Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July 16
This is a list of selected July 16 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Impact site of Shoemaker-Levy 9's fragment G on Jupiter's cloud-tops -
Comet Shoemaker-Levy after breaking up under the influence of Jupiter's tidal forces -
"Trinity", the first nuclear test explosion -
"Trinity", the first nuclear test explosion -
John F. Kennedy Jr. -
Millennium Park -
Portrait of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, by Pierre-Joseph Lion -
The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine marked on a 1991 USSR postage stamp -
David Farragut
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 622 – The epoch of the Islamic calendar occurred, marking the year that Muhammad began his Hijra from Mecca to Medina. | refimprove section |
| 1779 – American Revolutionary War: A select force of Continental Army infantry made a surprise night attack and captured a fortified position of the British Army on the Hudson River south of West Point, New York. | refimprove section |
| 1862 – David Farragut became the first person to be promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the United States Navy. | refimprove section |
| 1979 – