http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
May 16, 1717: Voltaire is imprisoned in the Bastille
Writer Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, is imprisoned in the Bastille on this day in 1717.
The outspoken writer was born to middle-class parents, attended college in Paris, and began to study law. However, he quit law to become a playwright and made a name for himself with classical tragedies. Critics embraced his epic poem, La Henriade, but its satirical attack on politics and religion infuriated the government, and Voltaire was arrested in 1717. He spent nearly a year in the Bastille.
Voltaire's time in prison failed to dry up his satirical pen. In 1726, he was forced to flee to England. He returned several years later and continued to write plays. In 1734, his Lettres Philosophiques criticized established religions and political institutions, and he was forced to flee again. He retreated to the region of Champagne, where he lived with his mistress and patroness, Madame du Chatelet. In 1750, he moved to Berlin on the invitation of Frederick II of Prussia and later settled in Switzerland, where he wrote his best-known work, Candide. He died in Paris in 1778, having returned to supervise the production of one of his plays.
May 16, 1770: Louis marries Marie Antoinette
At Versailles, Louis, the French dauphin, marries Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Austrian Archduchess Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. France hoped their marriage would strengthen its alliance with Austria, its longtime enemy. In 1774, with the death of King Louis XV, Louis and Marie were crowned king and queen of France.
From the start, Louis was unsuited to deal with the severe financial problems he had inherited from his grandfather, King Louis XV. In addition, his queen fell under criticism for her extravagance, her devotion to the interests of Austria, and her opposition to reform of the monarchy. Marie exerted a growing influence over her husband, and under their reign the monarchy became dangerously alienated from the French people. In a legendary episode, Marie allegedly responded to the news that the impoverished French peasantry had no food to eat by declaring "Let them eat cake."
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Marie and Louis resisted the advice of constitutional monarchists who sought to reform the monarchy in order to save it, and by 1791 opposition to the royal pair had become so fierce that the two were forced to attempt an escape to Austria. During their trip, Marie and Louis were apprehended by revolutionary forces at Varennes, France, and carried back to Paris. There, Louis was forced to accept the constitution of 1791, which reduced him to a mere figurehead.
In August 1792, the royal couple was arrested by the sansculottes and imprisoned, and in September the monarchy was abolished by the National Convention. In November, evidence of Louis' counterrevolutionary intrigues with Austria and other foreign nations was discovered, and he was put on trial for treason by the National Convention. The following January, Louis was convicted and condemned to death by a narrow majority. On January 21, he walked steadfastly to the guillotine and was executed. Nine months later, Marie Antoinette was convicted of treason by a tribunal, and on October 16 she followed her husband to the guillotine.
May 16, 1968: Protests mount in France
In France, the May 1968 crisis escalates as a general strike spreads to factories and industries across the country, shutting down newspaper distribution, air transport, and two major railroads. By the end of the month, millions of workers were on strike, and France seemed to be on the brink of radical leftist revolution.
After the Algerian crisis of the l950s, France entered a period of stability in the 1960s. The French empire was abolished, the economy improved, and President Charles de Gaulle was a popular ruler. Discontent lay just beneath the surface, however, especially among young students, who were critical of France's outdated university system and the scarcity of employment opportunity for university graduates. Sporadic student demonstrations for education reform began in 1968, and on May 3 a protest at the Sorbonne (the most celebrated college of the University of Paris) was broken up by police. Several hundred students were arrested and dozens were injured.
In the aftermath of the incident, courses at the Sorbonne were suspended, and students took to the streets of the Latin Quarter (the university district of Paris) to continue their protests. On May 6, battles between the police and students in the Latin Quarter led to hundreds of injuries. On the night of May 10, students set up barricades and rioted in the Latin Quarter. Nearly 400 people were hospitalized, more than half of them police. Leftist students began calling for radical economic and political change in France, and union leaders planned strikes in support of the students. In an effort to defuse the crisis by returning the students to school, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou announced that the Sorbonne would be reopened on May 13.
On that day, students occupied the Sorbonne buildings, converting it into a commune, and striking workers and students protested in the Paris streets. During the next few days, the unrest spread to other French universities, and labor strikes rolled across the country, eventually involving several million workers and paralyzing France. On the evening of May 24, the worst fighting of the May crisis occurred in Paris. Revolutionary students temporarily seized the Bourse (Paris Stock Exchange), raised a communist red flag over the building, and then tried to set it on fire. One policeman was killed in the night's violence.
