On November 16th...

Links will open in a new window.

1271 King Henry III of England died.

1569 Composer Paul Sartorius was born.

1643 Explorer Jean Chardin was born.

1676 The first colonial prison was organized, at Nantucket Massachusetts.

1700 The Monarch of Brandenburg became the King of Prussia.

1757 Composer Daniel Read was born.

1758 Author Peter Andreas Heiberg was born.

1762 Author Petronella Moens was born.

1797 King Frederick William II of Prussia died.

1801 The first edition of the New York Evening Post was published.

1822 Union Major General Charles Smith Hamilton was born.

1836 David Kalakaua, King of Hawaii, was born.

1839 Poet Louis-Honoré Fréchette was born.
1839 William Murdock, inventor of gas lighting, died.

1840 New Zealand officially became a British colony.

1841 Life preservers made of cork were patented by Napoleon Guerin.

1863 The Battle of Campbell's Station (Tennessee) was fought.

1873 Composer W.C. Handy was born.

1877 Actor Halliwell Hobbes was born.

1875 William Bonwill patented a dental mallet to impact gold into cavities.

1881 Chemist Joel H. Hildebrand was born.

1887 Architect Philip Frohman was born.

1890 Elpidio Quirino, the 6th President of the Philippines, was born.

1894 Comedienne Mabel Normand was born.

1895 Composer Paul Hindemith was born.

1907 Oklahoma became the 46th state.
1907 Actor Burgess Meredith was born.

1908 Arturo Toscanini began conducting the New York Metropolitan Opera.

1914 The Federal Reserve System formally opened.

1916 The Russian La Satannaya ammunition factory exploded, killing about 1,000 persons.
1916Voice actor Daws Butler was born.

1918 The Hungarian People's Republic was proclaimed.

1920 Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited (Qantas airlines) was founded.
1920 Golfer Betty Hicks was born.

1922 Author José Saramago was born.

1925 The American Association for Advancement of Atheism was formed.

1930 Author Chinua Achebe was born.

1933 The United States recognized the Communist government of Russia.

1938 LSD was first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland.

1939 Al Capone was released from prison.
1939 U. S. Supreme Court Justice Pierce Butler died.

1945 Yeshiva College, the first Jewish college in the United States, was chartered.
1945 UNESCO was founded.

1956 Auto racer Terry Labonte was born.

1958 Actor Marg Helgenberger was born.

1959 The New England Patriots were founded (as the Boston Patriots).

1960 Actor Clark Gable died.

1961 Samuel Rayburn, long-time member of the United States House of Representatives, died.

1963 The touch-tone telephone was introduced.

1964 Baseball player Dwight Gooden was born.

1965 Walt Disney launched Epcot Center.
1965 Magician Harry Blackstone died.

1967 Actress Lisa Bonet was born.

1973 The last mission to Skylab was launched.

1974 The first intentional interstellar radio message was sent, by the Arecibo telescope towards the M 41 star cluster.
1974 ABBA began its first tour outside of Sweden.

1976 Rick Barry ended the then longest NBA free throw streak, of 60.

1977 Figure skater Oksana Baiul was born.
1977 Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal was born.

1978 The Major Indoor Soccer League held its first draft.

1981 Actor William Holden died.

1982 The Space Shuttle Columbia completed its first operational flight.

1988 Estonia declared sovereignty in internal affairs.
1988 Benazir Bhutto won the first free Pakistani elections in 11 years.

2000 Bill Clinton became the first U.S. President to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

2005 Game show creator Ralph Edwards died.

2006 Nobel Prize-winning Milton Friedman died.

2016 Melvin Laird, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, died.

Questions or comments about this page?

This page was last updated on November 16, 2018.