Historical Events
- 1868 US Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson by one vote
- 1920 French heroine Joan of Arc is canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV
- 1943 Operation Chastise: No. 617 Squadron RAF begins the famous Dambusters Raid, bombing the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr valley with bouncing bombs
- 1944 1st of 180,000+ Hungarian Jews reach Auschwitz
- 1989 Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping meet in Beijing and formally end a 30-year rift
- 2013 Human stem cells are successfully cloned
- More Historical Events
May 16 in Film & TV
- 1929 1st Academy Awards: "Wings", Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor win
- 1946 Irving Berlin, Dorothy and Herbert Fields' musical "Annie Get Your Gun" starring Ethel Merman and featuring "There's No Business Like Show Business" opens at Imperial Theater, NYC
- 1986 "Top Gun", directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise premieres
May 16 in Sport
- 1948 First chess world championship since WWII; Russian player Mikhail Botvinnik wins a 5-player tournament to begin 20-year Russian domination
- 1985 Michael Jordan named NBA Rookie of Year
Did You Know?
Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California
On May 16, 1960
H. H. Holmes
Liberace
Billy Martin
Pierce Brosnan
Janet Jackson
Gabriela SabatiniWould You Believe?
Eugene Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov, the creators of the M16 rifle and the AK-47 rifle respectively, meet in Washington, D.C.
On May 16, 1990
Famous Weddings
- 1770 Marie Antoinette (14) marries future King Louis XVI (15) of France
- 1836 American writer Edgar Allan Poe (26) marries his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm
- 1981 Pretenders' Martin Chambers weds Tracy Atkinson
Famous Divorces
- 2008 "24" actor Kiefer Sutherland (37) divorces former model Elizabeth Kelly Winn (42) due to irreconcilable differences after nearly 8 years of marriage
More Weddings & Divorces
Charles Perrault
Django Reinhardt
Margaret Hamilton
Jim Henson
Sammy Davis Jr.
Bob HawkeArticles, Photos and Quiz
Canonization of Joan of Arc
Interior of a packed St. Peter's Basilica in Rome as Joan of Arc is canonized by the Pope
May 16, 1920
Silence is Golden At The First Oscars
The first Academy Awards ceremony took place on this day before just 250 guests. All the movies nominated for what would become known as an Oscar were silent
May 16, 1929
Mikhail Kalashnikov Meets Eugene Stoner
The inventor of the AK-47, Mikhail Kalashnikov (right), meets the inventor of the M-16, Eugene Stoner (left)
May 16, 1990
Weekly Quiz for May 13-20
Test your knowledge of historical events in our multi-choice weekly history quiz for May 13-20. Number 7 will leave you truly stumped then amazed!