During the next few days, Prime Minister Pompidou negotiated with union leaders, making a number of concessions, but failed to end the strike. Radical students openly called for revolution but lost the support of mainstream communist and trade union leaders, who feared that they, like the Gaullist establishment, would be swept away in a revolution led by anarchists and Trotskyites. On May 30, President de Gaulle went on the radio and announced that he was dissolving the National Assembly and calling national elections. He appealed for law and order and implied that he would use military force to return order to France if necessary. Loyal Gaullists and middle-class citizens rallied around him, and the labor strikes were gradually abandoned. Student protests continued until June 12, when they were banned. Two days later, the students were evicted from the Sorbonne.
In the two rounds of voting on June 23 and 30, the Gaullists won a commanding majority in the National Assembly. In the aftermath of the May events, de Gaulle's government made a series of concessions to the protesting groups, including higher wages and improved working conditions for workers, and passed a major education reform bill intended to modernize higher education. After 11 years of rule, Charles de Gaulle resigned the presidency in 1969 and was succeeded by Pompidou. He died the next year just before his 80th birthday.
May 16, 1943: Warsaw Ghetto uprising ends
In Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising comes to an end as Nazi soldiers gain control of Warsaw's Jewish ghetto, blowing up the last remaining synagogue and beginning the mass deportation of the ghetto's remaining dwellers to the Treblinka extermination camp.
Shortly after the German occupation of Poland began, the Nazis forced the city's Jewish citizens into a "ghetto" surrounded by barbed wire and armed SS guards. The Warsaw Ghetto had an area of only 840 acres but soon held almost 500,000 Jews in deplorable conditions. Disease and starvation killed thousands every month, and beginning in July 1942, 6,000 Jews a day were transferred to the Treblinka concentration camp. Although the Nazis assured the remaining Jews that their relatives and friends were being sent to work camps, word soon reached the ghetto that deportation to the camp meant extermination. An underground resistance group was established in the ghetto--the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB)--and limited arms were acquired at great cost.
On January 18, 1943, when the Nazis entered the ghetto to prepare a group for transfer, a ZOB unit ambushed them. Fighting lasted for several days, and a number of Germans soldiers were killed before they withdrew. On April 19, Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler announced that the ghetto was to be cleared out in honor of Hitler's birthday the following day, and more than 1,000 SS soldiers entered the confines with tanks and heavy artillery. Although many of the ghetto's remaining 60,000 Jewish dwellers attempted to hide themselves in secret bunkers, more than 1,000 ZOB members met the Germans with gunfire and homemade bombs. Suffering moderate casualties, the Germans initially withdrew but soon returned, and on April 24 they launched an all-out attack against the Warsaw Jews. Thousands were slaughtered as the Germans systematically moved down the ghetto, blowing up buildings one by one. The ZOB took to the sewers to continue the fight, but on May 8 their command bunker fell to the Germans, and their resistant leaders committed suicide. By May 16, the ghetto was firmly under Nazi control, and mass deportation of the last Warsaw Jews to Treblinka began.
During the uprising, some 300 hundred German soldiers were killed to the thousands of Warsaw Jews who perished. Virtually all the former ghetto residents who survived to reach Treblinka were dead by the end of the war.
May 16, 1975: Japanese woman scales Everest
Via the southeast ridge route, Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.
Located in the central Himalayas on the border of China and Nepal, Everest stands 29,035 feet above sea level. Called Chomo-Lungma, or "Mother Goddess of the Land," by the Tibetans, the English named the mountain after Sir George Everest, an early 19th-century British surveyor of the Himalayas. In May 1953, climber and explorer Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal made the first successful climb of the peak. Hillary was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for the achievement. Ten years later, American James Whittaker reached Everest's summit with his Sherpa climbing partner, Nawang Gombu. In 1975, Junko Tabei conquered the mountain, and in 1988 Stacy Allison became the first American woman to successfully climb Everest.
May 16, 1868: Senate acquits Johnson of high crimes and misdemeanors
On this day in 1868, the U.S. Senate votes against impeaching President Andrew Johnson and acquits him of committing "high crimes and misdemeanors."
