Today in History, June 16, 1816:

Lord Byron hosts a party at Villa Diodati. His guests include the Shelleys, Percy and Mary, Claire Clairmont and John Polidori.

They partake in a reading of the horror collection Fantasmagoriana and Byron challenges his fellow authors to write a ghost story. The result is Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” and Byron’s “Darkness”.