May 16

Events

Pre-1600

* 946 – Emperor Suzaku abdicates the throne in favor of his brother Murakami who becomes the 62nd emperor of Japan.
*1204 – Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire.
*1364 – Hundred Years' War: Bertrand du Guesclin and a French army defeat the Anglo-Navarrese army of Charles the Bad at Cocherel.
* 1426 – Gov. Thado of Mohnyin becomes king of Ava.; Thursday, 10th waxing of Nayon 788 ME = 16 May 1426
*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.
*1584 – Santiago de Vera becomes sixth Governor-General of the Spanish colony of the Philippines.

1601–1900

*1739 – The Battle of Vasai concludes as the Marathas defeat the Portuguese army.
*1770 – The 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 fight an inconclusive battle against the French at the Albuera. It is, in proportion to the numbers involved, the bloodiest battle of the war.
*1812 – Imperial Russia signs the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the Russo-Turkish War. The Ottoman Empire cedes Bessarabia to Russia.
*1822 – Greek War of Independence: The Turks capture the Greek town of Souli.
*1832 – Juan Godoy discovers the rich silver outcrops of Chañarcillo sparking the Chilean silver rush.
*1834 – The Battle of Asseiceira is fought; it was the final and decisive engagement of the Liberal Wars in Portugal.
*1842 – The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail from Elm Grove, Missouri, with 100 pioneers.
*1866 – The United States Congress establishes the nickel.
*1868 – The United States Senate fails to convict President Andrew Johnson by one vote.
*1874 – A flood on the Mill River in Massachusetts destroys much of four villages and kills 139 people.
*1877 – The 16 May 1877 crisis occurs in France, ending with the dissolution of the National Assembly 22 June and affirming the interpretation of the Constitution of 1875 as a parliamentary rather than presidential system. The elections held in October 1877 led to the defeat of the royalists as a formal political movement in France.
*1888 – Nikola Teslas to transmit electric power over long distances.
*1891 – The International Electrotechnical Exhibition opened in Frankfurt, Germany, featuring the world's first long-distance transmission of high-power, three-phase electric current (the most common form today).

1901–present

*1916 – The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the French Third Republic sign the secret wartime Sykes-Picot Agreement partitioning former Ottoman territories such as Iraq and Syria.
*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 NC-4 aircraft 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.
*1925 – The first modern performance of Claudio Monteverdi's opera ''Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria'' occurred in Paris.
*1929 – In Hollywood, the first Academy Awards ceremony takes place.
*1943 – The Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
*1943 – Operation Chastise is undertaken by RAF Bomber Command with specially equipped Avro Lancasters to destroy the Mohne, Sorpe, and Eder dams in the Ruhr valley.
*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.
*1959 – The Triton Fountain in Valletta, Malta is turned on for the first time.
*1960 – Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser (a ruby 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 Chinese Communist Party issues the " May 16 Notice", marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
*1969 – Venera program: ''Venera 5'', a Soviet space probe, lands on Venus.
*1974 – Josip Broz Tito is elected president for life of Yugoslavia.
*1975 – Junko Tabei from Japan becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
* 1988 – A report by the Surgeon General of the United States 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.
*1997 – Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaire, flees the country.
*2003 – In 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.
* 2011 – STS-134 (ISS assembly flight ULF6), launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the 25th and final flight for .
*2014 – Twelve people are killed in two explosions in the Gikomba market area of Nairobi, Kenya.

