UN
Day
International
Day of Living Together in Peace
International
Day of Light
Events
of the day
218 – Julia Maesa, aunt
of the assassinated Caracalla, is banished
to her home in Syria by the self-proclaimed
emperor Macrinus and declares her 14-year
old grandson Elagabalus, emperor of Rome.
1204 – Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders is
crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin
Empire.
1527 – The Florentines drive out the Medici
for a second time and Florence re-establishes
itself as a republic.
1532 – Sir Thomas More resigns as Lord
Chancellor of England.
1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to
England.
1770 – 14-year old Marie Antoinette marries
15-year-old Louis-Auguste who later becomes
king of France.
1771 – The Battle of Alamance, a pre-American
Revolutionary War battle between local
militia and a group of rebels called The
"Regulators", occurs in present-day
Alamance County, North Carolina.
1811 – Peninsular War: The allies Spain,
Portugal and United Kingdom, defeat the
French at the Battle of Albuera.
1812 – Russian Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov
signs the Treaty of Bucharest, ending
the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812. Bessarabia
is illegitimately annexed by Imperial
Russia.
1822 – Greek War of Independence: The
Turks capture the Greek town of Souli.
1843 – The first major wagon train heading
for the Pacific Northwest sets out on
the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers
from Elm Grove, Missouri.
1866 – The U.S. Congress eliminates the
half dime coin and replaces it with the
five cent piece, or nickel.
1868 – President Andrew Johnson is acquitted
in his impeachment trial by one vote in
the United States Senate.
1874 – A flood on the Mill River in Massachusetts
destroys much of four villages and kills
139 people.
1877 – 16 May 1877 political crisis in
France.
1891 – The International Electro-Technical
Exhibition opens in Frankfurt, Germany,
and will feature the world's first long
distance transmission of high-power, three-phase
electrical current (the most common form
today).
1914 – The first ever Lamar Hunt U.S.
Open Cup final is played. Brooklyn Field
Club defeats Brooklyn Celtic 2-1.
1918 – The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed
by the U.S. Congress, making criticism
of the government during wartime an imprisonable
offense. It will be repealed less than
two years later.
1919 – A naval Curtiss aircraft NC-4 commanded
by Albert Cushing Read leaves Trepassey,
Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores
on the first transatlantic flight.
1920 – In Rome, Pope Benedict XV canonizes
Joan of Arc.
1929 – In Hollywood, California, the first
Academy Awards are handed out.
1943 – Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
ends.
1948 – Chaim Weizmann is elected the first
President of Israel.
1951 – The first regularly scheduled transatlantic
flights begin between Idlewild Airport
(now John F Kennedy International Airport)
in New York City and Heathrow Airport
in London, operated by El Al Israel Airlines.
1953 – American journalist William N.
Oatis is released after serving 22 months
of a ten-year prison sentence for espionage
in Czechslovakia.
1960 – Theodore Maiman operates the first
optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories
in Malibu, California.
1961 – Park Chung-hee leads a coup d'état
to overthrow the Second Republic of South
Korea.
1966 – The Communist Party of China issues
the "May 16 Notice", marking
the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
1969 – Venera program: Venera 5, a Soviet
spaceprobe, lands on Venus.
1974 – Josip Broz Tito is re-elected president
of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
This time he is elected for life.
1975 – India annexes Sikkim after the
mountain state holds a referendum in which
the popular vote is in favor of merging
with India.
1975 – Junko Tabei becomes the first woman
to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
1983 – Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement
rebels against the Sudanese government.
1986 – The Seville Statement on Violence
is adopted by an international meeting
of scientists, convened by the Spanish
National Commission for UNESCO, in Seville,
Spain.
1988 – A report by United States' Surgeon
General C. Everett Koop states that the
addictive properties of nicotine are similar
to those of heroin and cocaine.
1991 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United
Kingdom addresses a joint session of the
United States Congress. She is the first
British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.
2003 – In Casablanca, Morocco, 33 civilians
are killed and more than 100 people are
injured in the Casablanca terrorist attacks.
2005 – Kuwait permits women's suffrage
in a 35-23 National Assembly vote.
2007 – Nicolas Sarkozy takes office as
President of France.
2011 – STS-134 (ISS assembly flight ULF6),
launched from the Kennedy Space Center
on the 25th and final flight for Space
Shuttle Endeavour.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Aaron (Coptic Church)
Abda and Abdjesus, and companions:
Abdas of Susa
Andrew Bobola
Brendan the Navigator (Roman Catholic
Church)
Germerius
Honoratus of Amiens
John of Nepomuk
Margaret of Cortona
Peregrine of Auxerre
Simon Stock
Ubald (see Saint Ubaldo Day)
May 16 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Mass Graves Day (Iraq)
National Day, declared by Salva Kiir Mayardit
(Southern Sudan)
Teachers' Day (Malaysia)
For details, contact Datacentre
