Events Pre-1600 1457 BC – Battle of Megiddo: The first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail. 69 – Defeated by Vitellius' troops at Bedriacum, Roman emperor Otho commits suicide. 73 – Masada, a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the First Jewish–Roman War.Duncan B. Campbell, "Capturing a desert fortress: Flavius Silva and the siege of Masada", Ancient Warfare Vol. IV, no. 2 (Spring 2010), pp. 28–35. The dating is explained on pp. 29 and 32. 556 – Pope Pelagius I is consecrated following Imperial approval by Emperor Justinian I. 682 – Pope Leo II is elected head of the Catholic Church, although he will not be consecrated until 17 August.; 1346 – Stefan Dušan, "the Mighty", is crowned Emperor of the Serbs at Skopje, his empire occupying much of the Balkans. 1520 – The Revolt of the Comuneros begins in Spain against the rule of Charles V. 1582 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma founds the settlement of Salta, Argentina.
1601–1900 1746 – The Battle of Culloden is fought between the French-supported Jacobites and the British Hanoverian forces commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, in Scotland. 1780 – Franz Friedrich Wilhelm von Fürstenberg founds the University of Münster. 1797 – The Spithead mutiny begins, immobilising the Channel fleet. 1799 – French Revolutionary Wars: The Battle of Mount Tabor: Napoleon drives Ottoman Turks across the River Jordan near Acre. 1818 – The United States Senate ratifies the Rush–Bagot Treaty, limiting naval armaments on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain. 1838 – The French Army captures Veracruz in the Pastry War. 1847 – Shooting of a Māori by an English sailor results in the opening of the Wanganui Campaign of the New Zealand Wars. 1853 – The Great Indian Peninsula Railway opens the first passenger rail in India, from Bori Bunder to Thane. 1858 – The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is dissolved. 1862 – American Civil War: Battle at Lee's Mills in Virginia. 1862 – American Civil War: The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia, becomes law. 1863 – American Civil War: During the Vicksburg Campaign, gunboats commanded by acting Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter run downriver past Confederate artillery batteries at Vicksburg. 1878 – The Senate of the Grand Duchy of Finland issues a declaration establishing a city of Kotka on the southern part islands from the old Kymi parish.Kotkan synty ja kasvu (in Finnish) 1881 – In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle.
1901–present 1908 – Natural Bridges National Monument is established in Utah. 1910 – The oldest indoor ice hockey arena used for the sport in the 21st century, Boston Arena, opens for the first time. 1912 – Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel. 1917 – Russian Revolution: Vladimir Lenin returns to Petrograd, Russia, from exile in Switzerland. 1919 – Mohandas Gandhi organizes a day of "prayer and fasting" in response to the killing of Indian protesters in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the British colonial troops three days earlier. 1919 – Polish–Lithuanian War: The Polish Army launches the Vilna offensive to capture Vilnius in modern Lithuania. 1922 – The Treaty of Rapallo, pursuant to which Germany and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic relations, is signed. 1925 – During the Communist St Nedelya Church assault in Sofia, Bulgaria, 150 are killed and 500 are wounded. 1941 – World War II: The Italian-German Tarigo convoy is attacked and destroyed by British ships. 1941 – World War II: The Nazi-affiliated Ustaše is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis powers after Operation 25 is effected. 1943 – Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of the research drug LSD. He intentionally takes the drug three days later on April 19. 1944 – World War II: Allied forces start bombing Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. This bombing fell on the Orthodox Christian Easter. 1945 – World War II: The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin, with nearly one million troops fighting in the Battle of the Seelow Heights. 1945 – World War II: The United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager (high security) prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz). 1945 – World War II: More than 7,000 die when the German transport ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine. 1947 – An explosion on board a freighter in port causes Texas City in the state of Texas, United States, to catch fire, killing almost 600 people. 1947 – Bernard Baruch first applies the term "Cold War" to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. 1948 – The Organization of European Economic Co-operation is formed. 1961 – In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism. 1963 – U.S. civil rights campaigner Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. writes his open letter from Birmingham Jail, sometimes known as "The Negro Is Your Brother", while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama, for protesting against segregation. 1972 – Apollo program: The launch of Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. 2001 – India and Bangladesh begin a five-day border conflict, but are unable to resolve the disputes about their border. 2003 – The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting ten new member states to the European Union. 2007 – Virginia Tech shooting: Seung-Hui Cho murders 32 people and injures 17 before committing suicide. 2008 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Baze v. Rees decision that execution by lethal injection does not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. 2012 – The trial for Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, begins in Oslo, Norway. 2012 – The Pulitzer Prize winners are announced. It was the first time since 1977 that no book won the Fiction Prize. 2013 – A 7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes Sistan and Balochistan province, Iran, killing at least 35 people and injuring 117 others. 2013 – The 2013 Baga massacre is started when Boko Haram militants engage government soldiers in Baga. 2014 – The South Korean ferry MV Sewol capsizes and sinks near Jindo Island, killing 304 passengers and crew and leading to widespread criticism of the South Korean government, media, and shipping authorities. 2016 – Ecuador's worst earthquake in nearly 40 years kills 676 and injures more than 230,000. 2018 – The New York Times and The New Yorker win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for breaking news of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal. 2024 – The historic Børsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, is severely damaged by a fire.