Births

Pre-1600

*1418 – John II of Cyprus, King of Cyprus and Armenia and also titular King of Jerusalem from 1432 to 1458 (probable; d. 1458)
*1455 – Wolfgang I of Oettingen, German count (d. 1522)
*1542 – Anna Sibylle of Hanau-Lichtenberg, German noblewoman (d. 1580)

1601–1900

*1606 – John Bulwer, British doctor (d. 1656)
*1611 – Pope Innocent XI (d. 1689)
*1641 – Dudley North, English economist and politician (d. 1691)
*1710 – William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, English politician, Lord Steward of the Household (d. 1782)
*1718 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician and philosopher (d. 1799)
*1763 – Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, French pharmacist and chemist (d. 1829)
*1788 – Friedrich Rückert, German poet and translator (d. 1866)
*1801 – William H. Seward, American lawyer and politician, 24th United States Secretary of State (d. 1872)
*1804 – Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, American educator who founded the first U.S. kindergarten (d. 1894)
*1819 – Johann Voldemar Jannsen, Estonian journalist and poet (d. 1890)
*1821 – Pafnuty Chebyshev, Russian mathematician and statistician (d. 1894)
*1824 – Levi P. Morton, American banker and politician, 22nd United States Vice President (d. 1920)
* 1824 – Edmund Kirby Smith, American general (d. 1893)
*1827 – Pierre Cuypers, Dutch architect, designed the Amsterdam Centraal railway station and Rijksmuseum (d. 1921)
* 1831 – David Edward Hughes, Welsh-American physicist, co-invented the microphone (d. 1900)
*1859 – Horace Hutchinson, English golfer (d. 1932)
*1862 – Margaret Fountaine, English lepidopterist and diarist (d.1940)
*1876 – Fred Conrad Koch, American biochemist and endocrinologist (d. 1948)
*1879 – Pierre Gilliard, Swiss author and academic (d. 1962)
* 1882 – Simeon Price, American golfer (d. 1945)
*1883 – Celâl Bayar, Turkish politician, 3rd President of Turkey (d. 1986)
*1887 – Maria Lacerda de Moura, Brazilian teacher and anarcha-feminist (d. 1945)
*1888 – Royal Rife, American microbiologist and instrument maker (d. 1971)
*1890 – Edith Grace White, American ichthyologist (d. 1975)
*1892 – Osgood Perkins, American actor (d. 1937)
*1894 – Walter Yust, American journalist and writer (d. 1960)
*1897 – Zvi Sliternik, Israeli entomologist and academic (d. 1994)
*1898 – Tamara de Lempicka, Polish-American painter (d. 1980)
* 1898 – Desanka Maksimović, Serbian poet and academic (d. 1993)
* 1898 – Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese director and screenwriter (d. 1956)

