History of the Day for:
December 16
- 1431: King Henry VI of England was crowned king of France.
- 1653: Oliver Cromwell, leader of the Parliamentary side in the English civil war, was declared Lord Protector of England.
- 1770: Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany.
- 1773: The Boston Tea Party took place off Griffin's Wharf, a protest against Britain's taxation of colonists in Massachusetts.
- 1775: English novelist Jane Austen was born.
- 1809: Napoleon Bonaparte was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.
- 1905: The entertainment trade publication "Variety" came out with its first weekly issue.
- 1907: Eugene H. Farrar became the first singer to broadcast on radio. He sang from the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York.
- 1912: The first postage stamp to depict an airplane was issued. It was a 20-cent parcel post stamp.
- 1913: Charlie Chaplin began his film career at Keystone for $150 a week.
- 1915: Albert Einstein published his "General Theory of Relativity."
- 1916: Gregory Rasputin, the monk who had wielded powerful influence over the Russian court, was murdered by a group of noblemen.
- 1920: One of the deadliest earthquakes in history occurred in Gansu province, China. Estimated at over 8 points on the Richter scale, it killed 180,000 people.
- 1944: German forces launched the Battle of the Bulge when they broke through the allied lines in the rugged Ardennes region, taking U.S. troops by surprise.
- 1953: The first White House Press Conference was held with President Eisenhower and is attended by 161 reporters.
- 1962: David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" premiered.
- 1966: Jimi Hendrix Experience released its first single, "Hey Joe," in the U.K.
- 1969: The British House of Commons voted 343-185 to approve the permanent abolition of the death penalty.
- 1971: Don McLean's eight-minute-plus version of "American Pie" was released and became one of the longest songs to ever hit the pop charts.
- 1979: Quarterback Roger Staubach played in his last regular season game with the Dallas Cowboys.
- 1983: A spokesperson for The Who announced that the group was disbanding.
- 1988: Political cult leader Lyndon LaRouche was convicted of tax and mail fraud.
- 1990: Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti in the country's first democratic elections.
- 1991: United Nations General Assembly: UN General Assembly Resolution 4686 revokes UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 after Israel makes revocation of resolution 3379 a condition of its participation in the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991.
- 1991: Independence of The Republic of Kazakhstan.
- 1998: Iraq disarmament crisis: Operation Desert Fox – The United States and United Kingdom bomb targets in Iraq.
- 2007: Ron Paul raises a record amount of money online in a single day "money bomb": over six million dollars in 24 hours.