In February 1868, the House of Representatives charged Johnson with 11 articles of impeachment for vague "high crimes and misdemeanors." (For comparison, in 1998, President Bill Clinton was charged with two articles of impeachment for obstruction of justice during an investigation into his inappropriate sexual behavior in the White House Oval Office. In 1974, Nixon faced three charges for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.) The main issue in Johnson's trial was his staunch resistance to implementing Congress' Civil War Reconstruction policies. The War Department was the federal agency responsible for carrying out Reconstruction programs in the war-ravaged southern states and when Johnson fired the agency's head, Edwin Stanton, Congress retaliated with calls for his impeachment.
Of the 11 counts, several went to the core of the conflict between Johnson and Congress. The House charged Johnson with illegally removing the secretary of war from office and for violating several Reconstruction Acts. The House also accused the president of hurling slanderous "inflammatory and scandalous harangues" against Congressional members. On February 24, the House passed all 11 articles of impeachment and the process moved into a Senate trial.
The Senate trial lasted until May 26, 1868. Johnson did not attend any of the proceedings and was not required to do so. After all the arguments had been presented for and against him, Johnson waited for his fate, which hung on one swing vote. By a vote of 35-19, Johnson was acquitted and finished out his term. Presidents Johnson and Clinton are the only presidents for whom the impeachment process went as far as a Senate trial. Nixon resigned before the House of Representatives could vote on impeachment.
May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards ceremony
On this day in 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its first awards, at a dinner party for around 250 people held in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California.
The brainchild of Louis B. Mayer, head of the powerful MGM film studio, the Academy was organized in May 1927 as a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and improvement of the film industry. Its first president and the host of the May 1929 ceremony was the actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Unlike today, the winners of the first Oscars--as the coveted gold-plated statuettes later became known--were announced before the awards ceremony itself.
At the time of the first Oscar ceremony, sound had just been introduced into film. The Warner Bros. movie The Jazz Singer--one of the first "talkies"--was not allowed to compete for Best Picture because the Academy decided it was unfair to let movies with sound compete with silent films. The first official Best Picture winner (and the only silent film to win Best Picture) was Wings, directed by William Wellman. The most expensive movie of its time, with a budget of $2 million, the movie told the story of two World War I pilots who fall for the same woman. Another film, F.W. Murnau's epic Sunrise, was considered a dual winner for the best film of the year. German actor Emil Jannings won the Best Actor honor for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh, while 22-year-old Janet Gaynor was the only female winner. After receiving three out of the five Best Actress nods, she won for all three roles, in Seventh Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise.
A special honorary award was presented to Charlie Chaplin. Originally a nominee for Best Actor, Best Writer and Best Comedy Director for The Circus, Chaplin was removed from these categories so he could receive the special award, a change that some attributed to his unpopularity in Hollywood. It was the last Oscar the Hollywood maverick would receive until another honorary award in 1971.
The Academy officially began using the nickname Oscar for its awards in 1939; a popular but unconfirmed story about the source of the name holds that Academy executive director Margaret Herrick remarked that the statuette looked like her Uncle Oscar. Since 1942, the results of the secret ballot voting have been announced during the live-broadcast Academy Awards ceremony using the sealed-envelope system. The suspense--not to mention the red-carpet arrival of nominees and other stars wearing their most beautiful or outrageous evening wear--continues to draw international attention to the film industry's biggest night of the year.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
955 - Alberich II, (bastard?) son of Octavianus elected pope
1165 - Ramjbam & his family reach Acre Palestine
1204 - Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire.
1527 - Florence becomes a republic
1532 - Sir Thomas More resigns as English Lord Chancellor
1547 - Protestant German monarch surrenders to Karel in Wittenberg
1568 - Mary Queen of Scotland flees to England
1571 - Johannes Kepler, by his own calculations, is conceived at 4:37 AM
1584 - 7 Westfriese towns divide monasteries of Egmond/Blokker/St-Pietersdal
1605 - Camillo Borghese elected to succeed Pope Leo XI becomes Paul V
1606 - 2,000 foreigners murdered in Russia
1648 - Battle at Zolty Wody: Bohdan Chmielricki's cosacks beat John Casimir
1747 - Prince Willem V sworn in as admiral-general of Neth
1763 - Samuel Johnson 1st meets his future biographer James Boswell in London
1770 - Marie Antoinette, at age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.
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.
