August 16
August 16 is the 228th day of the year (229th in leap years ) in the Gregorian Calendar . There are 137 days remaining.
Events
1777 - American Revolutionary War : Battle of Bennington - British forces are defeated by American troops.
1780 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Camden - The British defeat the Americans near Camden, South Carolina .
1812 - War of 1812 : American General William Hull surrenders Fort Detroit without a fight to the British Army .
1819 - Peterloo Massacre at a public meeting at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, England.
1841 - U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States . Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
1858 - U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom . However, a weak signal will force a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
1896 - George Carmack discovers gold in the Klondike .
1920 - Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians is hit in his head and fatally wounded with a fastball from Carl Mays of the New York Yankees . Chapman will die early the next day, becoming the only person to ever die during a major league baseball game (as of 2003 ).
1928 - Murderer Carl Panzram is arrested in Washington, DC after killing about 20 people.
1930 - First colour sound cartoon , called Fiddlesticks , was made by Ub Iwerks
1954 - Volume 1, Issue 1 of Sports Illustrated 1960 - Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom .
1960 - Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,330 m). He sets unbeaten (as of 2003 ) world records for: high-altitude jump; free-fall by falling 16 miles (25.7 km) before opening his parachute ; and fastest speed by a human without an aircraft, 614 mi/h (982 km/h).
1962 - The Beatles fire Pete Best and replace him with Ringo Starr .
1964 - Vietnam War : In a coup , General Nguyen Khanh replaces Duong Van Minh as South Vietnam 's chief of state and establishes a new constitution , which the U.S. Embassy helped draft.
1966 - Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 are arrested.
1972 - The Royal Moroccan Air Force mistakenly fires upon, but fails to bring down, Hassan II of Morocco 's plane while he was traveling back to Rabat .
1984 - Carmaker John De Lorean is acquitted of all eight counts of possessing and distributing cocaine .
1987 - A McDonnell Douglas MD-82 carrying Northwest Airlines flight 255 crashes on takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport killing all but one of the 156 people on-board (sole survivor was four-year old Cecelia Cichan). The crew forgot to properly set the planes flaps.
1993 - The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is founded by Ian Murdock .
2004 - Heavy rains cause a river to flood the small coastal town of Boscastle , north-east Cornwall , United Kingdom (– August 17).
Births
1596 - Frederick V, Elector Palatine (d. 1632 )
1845 - Gabriel Lippmann , physicist (d. 1921 )
1860 - Jules Laforgue , French poet (d. 1887 )
1862 - Amos Alonzo Stagg , college sports coach (football , basketball and baseball ) (d. 1965 )
1868 - Bernarr McFadden , publisher
1884 - Hugo Gernsback , editor and publisher
1888 - T. E. Lawrence , writer, soldier
1888 - Armand J. Piron , jazz musician (d. 1943 )
1894 - George Meany , labor union activist (d. 1980 )
1895 - Albert Cohen , Swiss novelist (d. 1981 )
1902 - Georgette Heyer , novelist (d. 1975 )
1911 - E. F. Schumacher , German economist and statistician (d. 1977 )
1913 - Menachem Begin , Israeli soldier and politician (d. 1992 )
1920 - Charles Bukowski , poet (d. 1994 )
1925 - Fess Parker , actor
1928 - Ann Blyth , actress
1930 - Frank Gifford , pro football player, sports announcer
1930 - Robert Culp , actor
1931 - Eydie Gorme , singer
1933 - Julie Newmar , actress
1940 - Bruce Beresford , film director
1946 - Lesley Ann Warren , actress
1946 - Massoud Barzani , leader of Kurdistan Democratic Party
1950 - Hasely Crawford , Trinidad and Tobago athlete
1953 - Kathie Lee Gifford , singer and actress, wife of Frank, shares his birthday
1954 - James Cameron , Academy Award winning director
1958 - Angela Bassett , actress
1958 - Madonna (Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone), singer, actress
1960 - Timothy Hutton , Academy Award winning actor
1967 - Pamela Smart , murderess
1967 - Ulrika Jonsson , Swedish /British television personality
1968 - Mateja Svet , Slovenian alpine skier
1974 - Robin Hull , Finnish snooker player
1977 - Ross Hughes , English musician
1980 - Robert Hardy (bassist) , bassist Franz Ferdinand ,
1980 - Vanessa Carlton (Singer/Songwriter/Pianist)
Deaths
1358 - Duke Albert II of Austria
1443 - Ashikaga Yoshikatsu , Ashikaga shogun (b. 1434 )
1661 - Thomas Fuller , churchman and historian
1864 - Confederate General John Chambliss
1886 - Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa , guru of Swami Vivekananda , (b. 1836 )
1899 - Robert Wilhelm Bunsen , chemist
1907 - James Hector , geologist
1921 - King Peter I of Serbia
1938 - Robert Johnson , blues singer and guitarist
1938 - Andrej Hlinka , Slovak politician and priest
1948 - Babe Ruth , baseball player
1949 - Margaret Mitchell , novelist
1956 - Bela Lugosi , actor
1975 - Vladimir Kuts , Soviet long-distance runner
1977 - Elvis Presley , singer, actor
1979 - John Diefenbaker , thirteenth Prime Minister of Canada
1983 - Earl Averill , Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1902 )
1989 - Amanda Blake , actress
2002 - Martin Deutsch , physicist , discoverer of positronium
2002 - Abu Nidal , Palestinian terrorist
2003 - Idi Amin , Ugandan dictator
2004 - Ivan Hlinka , coach of the National Ice Hockey team of the Czech Republic
2004 - Robert Quiroga , former International Boxing Federation super flyweight champion.
Holidays and observances
External links
August 15 - August 17 - July 16 - September 16 -- listing of all days
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