August 16

August 16 is the 228th day of the year (229th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 137 days remaining.

Events

• 1777 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Bennington – British forces are defeated by American troops.
• 1780 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Camden – The British defeat the Americans near Camden, South Carolina.
• 1812 – War of 1812: American General William Hull surrenders Fort Detroit without a fight to the British Army.
• 1819 – Eleven die and 400 are injured by cavalry charges at the Peterloo Massacre at a public meeting at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, England.
• 1841 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
• 1858 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal will force a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
• 1896 Gold is discovered in the Klondike.
• 1920 – Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians is hit in the head by a fastball from Carl Mays of the New York Yankees. Chapman will die early the next day, becoming the only player to ever die during a Major League Baseball game.
• 1928 – Murderer Carl Panzram is arrested in Washington, DC after killing about 20 people.
• 1930 – First colour sound cartoon, called Fiddlesticks, was made by Ub Iwerks
• 1954 – Volume 1, Issue 1 of Sports Illustrated is published.
• 1960 – Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1960  – Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,330 m). He sets unbeaten (as of 2003) world records for: high-altitude jump; free-fall by falling 16 miles (25.7 km) before opening his parachute; and fastest speed by a human without an aircraft, 614 mi/h (982 km/h).
• 1962 – The Beatles fire Pete Best and replace him with Ringo Starr.
• 1964 – Vietnam War: In a coup, General Nguyen Khanh replaces Duong Van Minh as South Vietnam's chief of state and establishes a new constitution, which the U.S. Embassy helped draft.
• 1966 – Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 are arrested.
• 1972 – The Royal Moroccan Air Force mistakenly fires upon, but fails to bring down, Hassan II of Morocco's plane while he was traveling back to Rabat.
• 1984 – Carmaker John De Lorean is acquitted of all eight counts of possessing and distributing cocaine.
• 1987 – A McDonnell Douglas MD-82 carrying Northwest Airlines flight 255 crashes on takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport killing all but one of the 156 people on-board (sole survivor was four-year old Cecelia Cichan). The crew forgot to properly set the planes flaps.
• 1993 – The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is founded by Ian Murdock.

Births

• 1596 – Frederick V, Elector Palatine (d. 1632)
• 1845 – Gabriel Lippmann, physicist (d. 1921)
• 1860 – Jules Laforgue, French poet (d. 1887)
• 1862 – Amos Alonzo Stagg, college sports coach (football, basketball and baseball) (d. 1965)
• 1868 – Bernarr McFadden, publisher
• 1884 – Hugo Gernsback, editor and publisher
• 1888 – T. E. Lawrence, writer, soldier
• 1888  – Armand J. Piron, jazz musician (d. 1943)
• 1894 – George Meany, labor union activist (d. 1980)
• 1895 – Albert Cohen, Swiss novelist (d. 1981)
• 1895 – Liane Haid, Austrian actress (d. 2000)
• 1902 – Georgette Heyer, novelist (d. 1975)
• 1911 – E. F. Schumacher, German economist and statistician (d. 1977)
• 1913 – Menachem Begin, Israeli soldier and politician (d. 1992)
• 1920 – Charles Bukowski, poet (d. 1994)
• 1925 – Fess Parker, actor
• 1928 – Ann Blyth, actress
• 1930 – Frank Gifford, pro football player, sports announcer
• 1930 – Robert Culp, actor
• 1931 – Eydie Gorme, singer
• 1933 – Julie Newmar, actress
• 1940 – Bruce Beresford, film director
• 1946 – Lesley Ann Warren, actress
• 1946 – Massoud Barzani, leader of Kurdistan Democratic Party
• 1950 – Hasely Crawford, Trinidad and Tobago athlete
• 1953 – Kathie Lee Gifford, singer and actress, wife of Frank, shares his birthday
• 1954 – James Cameron, Academy Award winning director
• 1958 – Angela Bassett, actress
• 1958 – Madonna (Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone), singer, actress
• 1960 – Timothy Hutton, Academy Award winning actor
• 1967 – Pamela Smart, murderess
• 1967 – Ulrika Jonsson, Swedish/British television personality
• 1968 – Mateja Svet, Slovenian alpine skier
• 1974 – Robin Hull, Finnish snooker player
• 1977 – Ross Hughes, English musician
• 1980 – Robert Hardy (bassist), bassist Franz Ferdinand,
• 1980 – Vanessa Carlton (Singer/Songwriter/Pianist)
• 1981 – Taylor Rain, pornographic film actress

Deaths

• 1358 – Duke Albert II of Austria
• 1443 – Ashikaga Yoshikatsu, Ashikaga shogun (b. 1434)
• 1661 – Thomas Fuller, churchman and historian
• 1864 – Confederate General John Chambliss
• 1886 – Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, guru of Swami Vivekananda, (b. 1836)
• 1899 – Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, chemist
• 1907 – James Hector, geologist
• 1921 – King Peter I of Serbia
• 1938 – Robert Johnson, blues singer and guitarist
• 1938 – Andrej Hlinka, Slovak politician and priest
• 1948 – Babe Ruth, baseball player
• 1949 – Margaret Mitchell, novelist
• 1956 – Bela Lugosi, actor
• 1975 – Vladimir Kuts, Soviet long-distance runner
• 1977 – Elvis Presley, singer, actor
• 1979 – John Diefenbaker, thirteenth Prime Minister of Canada
• 1983 – Earl Averill, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1902)
• 1989 – Amanda Blake, actress
• 2002 – Martin Deutsch, physicist, discoverer of positronium
• 2002 – Abu Nidal, Palestinian terrorist
• 2003 – Idi Amin, Ugandan dictator
• 2004 – Ivan Hlinka, coach of the National Ice Hockey team of the Czech Republic
• 2004 – Robert Quiroga, former International Boxing Federation super flyweight champion.

Holidays and observances

• Feast day of St Stephen the Great
• Palio dell'Assunta in Siena

External links

• BBC: On This Day

August 15 – August 17 – July 16 – September 16 — listing of all days