August 16
1777 - The Revolutionary War Battle of Bennington (Vermont) was won by American forces in what was considered a turning point in the war.
1812 - Detroit fell to British and Native American forces in the War of 1812.
1829 - The original Siamese twins, Eng and Chang, arrived in Boston.
1858 - A telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable.
1861 - President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 86, which prohibited the states of the Union from engaging in commercial trade with states that were in rebellion.
1888 - T.E. Lawrence, the British soldier who gained fame as "Lawrence of Arabia," was born in Tremadoc, Wales.
1913 - Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was born in Brest-Litovsk in present-day Belarus.
1956 - Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1960 - Cyprus, the third-largest island in the Mediterranean, became an independent republic.
1962 - The Beatles fired their original drummer, Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr.
1962 - Algeria was admitted to the Arab League.
1977 - Elvis Presley died at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee at age 42 from heart failure.
1978 - James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol Hill hearing he did not commit the crime, saying he’d been set up by a mysterious man called “Raoul.”
1987 - Thousands of people worldwide began a two-day celebration of the "harmonic convergence," which believers called the start of a new, purer age of humankind.
1987 - Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed while trying to take off from Detroit; 156 people were killed in the crash with four-year-old Cecilia Cichan being the sole survivor.
1988 - Vice President George H.W. Bush tapped Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle to be his running mate on the Republican ticket.
1991 - Pope John Paul II began the first-ever papal visit to Hungary.
2000 - Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominated Vice President Al Gore for president.
2002 - Terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal was found shot to death in Baghdad, Iraq.
2003 - Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin died in Saudi Arabia.
2007 - Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held for 3-1/2 years as an enemy combatant, was convicted in Miami of helping Islamic extremists and plotting overseas attacks. (He was sentenced to 17 years, four months in prison.)
2008 - Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi were married at their Beverly Hills, California, home.
2010 - China eclipsed Japan as the world's second biggest economy after three decades of blistering growth.
2014 - Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, where police and protesters repeatedly clashed in the week since a Black teenager was shot to death by a white police officer.
2016 - Political commentator and TV host John McLaughlin died in Washington, D.C. at age 89.
2018 - Aretha Franklin, the undisputed "Queen of Soul," died of pancreatic cancer at age 76.
2020 - A riot was declared in Oregon’s biggest city as protesters demonstrated again outside a law enforcement building in Portland; officers used crowd control munitions to disperse protesters who they said had thrown rocks, glass bottles and other objects at officers.
2020 - California's Death Valley area recorded a temperature of 130 degrees amid a blistering heat wave, the third-highest temperature ever measured.
Birthdays
24 - Greyson Chance (singer)
24 - Piper Curda (actress)
24 - Tilly Keeper (actress)
28 - Cameron Monaghan (actor)
30 - Evanna Lynch (actress)
33 - Parker Young (actor)
33 - Rumer Willis (actress)
33 - Kevin G. Schmidt (actor)
34 - Dan Smyers (country singer)
35 - Collin Cassady (professional wrestler)
35 - Ashton Shepherd (country singer)
36 - Cristin Milioti (actress)
36 - Arden Cho (actress)
36 - Agnes Bruckner (actress)
39 - Cam Gigandet (actor)
41 - Vanessa Carlton (singer)
46 - George Stults (actor)
49 - Emily Robison (country singer)
51 - Seth Peterson (actor)
52 - Jase Robertson (reality star)
53 - Andy Milder (actor)
54 - Donovan Leitch (actor/singer)
59 - Steve Carell (actor)
61 - Timothy Hutton (actor)
63 - Angela Bassett (actress)
63 - Madonna (singer)
64 - Laura Innes (actress)
66 - Jeff Perry (actor)
67 - James Cameron (director)
68 - J.T. Taylor (singer)
68 - Kathie Lee Gifford (TV host)
69 - Reginald VelJohnson (actor)
71 - Marshall Manesh (actor)
75 - Lesley Ann Warren (actress)
76 - Bob Balaban (actor)
85 - Anita Gillette (actress)
86 - Bill Glass (football player)
87 - John Standing (actor)
87 - Ketty Lester (actress/singer)
88 - Julie Newmar (actress)
88 - Gary Clarke (actor)
93 - Ann Blyth (actress)
=====================================
Today in Sports History - August 16
1920 - The only fatality to occur in a major league baseball game happened. Ray Chapman (Cleveland Indians) was hit in the head with a fastball from Carl Mays of the New York Yankees.
