tessa Munt (b. 1959)
Mel Carnahan (d. 2000)
Liam Payne (d. 2024)

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Kaʻiulani (Hawaiian pronunciation: [kə'ʔi.u.'lɐni]; Victoria Kawēkiu Kaʻiulani Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapa Cleghorn; October 16, 1875 – March 6, 1899) was the only child of Princess Miriam Likelike, and the last heir apparent to the throne of the Hawaiian Kingdom. She was the niece of King Kalākaua and Queen Liliʻuokalani. After the death of her mother, Princess Kaʻiulani was sent to Europe at age 13 to complete her education under the guardianship of British businessman and Hawaiian sugar investor Theo H. Davies. She had not yet reached her eighteenth birthday when the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom altered her life. The Provisional Government of Hawaii rejected pleas from both her father Archibald Scott Cleghorn, and provisional president Sanford B. Dole, to seat Kaʻiulani on the throne, conditional upon the abdication of Liliʻuokalani. The Queen thought the Kingdom's best chance at justice was to relinquish her power temporarily to the United States.

Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Mark Miller

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