History of the Day for:
April 16
- 1789: President-elect George Washington began an eight-day trip from his home in Mount Vernon, Va., to New York for his inauguration.
- 1862: The District of Columbia approved a bill ending slavery.
- 1900: The U.S. Post Office issued the first books of postage stamps.
- 1905: Andrew Carnegie set up the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
- 1912: Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly a plane across the English Channel.
- 1917: After years in exile, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin returned to Russia and began the Bolshevik Revolution.
- 1926: The Book-of-the-Month Club in New York City chose as its first selection, "Lolly Willowes" or "The Loving Huntsman" by Sylvia Townsend.
- 1935: The radio comedy program "Fibber McGee and Molly" premiered.
- 1940: The first no-hit, no-run game ever thrown on Opening Day was earned by Bob Feller, when the Cleveland Indians blanked the Chicago White Sox, 1-0.
- 1941: World War II: The Italian convoy Duisburg, directed to Tunisia, is attacked and destroyed by British ships.
- 1943: Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychedelic effects of LSD.
- 1945: In his first speech to Congress, President Truman pledged to carry out the war and peace policies of his late predecessor, President Roosevelt.
- 1945: In World War II, U.S. troops reached Nuremberg, Germany.
- 1945: The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin.
- 1945: The United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager (high security) Prisoner of War camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz).
- 1945: More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine torpedo.
- 1946: Syria gains independence.
- 1947: A series of fires and explosions in Texas City, Texas, caused by a French freighter that blew up in the harbor, killed at least 500.
- 1962: Walter Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of "The CBS Evening News."
- 1972: "Apollo 16" launched on a voyage to the moon.
- 1987: British Conservative MP Harvey Proctor appears at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in London charged with gross indecency.
- 1990: The "Doctor of Death", Jack Kevorkian, goes through with his first assisted suicide.
- 1992: The Katina P. runs aground off of Maputo, Mozambique. 60,000 tons of crude oil spill into the ocean.
- 2003: The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union.
- 2004: The super liner Queen Mary 2 embarks on her first trans-Atlantic crossing, linking the golden age of ocean travel to the modern age of ocean travel.
- 2007: Virginia Tech massacre: The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. The gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, shoots 32 people to death and injures 23 others before committing suicide.
- 2008: Democratic senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois participate in a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The ABC-sponsored event is the final Democratic primary debate of 2008, and takes place the eve of Clinton's victories in Texas and Ohio before her eventual concession on June 7th.