1792 - Denmark abolishes slave trade
1795 - Hedges Treaty: Bataafse Republic becomes French vassel state
1796 - Lombardije Republic forms 1803 - Peace of Amiens ends
1804 - Senate & Tribune declare Napolean leader of France
1811 - Peninsular War-Allies defeat French at Albuera
1815 - The Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, officially names the town of Blackheath in the upper Blue Mountains.
1817 - Mississippi River steamboat service begins
1822 - Greek War of Independence: The Turks capture the Greek town of Souli.
1860 - -18] Chicago: Republican convention selects Abraham Lincoln candidate
1861 - Twiggs Surrender, San Antonio, Texas during US Civil war
1861 - Confederate government offers war volunteers $10 premium
1861 - Kentucky proclaims its neutrality
1862 - Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir builds first automobile
1863 - Battle of Champion's Hill, MS-bloodiest action of Vicksburg Campaign
1864 - Atlanta Campaign: Battle of Resaca, ends (since May 13)
1864 - Battle of Bermuda Hundred, VA
1864 - Last battles at Drewry's Bluff, Virginia (6,666 casualties)
1866 - Charles Elmer Hires invents root beer
1866 - Congress authorizes the nickel 5 cent piece (replaces silver half-dime)
1868 - Bedrich Smetana's opera "Dalibor," premieres in Prague
1868 - The first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment in the U.S. Senate failed to convict President Andrew Johnson by one vote.
1869 - Cincinnati Reds play their first baseball game, win 41-7
1872 - Metropolitan Gas Company lamps lit for first time
1874 - First recorded dam disaster in US (Williamsburg Mass)
1875 - Quake in Venezuela & Colombia kills 16,000
1877 - May 16, 1877 political crisis in France.
1879 - Antonin Dvorák's "Slavic Dancing," premieres
1879 - Treaty of Gandamak to set up Afghan state between Russia and English
1881 - In Germany, the world's first electric tram goes into service in Lichterfelder (near Berlin)
1882 - 8th Kentucky Derby: Babe Hurd aboard Apollo wins in 2:40.00
1884 - 10th Kentucky Derby: Isaac Murphy aboard Buchanan wins in 2:40.25
1888 - The first demonstration of recording on a flat disc was demonstrated by Emile Berliner.
1888 - CPR opens Hotel Vancouver, Vancouver, BC
1888 - The capitol of Texas was dedicated in Austin.
1891 - George A Hormel and; Co introduce Spam
1894 - Fire in Boston destroys baseball stadium & 170 other buildings
1901 - Start of Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of Priory School" (BG)
1902 - 2 deaf-mutes face each other for 1st time as Dummy Hoy leads off for the Reds against Dummy Taylor of the Giants, Reds win 5-3
1903 - First transcontinental motorcycle trip begins at SF (George Wymann)
1903 - George Wyman makes 1st motorcycle trip across the US
1910 - The U.S. Bureau of Mines was authorized by the U.S. Congress.
1911 - Remains of a neanderthal man found in Jersey UK
1911 - Zeppelin "Deutscheland" wrecked at Dusseldorf
1914 - The American Horseshoe Pitchers Association (AHPA) was formed in Kansas City, Kansas.
1914 - Ewing Field, near Masonic Street, opens
1916 - 41st Preakness: Linus McAtee aboard Damrosch wins in 1:54.8
1918 - The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress, making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense.
1920 - Joan of Arc (Jean D'arc) canonized a saint in Rome.
1920 - Spanish bullfighter Joselito is fatally gored fighting his last bull
1921 - 47th Preakness: F Coltiletti aboard Broomspun wins in 1:54.2
1922 - White Star Line Majestic completes 5½ day maiden voyage
1924 - 108°F (42°C) in Blitzen Oregon
1925 - 51st Kentucky Derby: Earl Sande aboard Flying Ebony wins in 2:07.6
1927 - NY Yankee Bob Meusel steals 2nd, 3rd & home
1927 - Supreme Court ruled bootleggers must pay income tax
1929 - The first Academy Awards were given on this night. The term, Oscars, was not used to describe the statuettes given to actors and actresses until 1931. "Wings," Emil Jennings and Janet Gaynor wins
1929 - In Hollywood, California, the first Academy Awards are handed out.