1948 - Baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York City at age 53.
1954 - Sports Illustrated was first published by Time Inc.
1965 - The AFL announced their ninth franchise, the Miami Dolphins.
1977 - A judge in New York ruled that Renee Richards, a transgender woman, had the right to compete in the U.S. Open without having to pass a sex chromosome test. (In the opening round of the Open, Richards lost to Virginia Wade in straight sets, 6-1, 6-4.)
1996 - In Monterrey, Mexico, the New York Mets played the San Diego Padres. The Padres won the game 15-10. It was the first-ever regular season major league game to be played outside the United States and Canada.
2002 - The major league baseball players union announced that they would begin a strike on August 30th.
2002 - Curt Shilling (Arizona Diamondbacks) won his 20th game of the year.
2003 - Jimmy Smith (Jacksonville Jaguars) was suspended four games by the NFL for violating the league's substance abuse policy.
2008 - Michael Phelps won the 100-meter butterfly by a hundredth of a second for his seventh gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, tying Mark Spitz's 1972 record.
2008 - Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt sets a new world record in the men's 100 meter dash, winning the gold medal in a time of 9.69 seconds, breaking his own record of 9.72 set earlier in the year.
2009 - Usain Bolt breaks his own world record in the 100-meter dash at the World Track & Field Championships in Berlin with a time of 9.58 seconds.
2016 - Simone Biles captured her fourth gold of the Rio Games with an electric performance in the floor exercise.
2018 - International Tennis Federation votes to change format of the Davis Cup to a big prize money, season-ending, 18-team tournament at a neutral site; 24 team qualifying tournament to start in February 2019.
1777 - The Revolutionary War Battle of Bennington (Vermont) was won by American forces in what was considered a turning point in the war.
1812 - Detroit fell to British and Native American forces in the War of 1812.
1829 - The original Siamese twins, Eng and Chang, arrived in Boston.
1858 - A telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable.
1861 - President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 86, which prohibited the states of the Union from engaging in commercial trade with states that were in rebellion.
1888 - T.E. Lawrence, the British soldier who gained fame as "Lawrence of Arabia," was born in Tremadoc, Wales.
1913 - Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was born in Brest-Litovsk in present-day Belarus.
1956 - Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1960 - Cyprus, the third-largest island in the Mediterranean, became an independent republic.
1962 - The Beatles fired their original drummer, Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr.
1962 - Algeria was admitted to the Arab League.
1977 - Elvis Presley died at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee at age 42 from heart failure.
1978 - James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol Hill hearing he did not commit the crime, saying he’d been set up by a mysterious man called “Raoul.”
1987 - Thousands of people worldwide began a two-day celebration of the "harmonic convergence," which believers called the start of a new, purer age of humankind.
1987 - Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed while trying to take off from Detroit; 156 people were killed in the crash with four-year-old Cecilia Cichan being the sole survivor.
1988 - Vice President George H.W. Bush tapped Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle to be his running mate on the Republican ticket.
1991 - Pope John Paul II began the first-ever papal visit to Hungary.
2000 - Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominated Vice President Al Gore for president.
2002 - Terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal was found shot to death in Baghdad, Iraq.
2003 - Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin died in Saudi Arabia.
2007 - Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held for 3-1/2 years as an enemy combatant, was convicted in Miami of helping Islamic extremists and plotting overseas attacks. (He was sentenced to 17 years, four months in prison.)
2008 - Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi were married at their Beverly Hills, California, home.
2010 - China eclipsed Japan as the world's second biggest economy after three decades of blistering growth.
2014 - Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, where police and protesters repeatedly clashed in the week since a Black teenager was shot to death by a white police officer.