1901–present

*1903 – Charles F. Brannock, American inventor and manufacturer (d. 1992)
*1905 – Henry Fonda, American actor (d. 1982)
*1906 – Ernie McCormick, Australian cricketer (d. 1991)
* 1906 – Alfred Pellan, Canadian painter and educator (d. 1988)
* 1906 – Arturo Uslar Pietri, Venezuelan lawyer, journalist, and author (d. 2001)
* 1906 – Margret Rey, German author and illustrator (d. 1996)
*1907 – Bob Tisdall, Irish hurdler (d. 2004)
*1909 – Margaret Sullavan, American actress and singer (d. 1960)
* 1909 – Luigi Villoresi, Italian race car driver (d. 1997)
*1910 – Olga Bergholz, Russian poet and author (d. 1975)
* 1910 – Higashifushimi Kunihide, Japanese monk and educator (d. 2014)
* 1910 – Aleksandr Ivanovich Laktionov, Russian painter and educator (d. 1972)
*1912 – Studs Terkel, American historian and author (d. 2008)
*1913 – Gordon Chalk, Australian politician, 30th Premier of Queensland (d. 1991)
*1913 – Woody Herman, American singer, saxophonist, and clarinet player (d. 1987)
*1914 – Edward T. Hall, American anthropologist and author (d. 2009)
*1915 – Mario Monicelli, Italian director and screenwriter (d. 2010)
*1916 – Ephraim Katzir, Israeli biophysicist and politician, 4th President of Israel (d. 2009)
*1917 – Ben Kuroki, American sergeant and pilot (d. 2015)
* 1917 – James C. Murray, American lawyer and politician (d. 1999)
* 1917 – Juan Rulfo, Mexican author and photographer (d. 1986)
*1918 – Wilf Mannion, English footballer and manager (d. 2000)
*1919 – Liberace, American pianist and entertainer (d. 1987)
* 1919 – Ramon Margalef, Spanish ecologist and biologist (d. 2004)
*1920 – Martine Carol, French actress (d. 1967)
*1921 – Harry Carey, Jr., American actor, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012)
*1923 – Victoria Fromkin, American linguist and academic (d. 2000)
* 1923 – Merton Miller, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
* 1923 – Peter Underwood, English parapsychologist and author (d. 2014)
*1924 – Barbara Bachmann, American microbiologist (d. 1999)
* 1924 – Dawda Jawara, 1st President of the Gambia (d. 2019)
*1925 – Nancy Roman, American astronomer (d. 2018)
* 1925 – Ola Vincent, Nigerian banker and economist (d. 2012)
* 1925 – Nílton Santos, Brazilian footballer (d. 2013)
*1928 – Billy Martin, American baseball player and coach (d. 1989)
*1929 – Betty Carter, American singer-songwriter (d. 1998)
* 1929 – John Conyers, American lawyer and politician (d. 2019)
* 1929 – Claude Morin, Canadian academic and politician
* 1929 – Adrienne Rich, American poet, essayist, and feminist (d. 2012)
*1930 – Friedrich Gulda, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 2000)
*1931 – Vujadin Boškov, Serbian footballer, coach, and manager (d. 2014)
* 1931 – Hana Brady, Jewish-Czech Holocaust victim (d.1944)
* 1931 – K. Natwar Singh, Indian scholar and politician, Indian Minister of External Affairs
* 1931 – Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., American soldier and politician, 85th Governor of Connecticut
*1934 – Kenneth O. Morgan, Welsh historian and author
* 1934 – Antony Walker, English general
*1935 – Floyd Smith, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
*1936 – Karl Lehmann, German cardinal (d. 2018)
*1937 – Yvonne Craig, American ballet dancer and actress (d. 2015)
* 1938 – Stuart Bell, English lawyer and politician (d. 2012)
* 1938 – Ivan Sutherland, American computer scientist and academic
* 1938 – Marco Aurelio Denegri, Peruvian television host and sexologist (d. 2018)
*1939 – Mario Segni, Italian professor and politician
*1941 – Denis Hart, Australian archbishop
*1942 – David Penry-Davey, English lawyer and judge (d. 2015)
*1943 – Kay Andrews, Baroness Andrews, English politician
* 1943 – Dan Coats, American politician and diplomat, 29th United States Ambassador to Germany
* 1943 – Wieteke van Dort, Dutch actress, comedian, singer, writer and artist
*1944 – Billy Cobham, Panamanian-American drummer, composer, and bandleader
* 1944 – Antal Nagy, Hungarian footballer
* 1944 – Danny Trejo, American actor
* 1946 – John Law, English sociologist and academic
* 1946 – Robert Fripp, English guitarist, songwriter and producer
*1947 – Cheryl Clarke, American writer
* 1947 – Darrell Sweet, Scottish drummer (d. 1999)
