On This Day

December 1816 in History

Events in History

  • Dec 2 First savings bank in US opens (Philadelphia Savings Fund Society)

Election of Interest

Dec 4 James Monroe is elected to become the 5th President of the United States, defeating Rufus King of the Federalist Party

James Monroe
5th US President James Monroe
  • Dec 10 Dutch regain Sumatra from the British
  • Dec 11 Citizens of Geneva thwart Savoyard invaders
  • Dec 11 Indiana becomes 19th state of the Union
  • Dec 13 Patent for a dry dock issued to John Adamson, Boston
  • Dec 28 American Colonization Society organizes
  • Dec 30 The Treaty of St. Louis is proclaimed.

Birthdays in History

  • Dec 6 Henry Eustace McCulloch, Brigadier General (Confederate Army), born in Rutherford County, Tennessee (d. 1895)
  • Dec 8 August Belmont, Prussian-American financier and diplomat (U.S. Minister to the Netherlands 1853-57), born in Alzey, Hesse, Germany (d. 1890)
  • Dec 13 Clement Claiborne Clay, American politician (U.S. Senator from Alabama), born in Huntsville, Alabama (d. 1882)

Werner von SiemensWerner von Siemens (1816-1892)

Dec 13 German inventor (siemens electrical conductance unit) and industrialist (Siemens corporation), born in Lenthe, German Confederation

Werner von Siemens
  • Dec 18 Alfred Elzey Jones, Major General (Confederate Army), (d. 1871)
  • Dec 27 Eliakim Parker Scammon, American Brigadier General (Union Army), born in Whitefield, Maine (d. 1894)
  • Dec 29 Carl Ludwig, German physician and physiologist, born in Witzenhausen, Germany (d. 1895)

Weddings in History

  • Dec 30 English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (24) marries 2nd wife writer "Frankenstein" Mary Godwin (19) and daughter of early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft

Deaths in History

  • Dec 15 Charles Stanhope, 3rd earl Stanhope, English radical politician and scientist, dies at 63

Historical Figures

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