What happened on your birthday?

What’s Your Vietnam War Draft Lottery Number?

The Vietnam War draft lottery ran from 1969 to 1972. If you were born on October 16, would your number have been called?

  • Vietnam War 1969 Lottery
    Not CalledNot drafted
    254
  • Vietnam War 1970 Lottery
    CalledDrafted
    34
  • Vietnam War 1971 Lottery
    Not CalledNot drafted
    159
  • Vietnam War 1972 Lottery
    CalledDrafted
    59

Read on to learn more about the Vietnam war draft lottery.





more events on October 16

  • 2003

    Princess Kritika of Nepal.

  • 2002

    Inaugural opening of Bibliotheca Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt., a modern library and cultural center commemorating the famed Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity

  • 1998

    General Augusto Pinochet, former dictator of Chile, arrested in London for extradition on murder charges

  • 1995

    Skye Bridge opens over Loch Alsh, Scotland

  • The Million Man March for ‘A Day of Atonement’ takes place in Washington, D.C.

  • 1984

    A baboon heart is transplanted into 15-day-old Baby Fae–the first transplant of the kind–at Loma Linda University Medical Center, California. Baby Fae lives until November 15.

  • 1978

    The college of cardinals elects 58-year-old Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, a Pole, the first non-Italian Pope since 1523.

  • 1977

    John Mayer, singer, songwriter, musician, producer; won Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (“Your Body is a Wonderland,” 2003).

  • 1973

    Israeli General Ariel Sharon crosses the Suez Canal and begins to encircle two Egyptian armies.

  • 1969

    Roy Hargrove, jazz trumpeter; won Grammy Awards for albums in 1998 (Habana) and 2002 (Directions in Music).

  • The New York Mets win the World Series four games to one over the heavily-favored Baltimore Orioles.

  • 1958

    Tim Robbins, actor, screenwriter, director, producer; won Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Mystic River 2003.

  • 1949

    Suzanne Somers, actress (Three’s Company TV series).

  • 1946

    Ten Nazi war criminals are hanged in Nuremberg, Germany.

  • 1940

    Benjamin O. Davis becomes the U.S. Army’s first African American Brigadier General.

  • 1938

    Billy the Kid, a ballet by Aaron Copland, opens in Chicago.

  • 1934

    Mao Tse-tung decides to abandon his base in Kiangsi due to attacks from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists. With his pregnant wife and about 30,000 Red Army troops, he sets out on the “Long March.”

  • 1931

    Charles “Chuck” Colson, special counsel to Pres. Richard Nixon (1969-73); one of the “Watergate Seven,” he was sentenced to prison for obstruction of justice.

  • 1930

    Dan Pagis, Romanian-born Israeli poet.

  • 1927

    Gunther Grass, novelist, playwright, painter and sculptor best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum.

  • 1925

    Angela Lansbury, stage, screen, and TV actress

  • 1919

    Kathleen Winsor, writer Forever Amber.

  • 1908

    The first airplane flight in England is made at Farnsborough, by Samuel Cody, a U.S. citizen.

  • 1906

    Cleanth Brooks, Kentucky-born writer and educator.

  • 1901

    President Theodore Roosevelt incites controversy by inviting black leader Booker T. Washington to the White House.

  • 1898

    William O. Douglas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

  • 1888

    Eugene O’Neill, Nobel Prize-winning playwright (A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Iceman Cometh).

  • 1886

    David Ben-Gurion, Israeli statesman.

  • 1859

    Abolitionist John Brown, with 21 men, seizes the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry, Va. U.S. Marines capture the raiders, killing several. John Brown is later hanged in Virginia for treason.

  • 1854

    Oscar Wilde, dramatist, poet, novelist and critic.

  • 1849

    George Washington Wiliams, historian, clergyman and politician.

  • 1846

    Ether was first administered in public at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston by Dr. William Thomas Green Morton during an operation performed by Dr. John Collins Warren.

  • 1797

    Lord Cardigan, leader of the famed Light Brigade.

  • 1793

    Queen Marie Antoinette is beheaded by guillotine during the French Revolution.

  • 1758

    Noah Webster, U.S. teacher, lexicographer and publisher who wrote the American Dictionary of the English Language.

  • 1701

    Yale University is founded as The Collegiate School of Kilingworth, Connecticut by Congregationalists who consider Harvard too liberal.

  • 1555

    The Protestant martyrs Bishop Hugh Latimer and Bishop Nicholas Ridley are burned at the stake for heresy in England.