What Happened on April 16th in History
30 historical events on this date
Russian Revolution: Vladimir Lenin returns to Petrograd, Russia, from exile in Switzerland.
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social change in Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government following two...
Mohandas Gandhi organizes a day of "prayer and fasting" in response to the killing of Indian protesters in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the British colonial troops three days earlier.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from...
Polish–Lithuanian War: The Polish Army launches the Vilna offensive to capture Vilnius in modern Lithuania.
The Polish–Lithuanian War was an undeclared war fought in the aftermath of World War I between newly independent Lithuania and Poland, with fighting mainly in the Vilnius and Suwałki regions, which...
The Treaty of Rapallo, pursuant to which Germany and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic relations, is signed.
The Treaty of Rapallo was an agreement signed on 16 April 1922 between Germany and Soviet Russia under which both renounced all territorial and financial claims against each other and opened...
During the Communist St Nedelya Church assault in Sofia, Bulgaria, 150 are killed and 500 are wounded.
Communism is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and...
World War II: The Italian-German Tarigo convoy is attacked and destroyed by British ships.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
World War II: The Nazi-affiliated Ustaše is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis powers after Operation 25 is effected.
The Ustaše, was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945. It was formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement. From...
Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of the research drug LSD. He intentionally takes the drug three days later on April 19.
Albert Hofmann was a Swiss chemist known for being the first to synthesize, ingest, and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Hofmann's team also isolated, named and...
World War II: Allied forces start bombing Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. This bombing fell on the Orthodox Christian Easter.
The Allied bombing of Yugoslavia in World War II involved air attacks on cities and towns in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) and Royal Air Force (RAF),...
World War II: The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin, with nearly one million troops fighting in the Battle of the Seelow Heights.
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often referred by its shortened name as the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was...
World War II: The United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager (high security) prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz).
The United States Army is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is designated as the army of the United States in the United States Constitution. As a part of the United...
World War II: More than 7,000 die when the German transport ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine.
MV Goya was a Norwegian freighter used as a troop transport by Germany and sunk with a massive loss of life near the end of World War II. Completed in 1940 for the Johan Ludwig Mowinckel Rederi...
An explosion on board a freighter in port causes Texas City in the state of Texas, United States, to catch fire, killing almost 600 people.
The Texas City disaster was an industrial accident that occurred on April 16, 1947, in the port of Texas City, Texas, United States, located in Galveston Bay. It was the deadliest industrial...
Bernard Baruch first applies the term "Cold War" to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Bernard Mannes Baruch was an American financier and statesman.
The Organization of European Economic Co-operation is formed.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries. It was founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. The...
In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008....
U.S. civil rights campaigner Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. writes his open letter from Birmingham Jail, sometimes known as "The Negro Is Your Brother", while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama, for protesting against segregation.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil...
Apollo program: The launch of Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived in 1960 in the...
India and Bangladesh begin a five-day border conflict, but are unable to resolve the disputes about their border.
Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world and among the most densely populated with a population of...
The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting ten new member states to the European Union.
The Treaty of Accession 2003 was the agreement between the member states of the European Union and ten countries, concerning these countries' accession into the EU. At the same time it changed a...
Virginia Tech shooting: Seung-Hui Cho murders 32 people and injures 17 before committing suicide.
The Virginia Tech shooting was a spree shooting and mass shooting that occurred on Monday, April 16, 2007, comprising two attacks on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State...
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Baze v. Rees decision that execution by lethal injection does not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over...
The trial for Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, begins in Oslo, Norway.
The trial of Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, took place between 16 April and 22 June 2012 in Oslo District Court. Breivik was sentenced to 21 years of preventive...
The Pulitzer Prize winners are announced. It was the first time since 1977 that no book won the Fiction Prize.
The 2012 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on April 16, 2012, by the Pulitzer Prize Board for work during the 2011 calendar year. The deadline for submitting entries was January 25, 2012. For the first...
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes Sistan and Balochistan province, Iran, killing at least 35 people and injuring 117 others.
The moment magnitude scale is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude based on its seismic moment. Mw was defined in a 1979 paper by Thomas C. Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori. Similar to the local...
The 2013 Baga massacre is started when Boko Haram militants engage government soldiers in Baga.
The Baga massacre began on 16 April 2013 in the village of Baga, Nigeria, in Borno State, when as many as 200 civilians were killed, hundreds wounded, and over 2,000 houses and businesses worth...
The South Korean ferry MV Sewol capsizes and sinks near Jindo Island, killing 304 passengers and crew and leading to widespread criticism of the South Korean government, media, and shipping authorities.
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone,...
Ecuador's worst earthquake in nearly 40 years kills 676 and injures more than 230,000.
The 2016 Ecuador earthquake occurred on April 16 at 18:58:37 ECT with a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The very large thrust earthquake was centered...
The New York Times and The New Yorker win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for breaking news of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal.
The New York Times (NYT) is a newspaper based in Manhattan, New York City. The New York Times covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces and reviews. One of the...
The historic Børsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, is severely damaged by a fire.
Børsen, is a 17th-century commodity bourse and later stock exchange in the centre of Copenhagen, Denmark. The historic building is situated next to Christiansborg Palace, the seat of the Danish...