2016 - Political commentator and TV host John McLaughlin died in Washington, D.C. at age 89.
2018 - Aretha Franklin, the undisputed "Queen of Soul," died of pancreatic cancer at age 76.
2020 - A riot was declared in Oregon’s biggest city as protesters demonstrated again outside a law enforcement building in Portland; officers used crowd control munitions to disperse protesters who they said had thrown rocks, glass bottles and other objects at officers.
2020 - California's Death Valley area recorded a temperature of 130 degrees amid a blistering heat wave, the third-highest temperature ever measured.
Birthdays
24 - Greyson Chance (singer)
24 - Piper Curda (actress)
24 - Tilly Keeper (actress)
28 - Cameron Monaghan (actor)
30 - Evanna Lynch (actress)
33 - Parker Young (actor)
33 - Rumer Willis (actress)
33 - Kevin G. Schmidt (actor)
34 - Dan Smyers (country singer)
35 - Collin Cassady (professional wrestler)
35 - Ashton Shepherd (country singer)
36 - Cristin Milioti (actress)
36 - Arden Cho (actress)
36 - Agnes Bruckner (actress)
39 - Cam Gigandet (actor)
41 - Vanessa Carlton (singer)
46 - George Stults (actor)
49 - Emily Robison (country singer)
51 - Seth Peterson (actor)
52 - Jase Robertson (reality star)
53 - Andy Milder (actor)
54 - Donovan Leitch (actor/singer)
59 - Steve Carell (actor)
61 - Timothy Hutton (actor)
63 - Angela Bassett (actress)
63 - Madonna (singer)
64 - Laura Innes (actress)
66 - Jeff Perry (actor)
67 - James Cameron (director)
68 - J.T. Taylor (singer)
68 - Kathie Lee Gifford (TV host)
69 - Reginald VelJohnson (actor)
71 - Marshall Manesh (actor)
75 - Lesley Ann Warren (actress)
76 - Bob Balaban (actor)
85 - Anita Gillette (actress)
86 - Bill Glass (football player)
87 - John Standing (actor)
87 - Ketty Lester (actress/singer)
88 - Julie Newmar (actress)
88 - Gary Clarke (actor)
93 - Ann Blyth (actress)
=====================================
Today in Sports History - August 16
1920 - The only fatality to occur in a major league baseball game happened. Ray Chapman (Cleveland Indians) was hit in the head with a fastball from Carl Mays of the New York Yankees.
1948 - Baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York City at age 53.
1954 - Sports Illustrated was first published by Time Inc.
1965 - The AFL announced their ninth franchise, the Miami Dolphins.
1977 - A judge in New York ruled that Renee Richards, a transgender woman, had the right to compete in the U.S. Open without having to pass a sex chromosome test. (In the opening round of the Open, Richards lost to Virginia Wade in straight sets, 6-1, 6-4.)
1996 - In Monterrey, Mexico, the New York Mets played the San Diego Padres. The Padres won the game 15-10. It was the first-ever regular season major league game to be played outside the United States and Canada.
2002 - The major league baseball players union announced that they would begin a strike on August 30th.
2002 - Curt Shilling (Arizona Diamondbacks) won his 20th game of the year.
2003 - Jimmy Smith (Jacksonville Jaguars) was suspended four games by the NFL for violating the league's substance abuse policy.
2008 - Michael Phelps won the 100-meter butterfly by a hundredth of a second for his seventh gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, tying Mark Spitz's 1972 record.
2008 - Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt sets a new world record in the men's 100 meter dash, winning the gold medal in a time of 9.69 seconds, breaking his own record of 9.72 set earlier in the year.
2009 - Usain Bolt breaks his own world record in the 100-meter dash at the World Track & Field Championships in Berlin with a time of 9.58 seconds.
2016 - Simone Biles captured her fourth gold of the Rio Games with an electric performance in the floor exercise.
2018 - International Tennis Federation votes to change format of the Davis Cup to a big prize money, season-ending, 18-team tournament at a neutral site; 24 team qualifying tournament to start in February 2019.