Births Pre-1600 1488 – Jungjong of Joseon (died 1544) 1495 – Petrus Apianus, German mathematician and astronomer (died 1557) 1516 – Tabinshwehti, Burmese king (died 1550)(Hmannan Vol. 2 2003: 180): Wednesday, first waning of Kason 878 ME = 16 April 1516; 1569 – John Davies, English poet and lawyer (died 1626)
1601–1900 1635 – Frans van Mieris the Elder, Dutch painter (died 1681) 1646 – Jules Hardouin-Mansart, French architect (probable; (died 1708) 1660 – Hans Sloane, Irish-English physician and academic (died 1753) 1661 – Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, English poet and politician, First Lord of the Treasury (died 1715) 1682 – John Hadley, English mathematician, invented the octant (died 1744) 1697 – Johann Gottlieb Görner, German organist and composer (died 1778) 1728 – Joseph Black, French-Scottish physician and chemist (died 1799) 1730 – Henry Clinton, English general and politician (died 1795) 1755 – Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, French painter (died 1842) 1786 – John Franklin, English admiral and politician, fourth Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land (died 1847) 1800 – George Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan, English field marshal and politician (died 1888) 1808 – Caleb Blood Smith, American journalist, lawyer, and politician, sixth United States Secretary of the Interior (died 1864) 1812 – Juraj Dobrila, Croatian bishop and national revivalist (died 1882) 1821 – Ford Madox Brown, French-English soldier and painter (died 1893) 1823 – Gotthold Eisenstein, German mathematician and academic (died 1852) 1826 – Sir James Corry, 1st Baronet, British politician (died 1891) 1827 – Octave Crémazie, Canadian poet and bookseller (died 1879) 1839 – Antonio Starabba, Marchese di Rudinì, Italian politician, 12th Prime Minister of Italy (died 1908) 1834 – Charles Lennox Richardson, English merchant (died 1862) 1844 – Anatole France, French journalist, novelist, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1924) 1847 – Hans Auer, Swiss-Austrian architect, designed the Federal Palace of Switzerland (died 1906) 1848 – Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Indian author and activist (died 1919) 1851 – Ponnambalam Ramanathan, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician, third Solicitor General of Sri Lanka (died 1930) 1865 – Harry Chauvel, Australian general (died 1945) 1866 – José de Diego, Puerto Rican journalist, lawyer, and politician (died 1918) 1867 – Wilbur Wright, American inventor (died 1912) 1871 – John Millington Synge, Irish author, poet, and playwright (died 1909) 1874 – Jōtarō Watanabe, Japanese general (died 1936) 1878 – R. E. Foster, English cricketer and footballer (died 1914) 1882 – Seth Bingham, American organist and composer (died 1972) 1884 – Ronald Barnes, 3rd Baron Gorell, English cricketer, journalist, and politician (died 1963) 1885 – Leó Weiner, Hungarian composer and educator (died 1960) 1886 – Michalis Dorizas, Greek-American football player and javelin thrower (died 1957) 1886 – Ernst Thälmann, German politician (died 1944) 1888 – Billy Minter, English footballer and manager (died 1940) 1889 – Charlie Chaplin, English actor, director, producer, screenwriter, and composer (died 1977) 1890 – Fred Root, English cricketer and umpire (died 1954) 1890 – Gertrude Chandler Warner, American author and educator (died 1979) 1891 – Dorothy P. Lathrop, American author and illustrator (died 1980) 1892 – Dora Richter, German transgender woman and the first known person to undergo complete male-to-female gender-affirming surgery (died 1966) 1892 – Howard Mumford Jones, American author, critic, and academic (died 1980) 1893 – Germaine Guèvremont, Canadian journalist and author (died 1968) 1893 – John Norton, American hurdler (died 1979) 1895 – Ove Arup, English-Danish engineer and businessman, founded Arup (died 1988) 1896 – Árpád Weisz, Hungarian footballer (died 1944) 1899 – Osman Achmatowicz, Polish chemist and academic (died 1988) 1900 – Polly Adler, Russian-American madam and author (died 1962)
1901–present 1903 – Paul Waner, American baseball player and manager (died 1965) 1904 – Fifi D'Orsay, Canadian-American vaudevillian, actress, and singer (died 1983) 1905 – Frits Philips, Dutch businessman (died 2005) 1907 – Joseph-Armand Bombardier, Canadian inventor and businessman, founded Bombardier Inc. (died 1964) 1907 – August Eigruber, Austrian-German politician (died 1947) 1908 – Ellis Marsalis, Sr., American businessman and activist (died 2004) 1908 – Ray Ventura, French jazz bandleader (died 1979) 1910 – Berton Roueché, American journalist and author (died 1994) 1911 – Guy Burgess, English-Russian spy (died 1963) 1914 – John Hodiak, American actor (died 1955) 1916 – Behçet Necatigil, Turkish author, poet, and translator (died 1979) 1917 – Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba, 18th Duchess of Medinaceli (died 2013) 1918 – Spike Milligan, Indian-Irish actor, comedian, and writer (died 2002) 1919 – Merce Cunningham, American dancer and choreographer (died 2009) 1919 – Nilla Pizzi, Italian singer (died 2011) 1919 – Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Mexican architect (died 2013)