1930 - 6th Walker Cup: US, 10-2
1931 - 57th Kentucky Derby: Charley Kurtsinger on Twenty Grand wins 2:01.8
1932 - Yanks 4th straight shutout to equal record set by Cleveland & Boston
1933 - Cecil Travis becomes 1st player to get 5 hits in his 1st game
1936 - First British air hostess (Daphne Kearley) flight to France
1936 - 62nd Preakness: George Woolf aboard Bold Venture wins in 1:59
1938 - First animal breeding society forms (NJ)
1938 - 38 die in Terminal Hotel fire (Atlanta Ga)
1938 - In cricket Bradman scores 278 Aust v MCC, 349 mins, 35 fours 1 six
1939 - The Philadelphia Athletics and the Cleveland Indians met at Shibe Park in Philadelphia for the first baseball game to be played under the lights in the American League. (Indians 8, Athletics 3 in 10)
1939 - Food stamps are First issued
1940 - Nazi's forbid non-professional auto workers
1940 - Premier Winston Churchill returns to London from Paris
1941 - First US/radio performance of Bennett's "Symphony in D for the Dodgers"
1941 - Germans made their last major air attack on Britain
1941 - Italian army under Aosta surrenders to Britain at Amba Alagi Ethiopia
1941 - Last great German air attack on Great Britain (Birmingham)
1941 - Nazis forbid Dutch Organization of Actors (NOT)
1942 - First transport of British/Dutch prisoners to South Burma
1943 - -17th] RAF bombs Möhne & Eder (Battle of Ruhr)
1943 - German troops destroy synagogue of Warsaw
1943 - Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto ends after 30 days of fighting
1944 - First of 180,000+ Hungarian Jews reach Auschwitz
1944 - Milt police attack gypsies
1945 - Violent battles around Sugar Loaf/Half Moon Okinawa
1946 - The Irving Berlin musical "Annie Get Your Gun," starring Ethel Merman premieres in Broadway, NYC
1946 - Jack Mullin showed the world the first magnetic tape recorder.
1948 - The body of CBS News correspondent George Polk was found in Solonika Bay in Greece. It had been a week after he'd disappeared.
1948 - Botvinnik wins 5-player tournament to determine world chess champion
1948 - Chaim Weizmann elected 1st president of Israel
1948 - Egyptians enter the Gaza
1948 - George Polk, CBS news correspondant, body found
1948 - Israel issues its first postage stamps
1951 - The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between John F Kennedy International Airport in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London, operated by El Al Israel Airlines.
1952 - "New Faces (of 1952)" opens at Royale Theater NYC for 365 performances
1953 - Phillies Curt Simmons gives up a single, then retires next 27 in a row
1954 - Ted Williams gets 8 hits in 1st game (DH) since breaking collarbone
1954 - WGAN (now WGME) TV channel 13 in Portland, ME (CBS) 1st broadcast
1955 - Heavyweight Rocky Marciano KOs Don Cockell in SF
1955 - King Baudouin of Belgium visits Congo
1955 - Rocky Marciano TKOs Don Cockell in 9 for heavyweight boxing title
1956 - Egypt recognizes People's Republic of China
1956 - Great Britain performs nuclear Test at Monte Bello Is Australia
1956 - Kraft Theater presents an act from "Profiles in Courage"
1956 - Laker takes 10-88 for Surrey v Australians at the Oval
1957 - Maj Irwin, USAAF flies a Lockheed Starfight to a record 1,404.18 MPH
1957 - Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Invicti Athletae
1957 - US launches its 3rd atomic submarine, USS Skate, at Groton Conn
1957 - Yanks involved in Copacabana Incident, leads to Billy Martin trade
1958 - Eli Beeding experiences 83 g deceleration on a rocket sled, New Mex
1958 - Walter Irwin flies 2,259 KPH in F-104A Starfighter
1959 - 85th Preakness: William Harmatz aboard Royal Orbit wins in 1:57
1959 - WTOM TV channel 4 in Cheboygan, MI (NBC) begins broadcasting
1960 - Big 4 summit in Paris collapses as USSR levels spy charges against US due to the American U-2 spy plane incident.
1960 - Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.
1961 - 13rd Emmy Awards: Jack Benny Show, Raymond Burr & Barbara Stanwyck
1963 - "Beast in Me" opens at Plymouth Theater NYC for 4 performances
1963 - After 22 Earth orbits in Faith 7, Gordon Cooper returned to Earth, ending Project Mercury.