* 1947 – Roch Thériault, Canadian religious leader (d. 2011)
*1948 – Jesper Christensen, Danish actor, director, and producer
* 1948 – Judy Finnigan, English talk show host and author
* 1948 – Enrico Fumia, Italian automobile and product designer
*1948 – Jimmy Hood, Scottish engineer and politician (d. 2017)
* 1948 – Emma Georgina Rothschild, English historian and academic
* 1948 – Staf Van Roosbroeck, Belgian cyclist
*1949 – Rick Reuschel, American baseball player
*1950 – Georg Bednorz, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
* 1950 – Ray Condo, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2004)
* 1950 – Bruce Coville, American author
*1951 – Christian Lacroix, French fashion designer
* 1951 – Jonathan Richman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
* 1951 – Janet Soskice, Canadian philosopher and theologian
* 1953 – Pierce Brosnan, Irish-American actor and producer
* 1953 – Peter Onorati, American actor
* 1953 – Richard Page, American singer-songwriter and bass player
* 1953 – Kitanoumi Toshimitsu, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 55th Yokozuna (d. 2015)
* 1953 – David Maclean, Scottish politician
* 1953 – Stephen Woolman, Lord Woolman, Scottish judge and academic
* 1954 – Dafydd Williams, Canadian physician and astronaut
*1955 – Olga Korbut, Soviet gymnast
* 1955 – Jack Morris, American baseball player and sportscaster
* 1955 – Hazel O'Connor, English-born Irish singer-songwriter and actress
* 1955 – Páidí Ó Sé, Irish footballer and manager (d. 2012)
* 1955 – Debra Winger, American actress
* 1956 – Loretta Schrijver, Dutch television host, news anchor
*1957 – Joan Benoit, American runner
* 1957 – Benjamin Mancroft, 3rd Baron Mancroft, English politician
* 1957 – Yuri Shevchuk, Russian singer-songwriter and guitarist
* 1957 – Anthony St John, 22nd Baron St John of Bletso, English lawyer and businessman
* 1957 – Bob Suter, American ice hockey player and coach (d. 2014)
*1959 – Mitch Webster, American baseball player
* 1959 – Mare Winningham, American actress and singer-songwriter
*1960 – Landon Deireragea, Nauruan politician, Nauruan Speaker of Parliament
* 1960 – Bruce Norris, playwright
* 1960 – S. Shanmuganathan, Sri Lankan commander and politician (d. 1998)
*1961 – Kevin McDonald, Canadian actor and screenwriter
* 1961 – Charles Wright, American wrestler
* 1962 – Helga Radtke, German long jumper
*1963 – Rachel Griffith, Anglo-American economist
* 1963 – David Wilkinson, English theologian and academic
*1964 – John Salley, American basketball player and actor
* 1964 – Boyd Tinsley, American singer-songwriter and violinist
* 1964 – Milton Jones, English comedian, actor, and screenwriter
*1965 – Krist Novoselic, American bass player, songwriter, author, and activist
* 1965 – Tanel Tammet, Estonian computer scientist, engineer, and academic
*1966 – Janet Jackson, American singer-songwriter actress
* 1966 – Scott Reeves, American singer-songwriter and actor
* 1966 – Thurman Thomas, American football player
*1967 – Doug Brocail, American baseball player and coach
* 1967 – Susan Williams, Baroness Williams of Trafford, British politician
*1968 – Ralph Tresvant, American singer and producer
*1969 – David Boreanaz, American actor
* 1969 – Tucker Carlson, American journalist, co-founded ''The Daily Caller''
* 1969 – Steve Lewis, American sprinter
*1970 – Gabriela Sabatini, Argentinian tennis player
* 1970 – Danielle Spencer, Australian singer-songwriter and actress
*1971 – Phil Clarke, English rugby league player and sportscaster
* 1971 – Rachel Goswell, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
*1972 – Christian Califano, French rugby player
* 1972 – Matthew Hart, New Zealand cricketer
*1973 – Tori Spelling, American actress, reality television personality, and author
*1974 – Laura Pausini, Italian singer-songwriter and producer
* 1974 – Sonny Sandoval, American singer-songwriter and rapper
*1975 – Tony Kakko, Finnish musician, composer, and vocalist
* 1975 – Simon Whitfield, Canadian triathlete
*1976 – Dirk Nannes, Australian-Dutch cricketer
*1977 – Melanie Lynskey, New Zealand actress
* 1977 – Emilíana Torrini, Icelandic singer-songwriter
*1978 – Scott Nicholls

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