August 16

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, American college sports coach (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, Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1992)
• 1920 - Charles Bukowski, poet (d. 1994)
• 1925 - Fess Parker, actor
• 1928 - Ann Blyth, actress
• 1930 - Robert Culp, actor
• 1930 - Frank Gifford, American football player and announcer
• 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
• 1987 - Kyal Marsh, Australian actor

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, Indian guru (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
• 1957 - Irving Langmuir, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
• 1975 - Vladimir Kuts, Soviet runner
• 1977 - Elvis Presley, American singer and 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

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