1964 - 90th Preakness: Bill Hartack aboard Northern Dancer wins in 1:56.8
1964 - USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1964 - Verne Gagne beats Mad Dog Vachon in Omaha, to become NWA champ
1965 - "Roar of the Greasepaint" opens at Shubert Theater NYC for 232 perfs
1965 - Balt Oriole Jim Palmer's pitching debut, beats Yankees 7-5 & homers
1965 - Bomb destroys USAF base Bien Hoa South Vietnam
1965 - Spaghetti-O's went on sale.
1965 - WNJU TV channel 47 in NY-Linden, NY (TEL) begins broadcasting
1965 - The Campbell Soup Company introduces SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand.
1966 - Beach Boys' "Pets Sounds" is released
1966 - National Welfare Rights Organization organizes
1966 - Stokely Carmichael named chairman of Student Nonviolent Coordinating
1967 - Phila voters approve a $13 million bond issue to build a new stadium
1968 - Earthquake kills 47 in Japan
1969 - Barbra Streisand appears at a Friars Club Tribute
1969 - Students occupies Magden House Amsterdam
1969 - US nuclear sub Guitarro sinks off SF
1969 - USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1969 - Venera 5, a Russian spacecraft, landed on the planet Venus, and returns data on the atmosphere.
1969 - Who's Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey charged with assault
1970 - 96th Preakness: Eddie Belmonte aboard Personality wins in 1:56.2
1970 - Grover Henson Feels Forgotten by Bill Cosby hits #70
1971 - U.S. postage for a one-ounce first class stamp was increased from 6 to 8 cents.
1971 - Benjamin Britten's opera "Owen Wingrave," premieres in Aldwych
1971 - Bulgaria adopts it's constitution
1972 - "Don't Play Us Cheap" opens at Barrymore Theater NYC for 164 perfs
1972 - Greg Luzinski's 500' HR hits Liberty Bell monument in Phila Vet
1973 - ABC Masters Bowling Tournament won by Dave Soutar
1973 - AC Milan wins 13th Europe Cup II in Saloniki
1974 - Helmut Schmidt becomes West German chancellor
1974 - USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1975 - India annexes Principality of Sikkim
1975 - Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to summit Mount Everest.
1975 - Muhammad Ali TKOs Ron Lyle in 11 for heavyweight boxing title
1975 - Wings release "Listen to What the Man Said" in UK
1976 - Stanley Cup: Montreal Canadiens sweep Phila Flyers in 4 games
1977 - Five people were killed when a New York Airways helicopter, idling on top of the Pan Am Building in Manhattan, toppled over, sending a huge rotor blade flying.
1977 - Muhammad Ali beats Alfredo Evangelist in 15 for heavyweight boxing title
1979 - FC Barcelona wins 19th Europe Cup II in Basel
1979 - NL approves Astros sales from Ford Motors to John J McMullen for $19M
1980 - 34th NBA Championship: LA Lakers beat Phila 76ers, 4 games to 2
1980 - Brian May of rock group Queen collapses on stage with hepatitis
1980 - Paul McCartney releases "McCartney II" album
1980 - Former Buggles members Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn replace Jon Anderson & Rick Wakeman in Yes
1981 - "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes hits #1 for next 9 weeks
1981 - 107th Preakness: Jorge Velasquez aboard Pleasant Colony wins in 1:54.6
1981 - Houston Astro Craig Reynolds hits 3 triples beating Cubs 6-1
1982 - "Barnum" closes at St James Theater NYC after 854 performances
1982 - "Is There Life after High School?" closes at Barrymore after 12 perfs
1982 - Columbia moves to Vandenberg AFB for mating in preparation for STS-4
1982 - Kathy Whitworth wins LPGA Lady Michelob Golf Tournament
1982 - Salvador Jorge Blanco wins presidential election in Dominican Rep
1982 - Stanley Cup: NY Islanders sweep Vancouver Canucks in 4 games
1983 - Lebanese parliament accept peace accord with Israel
1983 - Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement rebels against the Sudanese government.
1984 - Guinea-Bissau adopts constitution
1984 - Juventus wins 24th Europe Cup II in Basel
1984 - Phillie pitcher Steve Carlton hits a grand slam homer
1984 - US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site
1984 - Mackay pays $218,718 for 44,166 tickets to keep Twins in Minnesota Twins sell 51,863 tickets but only 6,346 fans show up for the game
1985 - Michael Jordan named NBA Rookie of Year
1985 - Pope John Paul II arrives in Belgium
1986 - "Top Gun," premieres
1986 - Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) comes back from dead on Dallas
1986 - Joaquín Balaguers PRSC wins Dominican Rep parliamentary election
1986 - South African Pres P W Botha sends Coetsee to visit Mandela
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.
