What Happened on May 16

Significant Events

  • 1920 Joan of Arc (Jeanne D'arc) canonized a saint
  • 1929 1st Academy Awards: "Wings", Emil Jannings & Janet Gaynor win
  • 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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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