History of 16 June
1903 – Ford Motor Company was incorporated.
1904 – The novel “Ulysses” by James Joyce took place. The main character of the book was Leopold Bloom.
1907 – The Russian czar dissolved the Duma in St. Petersburg.
1909 – Glenn Hammond Curtiss sold his first airplane, the “Gold Bug” to the New York Aeronautical Society for $5,000.
1922 – Henry Berliner accomplished the first helicopter flight at College Park, MD.
1925 – France accepted a German proposal for a security pact.
1932 – The ban on Nazi storm troopers was lifted by the von Papen government in Germany.
1940 – Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain became the prime minister of the Vichy government of occupied France.
1941 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the closure of all German consulates in the United States. The deadline was set as July 10.
1952 – “My Little Margie” debuted on CBS-TV.
1952 – “Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl” was published in the United States.
1955 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend Selective Service until 1959.
1955 – Pope Pius XII excommunicated Argentine President Juan Peron. The ban was lifted eight years later.
1955 – Argentine naval officers launched an attack on President Juan Peron’s headquarters. The revolt was suppressed by the army.
1961 – Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union while in Paris, traveling with the Leningrad Kirov Ballet.
1963 – 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova went into orbit aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft for three days. She was the first female space traveler.
1972 – Ulrike Meinhof was captured by West German police in Hanover. She was the co-founder of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group and the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion).
1975 – The Simonstown agreement on naval cooperation between Britain and South Africa ended. The agreement was formally ended by mutual agreement after 169 years.
1976 – In Soweto, thousands of school children revolted against the South African government’s plan to enforce Afrikaans as the language for instruction in black schools.
1977 – Leonid Brezhnev was named the first Soviet president of the USSR. He was the first person to hold the post of president and Communist Party General Secretary. He replaced Nikolai Podgorny.
1978 – U.S. President Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos ratified the Panama Canal treaties.
1978 – The film adaptation of “Grease” premiered in New York City.
1980 – The movie “The Blues Brothers” opened in Chicago, IL.
1981 – The “Chicago Tribune” purchased the Chicago Cubs baseball team from the P.K. Wrigley Chewing Gum Company for $20.5 million.
1983 – Yuri Andropov was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The position was the equivalent of the president.
1984 – Wilson Ferreira Aldunate was arrested upon his return from an eleven-year exile. Aldunate had been a popular Uruguayan opposition leader.
1985 – Willie Banks broke the world record for the triple jump with a leap of 58 feet, 11-1/2 inches in the U.S.A. championships in Indianapolis, IN.
1992 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush welcomed Russian President Boris Yeltsin to a meeting in Washington, DC. The two agreed in principle to reduce strategic weapon arsenals by about two-thirds by the year 2003.
1993 – The U.S. Postal Service released a set of seven stamps that featured Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Clyde McPhatter, Otis Redding, Ritchie Valens, Dinah Washington, and Elvis Presley.
1996 – Russian voters had their first independent presidential election. Boris Yeltsin was the winner after a run-off.
1999 – The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that a 1992 federal music piracy law does not prohibit a palm-sized device that can download high-quality digital music files from the Internet and play them at home.
2000 – U.S. federal regulators approved the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE Corp. The merger created the nation’s largest local phone company.
2000 – U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson reported that an employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico had discovered that two computer hard drives were missing.
2008 – California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Benjamin Becker, a German tennis player
- 1981 – Kevin Bieksa, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1981 – Alexandre Giroux, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1981 – Ola Kvernberg, Norwegian violinist
- 1981 – Miguel Villalta, Peruvian footballer
- 1982 – May Andersen, Danish model, and actress
- 1982 – Missy Peregrym, Canadian model and actress
- 1983 – Armend Dallku, Albanian footballer
- 1984 – Rick Nash, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1984 – Dan Ryckert, American writer and entertainer
- 1984 – Steven Whittaker, Scottish footballer
- 1986 – Rodrigo Defendi, Brazilian footballer
- 1986 – Urby Emanuelson, Dutch footballer
- 1986 – Fernando Muslera, Uruguayan footballer
- 1987 – Diana DeGarmo, American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1987 – Per Ciljan Skjelbred, Norwegian footballer
- 1987 – Christian Tshimanga Kabeya, Belgian footballer
- 1988 – Keshia Chante, Canadian singer
- 1988 – Jermaine Gresham, American football player
- 1990 – John Newman, English musician, singer, songwriter and record producer
- 1991 – Joe McElderry, English singer-songwriter
- 1991 – Matt Moylan, Australian rugby league player
- 1992 – Vladimir Morozov, Russian swimmer
- 1993 – Park Bo-gum, South Korean actor
- 1993 – Gnash, American singer, songwriter, rapper, DJ and record producer
- 1994 – Grete-Lilijane Küppas, Estonian footballer
- 1994 – Rezar, Albanian professional wrestler
- 1995 – Euan Aitken, Australian rugby league player
- 1995 – Aleksandr Aksyonov, Russian footballer
- 1995 – Joseph Schooling, Singaporean swimmer
- 1995 – Akira Ioane, New Zealand Rugby Union player