16 September History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 1620    -    The Pilgrims sail from England on the Mayflower.
  • 1668    -    King John Casimer V of Poland abdicates the throne.
  • 1747    -    The French capture Bergen-op-Zoom, consolidating their occupation of Austrian Flanders in the Netherlands.
  • 1789    -    Jean-Paul Marat sets up a new newspaper in France, L'Ami du Peuple.
  • 1810    -    A revolution for independence breaks out in Mexico.
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  • 1864    -    Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest leads 4,500 men out of Verona, Miss. to harass Union outposts in northern Alabama and Tennessee.
  • 1889    -    Robert Younger, in Minnesota's Stillwater Penitentiary for life, dies of tuberculosis. Brothers Cole and Bob remain in the prison.
  • 1893    -    Some 50,000 "Sooners" claim land in the Cherokee Strip during the first day of the Oklahoma land rush.
  • 1908    -    General Motors files papers of incorporation.
  • 1920    -    Thirty people are killed in a terrorist bombing in New York's Wall Street financial district.
  • 1934    -    Anti-Nazi Lutherans stage protest in Munich.
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  • 1940    -    Congress passes the Selective Service Act, which calls for the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.
  • 1942    -    The Japanese base at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands is raided by American bombers.
  • 1945    -    Japan surrenders Hong Kong to Britain.
  • 1950    -    The U.S. 8th Army breaks out of the Pusan Perimeter in South Korea and begins heading north to meet MacArthur's troops heading south from Inchon.
  • 1972    -    South Vietnamese troops recapture Quang Tri province in South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese Army.
  • 1974    -    Limited amnesty is offered to Vietnam-era draft resisters who would now swear allegiance to the United States and perform two years of public service.
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  • 1975    -    Administrators for Rhodes Scholarships announce the decision to begin offering fellowships to women.

  • 16 September Birthdays

  • 1838    -    James J. Hill, railroad builder.
  • 1875    -    James Cash Penney, founder and owner of the J.C. Penny Company department stores.
  • 1885    -    Karen Horney, psychoanalyst who exposed the male bias in the Freudian analysis of women.
  • 1891    -    Karl Doenitz, German Admiral who succeeded Hitler in governing Germany.
  • 1893    -    Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, biochemist who isolated vitamin C.
  • 1925    -    Charlie Byrd, jazz guitarist.
  • 1925    -    B.B. King, blues guitarist.
  • 1926    -    John Knowles, writer (A Separate Peace).
  • 1950    -    Henry Louis Gates Jr., critic and scholar.