October 31, 1512
On All Saints Eve, an important date on the Catholic calendar, exactly four years and four weeks after beginning the project, the entire Sistine Ceiling is unveiled for Pope Julius and 17 cardinals for evening vespers.
Vasari, the art historian, writes:
When the work was thrown open, the whole world could be heard running up to see it, and indeed, it was such as to make everyone astonished and dumb.”
October 31, 1918
Egon Schiele dies of the Spanish flu epidemic which has already killed his pregnant wife and will go on to take 20 million lives worldwide.