On this day in History - Dec. 16

• 0882 - John VIII, Italian Pope (872-82), dies
• 1392 -- Emperor Go-Kameyama of Japan abdicates in favor of rival claimant Go-Komatsu, ending the nanboku-cho period of competing imperial courts.
• 1431 - King Henry VI of England crowned King of France.
• 1485 - Catherine of Aragon, was born. Queen of England (d. 1536)
• 1515 - Afonso de Albuquerque dies, Portuguese naval general (at sea) (b. 1453)
• 1600 - Henri IV épouse Marie de Médicis.
• 1631 - Mount Vesuvius, Italy erupts, destroys 6 villages & kills 4,000.
• 1653 - Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.
• 1672 - John II Casimir Vasa, Cardinal / King of Poland (1648-68), dies at 63
• 1689 - The English Parliament adopts the Bill of Rights.
• 1770 - Ludwig van Beethoven, was born in Bonn [he was baptized on 17 December 1770, and it is presumed he was born on 16 December]. (d. 1827); German Composer, he is universally recognized as one of the greatest composers of the Western European music.
• 1773 - The Boston Tea Party took place.
• 1774 - François Quesnay, French personal Physician of Louis XIV, dies at 80
• 1775 - Jane Austen was born , novelist (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice , Emma)
• 1776 - Johann Wilhelm Ritter, physicist (d. 1810)
• 1790 - King Leopold I of Belgium (d. 1865)
• 1809 - Napoleon Bonaparte divorces Empress Josephine by French Senate
• 1811 - The first of a series of severe earthquakes occurs, in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri in the United States.
• 1815 - Criação do Reino Unido de Portugal, Brasil e Algarves, pelo príncipe regente D. João, futuro D. João VI.
• 1824 - Great North Holland Canal opens.
• 1835 - Fire consumes over 600 buildings in NYC .
• 1838 - Boers defeat Zulu troops at Battle of Blood River, led by Dambuza and Nhlela, celebrated in South Africa as the day of the vow.
• 1850 - The first four ships arrive at Lyttelton to settle Christchurch, New Zealand.
• 1864 - Union troops led by general George Thomas defeat Confederate troops in the Battle of Nashville.
• 1865 - Olavo Bilac, was born, Brazilien poet (d. 1918).
• 1866 - Wassily Kandinsky, was born, Russian painter.
• 1884 - Great Britain recognizes King Leopold II's Congo Free State.
• 1888 - King Alexander of Yugoslavia was born (d. 1934)
• 1893 - World premiere of Antonin Dvorak's "New World Symphony".
• 1901 - Margaret Mead, was born in Philadelphia, she would become an anthropologist, author, lecturer.
• 1904 -Edward Morris Bernstein, was born, economist .
• 1906 - Leonid Brezhnev, was born (Russian leader of the Communist Party) .
• 1910 - Henri Coanda makes first short flight in aircraft with jet engine.
• 1915 - Albert Einstein publishes his "General Theory of Relativity"
• 1916 - Grigori Rasputin assassinated by a group of noble Russian conspirators.
• 1917 - Sir Arthur C. Clarke, was born, science fiction writer (2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010, Childhood's End) .
• 1920 - One of the deadliest earthquakes in history hit the Gansu province in China. The 8.6 quake killed 200,000 people.
• 1922 - Poland's President Gabriel Narutowicz assassinated.
• 1929 - Chic Blackhawks 1st game at Chicago Stadium, beat Pitts Pirates, 3-1
• 1932 - Heavy earthquake ravages Kansu China, 70,000 killed
• 1938 - Liv Ullmann, was born, actress
• 1944 - The Battle of the Bulge begins. A V-2 rocket hits the Rex Cinema in Antwerp killing 567 people.
• 1946 - Léon Blum becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1949 -Traitsjo Kostov, Bulgarian communist vice-premier, executed
• 1949 -Sukarno becomes President Indonesia, Mokammed Hatta Premier
• 1949 - Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung is received at the Kremlin in Moscow.
• 1949 - Future SAAB makes its first car . A Swedish company by the name of Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget produced its first motorcar.
• 1956 - UN troops occupy Port Said, Suez Canal Zone, following the abortive Tripartite Invasion.
• 1958 - Bogotá warehouse fire kills 82.
• 1960 - A United Airlines DC-8 and a TWA Super-Constellation collide over New York City killing 134.
• 1962 - David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" premieres.
• 1962 - Nepal gets constitution / becomes Constitutional Hindu Monarchy.
• 1963 - A general amnesty is announced for Mau Mau forest fighters in Kenya.
• 1964 - Heike Drechsler, was born, track and field athlete.
• 1965 - W. Somerset Maugham, English playwright, novelist and short story writer dies (b. 1874) 1966 - Mao's Little Red Book is published in Beijing.
• 1969 - O Parlamento britânico aboliu a pena de morte.
• 1970 - 1st successful landing on Venus (USSR).
• 1971 - Don McLean's 8+ minute version of "American Pie" released
• 1 971 - Pakistan surrenders, leading to the establishment of Bangladesh the following day.
• 1973 - O.J. Simpson becomes the first player in NFL history to rush for 2000 yards in one season.
• 1979 - Nicole Werra, Miss Wisconsin Teen USA (1996).
• 1985 - In New York City, mafia bosses Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti are shot dead when exiting from Sparks Steak House, making hit organizer John Gotti the leader of the powerful Gambino organized crime family.
• 1987 - Roh Tae Woo wins Presidential Election in South Korea
• 1989 - The Romanian Revolution began in the city of Timişoara as a protest against an attempt by the government to evict a dissident Methodist priest, László Tőkés.
• 1989 - Lee Van Cleef, US actor (Good, Bad & Ugly), dies at 64
• 1989 - Silvana Mangano, Italian actress (Death in Venice), dies.
• 1990 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide elected president of Haiti .
• 1991 - United Nations reverses ruling that Zionism is racism by 111-25, with 13 abstentions.
• 1996 - Former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan, condemned to death for a 1979 coup and a deadly military crackdown, had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
• 1998 - Operation Desert Fox: American and British troops begin to bomb Iraqi targets after Iraq obstructs UN weapons inspectors.
• 1999 - Mud streams kill thousands in Venezuela.
• 2000 - NASA announces that there is an ocean beneath Jupiter moon Ganymede's icy surface.
• 2000 - Colin Powell selected to become the first African-American secretary of state.
• 2001 - Yakoub Dakidak, senior Hamas military wing activist, killed after nightfall by Israeli troops which had entered Palestiniain Hebron, who say that he was fleeing arrest
• 2002 - Le Canada devient le 99e pays à signer le protocole de Kyoto.
• 2003 - Deborah Jin induces the formation of a fermionic condensate among fermionic atoms.