April 16th in History
Harriet Quimby (Photo: George Grantham Bain, LC cph.3a17324)
Today in History
- Masada falls to the Romans (73)
- Battle of Culloden: The last pitched battle is fought on British soil, ending the Jacobite rebellion (1746)
- The first passenger rail opens in India (1853)
- Slavery ends in the District of Columbia (1862)
- Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle (1881)
- Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel (1912)
- Walter Cronkite becomes anchor of the CBS Evening News (1962)
- Martin Luther King, Jr., writes “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963)
- Apollo 16 takes off (1972)
- Dr. Jack Kevorkian participates in his first assisted suicide (1990)
- The Virginia Tech massacre takes place (2007)
Birthdays
- Anatole France, writer (1844)
- Wilbur Wright, aviator (1967)
- John Millington Synge, poet and playwright (1871)
- Charlie Chaplin, filmmaker (1889)
- Fifi D’Orsay, actress (1904)
- Guy Burgess, spy (1911)
- Barry Nelson, actor (1917)
- Spike Milligan, comedian (1918)
- Merce Cunningham, choreographer (1919)
- Peter Ustinov, actor, director, screenwriter (1921)
- Kingsley Amis, author (1922)
- John Christopher, author (1922)
- Henry Mancini, composer (1924)
- Edie Adams, actress and singer (1927)
- Benedict XVI, pope (1927)
- Dick Lane, football player (1927)
- Herbie Mann, flautist (1930)
- Bobby Vinton, singer (1935)
- Dusty Springfield, singer (1939)
- Margrethe II, Danish monarch (1940)
- Margot Adler, journalist (1946)
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball player (1947)
- Gerry Rafferty, singer-songwriter (1947)
- Ellen Barkin, actress (1954)
- Jon Cryer, actor (1965)
- Selena, singer-songwriter (1971)
Deaths
- Jacques Cassini, astronomer (1756)
- Francisco Goya, painter (1828)
- Marie Tussaud, wax sculptor (1850)
- Alexis de Tocqueville, historian (1859)
- Edna Ferber, author (1968)
- 石川 馨 (Kaoru Ishikawa), management theorist (1989)
- David Lean, filmmaker (1991)
- Ralph Ellison, invisible man (1994)
- Robert Urich, actor (2002)
Holidays and Celebrations
- Emancipation Day (District of Columbia)
- National Eggs Benedict Day (US food holidays)
- National Bookmobile Day (US)
- Save the Elephant Day (Worldwide)
- World Voice Day (International)
Informal and made-up holidays include National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day.
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April 16 is the 106th day of the year (107th in leap years). There are 259 days remaining until the end of the year.