1987 - "Mystery of Edwin Drood" closes at Imperial NYC after 608 perfs
1987 - 113th Preakness: Chris McCarron aboard Alysheba wins in 1:55.8
1987 - Weird Al Yankovic performs live at 72nd National Orange Show
1987 - The Bobro 400 set sail from New York Harbor with 3,200 tons of garbage. The barge travelled 6,000 miles in search of a place to dump its load. It returned to New York Harbor after 8 weeks with the same load.
1988 - A report released by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop declared that nicotine was addictive in similar was as heroin and cocaine.
1988 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police do not have to have a search warrant to search discarded garbage.
1989 - Soviet president Mikhail S Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping ended a 30-year rift when they formally met in Beijing
1990 - Dominican Republic President Joaquín Ricardo Balaguer re-elected
1990 - Juventus wins 19th UEFA Cup in Avellino
1991 - Daily Planet fires cub reporter Jimmy Olson (Superman character)
1991 - Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the United States Congress.
1992 - "Smells Like Nirvana," by Weird Al Yankovic hits #35
1992 - 118th Preakness: Chris McCarron aboard Pine Bluff wins in 1:55.6
1992 - Polls show Perot, Bush and Clinton could be in a deadlock
1992 - US space shuttle STS-49 landed safely (maiden voyage of Endeavour)
1993 - "3 Men on a Horse" closes at Lyceum Theater NYC after 40 performances
1993 - "Wilder, Wilder, Wilder" closes at Circle in Sq NYC after 30 perfs
1993 - Farmer Sugeng finds 1.2 million year old Pithecanthropus IX skull
1993 - Judd Nelson pleads no contest to kicking Kim Evans in the head
1993 - Suleyman Demirel elected president of Turkey
1994 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Orlando FL on WTKS 104.1 FM
1994 - Jacqueline Onassis admitted to the hospital for cancer treatment
1994 - Joaquín Balaguer (86) elected president of Dominican Republic
1994 - Tennis star Jennifer Capriati arrested on possession of marijuana
1996 - Admiral Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, the nation's top Navy officer, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after some of his military awards were called into question.
1995 - Japanese police arrest cult leader Shoko Asahara and charged him with Nerve-gas attack on Tokyo's subways two months earlier
1996 - Sammy Sosa is 1st Chic Cub to hit 2 HRS in 1 inning
1997 - President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire ended 32 years of autocratic rule when rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila expelled him from the country.
1997 - Atlanta Braves beat St Louis Cardinals, 1-0 in 13 innings
1997 - Brandi Sherwood, (Idaho) replaces Brook Lee (Miss Univ) as Miss USA
1997 - Brook Mehealani Lee, 26, of US crowned 46th Miss Universe
1997 - Expos trailing SF Giants by 9 runs comeback to win 14-13
1997 - St Louis Cards Gary Gaetti records his 2,000th hits 1998 - 124th Preakness
2000 - U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was nominated to run for U.S. Senator in New York. She was the first U.S. first lady to run for public office.
2003 - In Casablanca, Morocco, 33 civilians are killed and more than 100 people are injured in the Casablanca terrorist attacks.
2003 - Adam Rich was placed on three years probation after he pled no contest to misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence and being under the influence of a controlled substance. He was also ordered to take part ina 60-day treatment program and pay about $1,200 in fines.
2004 - The Day of Mourning at Bykivnia forest, just outside of Kiev, Ukraine. Here during 1930s and early 1940s communist bolsheviks executed over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians.
2005 - Kuwait permits women's suffrage in a 35-23 National Assembly vote.
2005 - Sony Corp. unveiled three styles of its new PlayStation 3 video game machine.
2006 - A large earthquake (7.4 on the Richter scale) occurs near New Zealand.
2007 - Alex Salmond is elected First Minister of Scotland. He is the first Scottish National Party leader to be elected as First Minister after winning a historic victory at the Scottish general election on the 3rd May.
2011 - Space shuttle Endeavour launches for its final commission in space
These are the web pages that I used to complete this blog:
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/may16.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
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