What Happened on May 16

Significant Events

  • 1920 Joan of Arc (Jeanne D'arc) canonized a saint
  • 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
  • 2013 Human stem cells are successfully cloned
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May 16 in Film & TV

  • 1929 1st Academy Awards: "Wings", Emil Jannings & Janet Gaynor win
  • 1946 "Annie Get Your Gun" musical by Irving Berlin, Dorothy and Herbert Fields opens at Imperial Theater NYC, starring Ethel Merman and featuring "There's no Business Like Show Business"

May 16 in Music

  • 1946 "Annie Get Your Gun" musical by Irving Berlin, Dorothy and Herbert Fields opens at Imperial Theater NYC, starring Ethel Merman and featuring "There's no Business Like Show Business"

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

Did You Know?

Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California

On May 16, 1960

Famous Birthdays

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Would You Believe?

US Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson by one vote

On May 16, 1868

Famous Weddings

  • 1770 Marie Antoinette (14) marries future King Louis XVI (15) of France
  • 1836 US writer Edgar Allan Poe (26) marries his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm
  • 1880 British writer Mary Anne Evans, (pen name George Eliot), aged 60 marries John Cross, 20 years her junior
  • 1981 Pretenders' Martin Chambers weds Tracy Atkinson
  • 1987 Rocker David Crosby weds Jan Dance in LA

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
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Famous Deaths

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May in History