This is a list of selected May 16 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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F-104 Starfighter -
Theodore Maiman with his laser -
Flag of Sikkim, prior to its 1975 annexation with India -
Three-phase generator at the Lauffen power station -
Reenactment of a covered wagon on the Oregon Trail -
Animatronic Chuck E. Cheese -
Park Chung-hee (center) -
Triton Fountain -
Shield nickel -
Flag of Sikkim, prior to its 1975 annexation by India
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Teachers' Day in Malaysia | refimprove |
| 1204 – Fourth Crusade: Count Baldwin IX of Flanders was crowned the first Latin Emperor in Constantinople. | refimprove |
| 1527 – The Medici were driven from Florence and a republic was re-established. | refimprove |
| 1532 – Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor of England. | saved for July 6 |
| 1771 – The Battle of Alamance—the final battle of the War of the Regulation, a rebellion in colonial North Carolina over issues of taxation and local control—was fought. | unreferenced section |
| 1843 – The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest set out on the Oregon Trail with more than a hundred pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri. | refimprove section |
| 1866 – Root beer was first prepared commercially by American pharmacist Charles Elmer Hires. | refimprove, date not in article |
| 1877 – French President Patrice de Mac-Mahon dismissed Jules Simon and installed Albert, Duc de Broglie as prime minister, triggering a political crisis in the French Third Republic. | refimprove |
| 1891 – The International Electrotechnical Exhibition opened in Frankfurt, Germany, featuring the world's first long distance transmission of three-phase electric power from the generator 175 km (109 mi) away at Lauffen am Neckar. | needs more footnotes |
| 1916 – The United Kingdom and France signed the Sykes–Picot Agreement, a secret agreement considered to have shaped the Middle East, defining the borders of Iraq and Syria. | refimprove sections |
| 1966 – Chinese leader Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution officially as a campaign to rid China of its liberal bourgeois elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle. | lots of CN tags (11) |
| 1988 – A report by United States Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine. | fact not in article; no article exists for the report |
| 2003 – In the deadliest terrorist attack in Morocco's history, a series of suicide bombings in Casablanca killed 33 civilians and 12 out of the 14 bombers. | refimprove |
| Maria Gaetana Agnesi |b|1718| | Dtae not cited |
Eligible
- 1811 – Peninsular War: Allied British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces clashed with French troops at the Battle of Albuera fought south of Badajoz, Spain.
- 1832 – Prospector Juan Godoy discovered a silver outcrop in Chañarcillo, sparking the Chilean silver rush.
- 1866 – The United States Congress authorized the minting of the Shield nickel (example pictured), the country's first five-cent piece to be made of a copper–nickel alloy.
- 1918 – The Sedition Act was passed in the United States, forbidding Americans from using "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the government, flag, or armed forces during the ongoing World War I.
- 1925 – The first modern performance of Claudio Monteverdi's opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria occurred in Paris.
- 1943 – Second World War: The Royal Air Force's "Dambusters" squadron embarked on an attack on German dams using bouncing bombs designed by Barnes Wallis.
- 1958 – The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, a supersonic interceptor aircraft, set a world flight airspeed record of 1,404.012 mph (2,259.538 km/h).
- 1959 – The Tritons' Fountain in Valletta, one of Malta's most important Modernist landmarks, was turned on for the first time.
- 1960 – American physicist Theodore Maiman operated the first working laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu.
- 1961 – Led by Park Chung-hee, the Military Revolution Committee carried out a bloodless coup against the government of Yun Posun in Seoul, ending the Second Republic of Korea.
- 1975 – Based on the results of a referendum held about one month earlier, the Kingdom of Sikkim (flag pictured) abolished its monarchy and was annexed to become the 22nd state of India.
- 1977 – The first Chuck E. Cheese location, the first family restaurant to integrate food, animated entertainment (example pictured), and an indoor arcade, opened in San Jose, California.
- 2014 – At least 12 people were killed and 70 others injured when two bombs exploded in a market in Nairobi, Kenya.
- Born/died: | John Komnenos Vatatzes |d|1182| Liu Bowen |d|1375| Andrew Bobola |d|1657| Horace Hutchinson |b|1859|Margaret Fountaine |b|1862| Pierre Gilliard |b|1879| Henri-Edmond Cross |d|1910| Margaret Ursula Jones |b|1916| Margaret Ursula Jones |b|1916| Nancy Roman |b|1925| Janet Jackson |b|1966| Tucker Carlson |b|1969| Anna Costanza Baldry |b|1970|
Notes
- Alison Hargreaves appears on May 14, so Junko Tabei should not appear in the same year
May 16: Global Accessibility Awareness Day (2024)
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Junko Tabei
- 1426 – Mohnyin Thado captured Sagaing to become the king of Ava, in present-day Myanmar.
- 1605 – After a scuffle in which one cardinal received broken bones, a papal conclave convened in Rome elected Camillo Borghese as Pope Paul V.
- 1929 – The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
- 1975 – Japanese climber Junko Tabei (pictured) became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- Pietro da Cortona (d. 1669)
- William H. Seward (b. 1801)
- Amanda Asay (b. 1988)