May is the fifth month of the year in our modern-day Gregorian calendar. In older versions of the ancient Roman calendar, May was the third month of the year. It became the fifth month when January and February were added to the calendar.
According to Gregory calendar, the day number 365 in a year and if it is a leap year then the day number is 366. May 16 has its own special significance in India and world history.
There are 31 days in May and it does not start or end on the same day of the week as any other month.
May’s birth flower is the Lily of the Valley and the Crataegus monogyna.
Here you will find some important events that happened today in Indian and world History on May 16. Read on to know more about this day.
List of Important Historical events of 16 May:
- 1606: Two thousand foreign nationals killed in Russia.
- 1747: Prince William V sworn in as Admiral-General of the Netherlands.
- 1770: Marie Antoinette married Louis-Auguste (who later became King Louis XVI of France).
- 1795: Hedges Treaty: The Republic of Batafs became a French state.
- 1812: Russian Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, signed the Treaty of Bucharest which resulted in the Russo-Turkish War (1806-12) and Bessarabia was annexed to Imperial Russia.
- 1817: Steamboat service begins on the Mississippi River.
- 1862: Jean Joseph Atenei Lenoir designed the first automobile.
- 1869: The Cincinnati Reds win their first baseball game 41-7.
- 1872: Metropolitan Gas Company lamp first lit.
- 1875: 16,000 people died in Venezuela and Colombia by earthquakes.
- 1877: 1877 Political crisis started in France.
- 1920: A referendum joins the League of Nations of Switzerland.
- 1929: The prestigious Academy Awards, known as the Oscar Awards worldwide, began in the presence of just 270 people at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.
- 1948: Chem Vizamen elected as Israel’s first president.
- 1960: Telex service launched between India and England.
- 1975: Sikkim became the 22nd state of the country.
- 1991: Queen Elizabeth became the first British empress to address the Second US Congress.
- 1996: Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the tenth Prime Minister of India.
- 1997: US President Bill Clinton issued a formal apology to the surviving victims of the Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in Negro men and their families.
- 2006: 47-year-old Mark Inglis of New Zealand became the first climber to hoist the flag on the top of Everest using artificial legs.
- 2007: Nicolas Sarkozy becomes the 23rd President of France.
- 2007: Nicolas Sarkozy becomes the 23rd President of France.
- 2011: Space Shuttle Endeavor launches a final commission ICT from space.
- 2014: The Bharatiya Janata Party got an absolute majority in the 16th Lok Sabha election. The Bharatiya Janata Party emerged as the single largest party in the 16th Lok Sabha election with 282 seats.