What Happened on May 16th in History
30 historical events on this date
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).
The 1891 International Electrotechnical Exhibition was held between 16 May and 19 October on the disused site of the three former Westbahnhöfe in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The exhibition featured...
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.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established by the Acts of Union in 1801 that united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into one unitary and sovereign state....
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 It will be repealed less than two years later.
The Sedition Act of 1918 was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast...
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.
The 1918 White victory parade in Helsinki was a military parade of the Finnish White Guard on 16 May 1918 celebrating their decisive victory in the Finnish Civil War, which officially ended the day...
A naval Curtiss NC-4 aircraft commanded by Albert Cushing Read leaves Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight.
The NC-4 is a Curtiss NC flying boat that was the first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, albeit not non-stop. The NC designation was derived from the collaborative efforts of the Navy (N)...
In Rome, Pope Benedict XV canonizes Joan of Arc.
Pope Benedict XV was head of the Catholic Church from 1914 until his death in January 1922. His pontificate was largely overshadowed by World War I and its political, social, and humanitarian...
The first modern performance of Claudio Monteverdi's opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria occurred in Paris.
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a...
In Hollywood, the first Academy Awards ceremony takes place.
Hollywood, sometimes informally called Tinseltown, is a neighborhood in Central Los Angeles, California. Its name has become synonymous with the American film industry and the people associated with...
The Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million...
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.
Operation Chastise, commonly known as the Dambusters Raid, was an attack on German dams carried out on the night of 16/17 May 1943 by 617 Squadron RAF Bomber Command, later called the Dam Busters,...
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.
The Levant Crisis, also known as the Damascus Crisis, the Syrian Crisis, or the Levant Confrontation, was a military confrontation that took place between British and French forces in Syria in May...
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.
A transatlantic flight (TATL) is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, South America, or vice versa. Such flights...
Beginning of the Kengir uprising in the Gulag.
The Kengir uprising was a prisoner rebellion that occurred in Kengir (Steplag), a Soviet MVD special camp for political prisoners, during May and June 1954. Its duration and intensity distinguished...
The Tritons' Fountain in Valletta, Malta is turned on for the first time.
The Tritonsâ Fountain is a fountain located in Floriana, Malta. It consists of three bronze Tritons holding up a large basin, balanced on a concentric base built out of concrete and clad in 730 tons...
Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser (a ruby laser), at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.
Theodore Harold Maiman was an American engineer and physicist who is widely credited with the invention of the laser. Maiman's laser led to the subsequent development of many other types of lasers....
Park Chung Hee leads a coup d'Ă©tat to overthrow the Second Republic of South Korea.
Park Chung Hee was a South Korean politician and army officer who served as the third president of South Korea from 1962 after he seized power in the May 16 coup of 1961 until his assassination in...
The Chinese Communist Party issues the "May 16 Notice", marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
The Communist Party of China (CPC), commonly known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP won the...
Venera program: Venera 5, a Soviet space probe, lands on Venus.
The Venera program was a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. A total of eighteen probes were sent, including two...
An Antonov An-24 crashes into a kindergarten building in Svetlogorsk, killing 35.
The Antonov An-24 is a 44-seat twin turboprop regional airliner designed in 1957 in the Soviet Union by the Antonov Design Bureau. Later variants saw other uses, such as military transport and...
Josip Broz Tito is elected president for life of Yugoslavia.
Josip Broz, commonly known as Tito, was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and politician who led Yugoslavia as prime minister from 1943 to 1963 and as president from 1953 until his death in 1980....
Junko Tabei from Japan becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Junko Tabei was a Japanese mountaineer, author and teacher. She was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest and ascend the Seven Summits, climbing the highest peak on every continent.
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.
The surgeon general of the United States is the operational head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) and thus a leading spokesperson on matters of public health in...
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.
Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her lifetime and was the...
Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaire, flees the country.
Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, often shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko or Mobutu and also known by his initials MSS, was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the first and...
In Morocco, 33 civilians are killed and more than 100 people are injured in the Casablanca terrorist attacks.
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has...
Kuwait permits women's suffrage in a 35â23 National Assembly vote.
Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in West Asia. With a coastline of approximately 500Â km (311Â mi), it is situated at the head of the Persian Gulf in the northeastern edge of the...
STS-134 (ISS assembly flight ULF6), launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the 25th and final flight for Space Shuttle Endeavour.
STS-134 was the penultimate mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the 25th and last spaceflight of Space Shuttle Endeavour. This flight delivered the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and an ExPRESS...
Twelve people are killed in two explosions in the Gikomba market area of Nairobi, Kenya.
On 16 May 2014, two improvised explosive devices were detonated simultaneously in the Gikomba market in Nairobi, Kenya, killing at least 12 people and injuring 70. The first blast came from a...
A catastrophic EF3 tornado kills five people and causes over $1 billion in damages in St. Louis, MO.
On the afternoon of May 16, 2025, an intense, extremely large, and destructive tornado tracked for more than 12 miles (19Â km) through urban areas of Greater St. Louis, including Greater Ville and...
A devastating EF4 tornado kills nineteen people in Southeast Kentucky, hitting the towns of Somerset and London.
In the late evening hours of May 16, 2025, a large and deadly nocturnal EF4 tornado moved through the western Cumberland Plateau, impacting the Kentucky cities of Somerset and London. The tornado,...