May 16

Events Pre-1600 946 – Emperor Suzaku abdicates the throne in favor of his brother Murakami who becomes the 62nd emperor of Japan. 999 – Rebel Turkish warlord Mahmud of Ghazni defeats Samanid Emir Mansur II in battle at Merv. 1003 – Patrician John II Crescentius, who has seized control of Rome, selects Pope John XVII as the new pope. 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, Dauphin de France, 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. 1777 – Continental Army officer Lachlan McIntosh fatally wounds Button Gwinnett, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, in a duel in Savannah, Georgia. 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.; ; 1863 – American Civil War: During the Vicksburg campaign, the decisive Union victory by Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Champion Hill drives the Confederate army under John C. Pemberton back towards Vicksburg, Mississippi. 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 Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances. 1891 – The International Electrotechnical Exhibition opens 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. 1918 – The victory military parade by the Finnish White Guard is held in Helsinki celebrating their decisive victory in the Finnish Civil War. The day also begin to be celebrated on the Defence Forces Flag Day before it is moved in 1942 to the June 4th. 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. 1945 – Beginning of the Levant Crisis between Britain and France in Syria. The latter try to quell nationalist protests but backs down after threat of military action by the British. 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. 1954 – Beginning of the Kengir uprising in the Gulag. 1959 – The Tritons' 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. 1972 – An Antonov An-24 crashes into a kindergarten building in Svetlogorsk, killing 35. 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. 2025 – A catastrophic EF3 tornado kills five people and causes over $1 billion in damages in St. Louis, MO. 2025 – A devastating EF4 tornado kills nineteen people in Southeast Kentucky, hitting the towns of Somerset and London.

Births Pre-1600 1418 – John II of Cyprus, King of Cyprus and Armenia and also titular King of Jerusalem from 1432 to 1458 (probable; (died 1458) 1455 – Wolfgang I of Oettingen, German count (died 1522) 1542 – Anna Sibylle of Hanau-Lichtenberg, German noblewoman (died 1580)

1601–1900 1606 – John Bulwer, British doctor (died 1656) 1611 – Pope Innocent XI (died 1689) 1641 – Dudley North, English economist and politician (died 1691) 1710 – William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, English politician, Lord Steward of the Household (died 1782) 1718 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician and philosopher (died 1799) 1763 – Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, French pharmacist and chemist (died 1829) 1788 – Friedrich Rückert, German poet and translator (died 1866) 1801 – William H. Seward, American lawyer and politician, 24th United States Secretary of State (died 1872) 1804 – Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, American educator who founded the first U.S. kindergarten (died 1894) 1819 – Johann Voldemar Jannsen, Estonian journalist and poet (died 1890) 1821 – Pafnuty Chebyshev, Russian mathematician and statistician (died 1894) 1824 – Levi P. Morton, American banker and politician, 22nd United States Vice President (died 1920) 1824 – Edmund Kirby Smith, American general (died 1893) 1827 – Pierre Cuypers, Dutch architect, designed the Amsterdam Centraal railway station and Rijksmuseum (died 1921) 1831 – David Edward Hughes, Welsh-American physicist, co-invented the microphone (died 1900) 1859 – Horace Hutchinson, English golfer (died 1932) 1862 – Margaret Fountaine, English lepidopterist and diarist (died 1940) 1876 – Fred Conrad Koch, American biochemist and endocrinologist (died 1948) 1879 – Pierre Gilliard, Swiss author and academic (died 1962) 1882 – Simeon Price, American golfer (died 1945) 1883 – Celâl Bayar, Turkish politician, 3rd President of Turkey (died 1986) 1887 – Maria Lacerda de Moura, Brazilian teacher and anarcha-feminist (died 1945) 1888 – Royal Rife, American microbiologist and instrument maker (died 1971) 1890 – Edith Grace White, American ichthyologist (died 1975) 1892 – Osgood Perkins (actor, born 1892), American actor (died 1937) 1894 – Walter Yust, American journalist and writer (died 1960) 1897 – Zvi Sliternik, Israeli entomologist and academic (died 1993) 1898 – Tamara de Lempicka, Polish-American painter (died 1980) 1898 – Desanka Maksimović, Serbian poet and academic (died 1993) 1898 – Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese director and screenwriter (died 1956)

1901–present 1903 – Charles F. Brannock, American inventor and manufacturer (died 1992) 1905 – Henry Fonda, American actor (died 1982) 1905 – H.E. Bates, British writer (died 1974) 1906 – Ernie McCormick, Australian cricketer (died 1991) 1906 – Alfred Pellan, Canadian painter and educator (died 1988) 1906 – Arturo Uslar Pietri, Venezuelan lawyer, journalist, and author (died 2001) 1906 – Margret Rey, German author and illustrator (died 1996) 1907 – Bob Tisdall, Irish hurdler (died 2004) 1909 – Margaret Sullavan, American actress and singer (died 1960) 1909 – Luigi Villoresi, Italian race car driver (died 1997) 1910 – Olga Bergholz, Russian poet and author (died 1975) 1910 – Higashifushimi Kunihide, Japanese monk and educator (died 2014) 1912 – Studs Terkel, American historian and author (died 2008) 1913 – Gordon Chalk, Australian politician, 30th Premier of Queensland (died 1991)Gordon William (Chalkie) (1913–1991) — Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 16 May 2018. 1913 – Woody Herman, American singer, saxophonist, and clarinet player (died 1987) 1914 – Edward T. Hall, American anthropologist and author (died 2009) 1915 – Mario Monicelli, Italian director and screenwriter (died 2010) 1916 – Ephraim Katzir, Israeli biophysicist and politician, 4th President of Israel (died 2009) 1917 – Ben Kuroki, American sergeant and pilot (died 2015) 1917 – James C. Murray, American lawyer and politician (died 1999) 1917 – Juan Rulfo, Mexican author and photographer (died 1986) 1918 – Wilf Mannion, English footballer and manager (died 2000) 1919 – Liberace, American pianist and entertainer (died 1987) 1919 – Ramon Margalef, Spanish ecologist and biologist (died 2004) 1920 – Martine Carol, French actress (died 1967) 1921 – Harry Carey Jr., American actor, producer, and screenwriter (died 2012) 1923 – Victoria Fromkin, American linguist and academic (died 2000) 1923 – Merton Miller, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2000) 1923 – Peter Underwood, English parapsychologist and author (died 2014) 1924 – Barbara Bachmann, American microbiologist (died 1999)Staff (February 2, 1999). Obituaries. Fort Collins Coloradoan. p. A4. 1924 – Dawda Jawara, 1st President of the Gambia (died 2019) 1925 – Nancy Roman, American astronomer (died 2018) 1925 – Ola Vincent, Nigerian banker and economist (died 2012) 1925 – Nílton Santos, Brazilian footballer (died 2013)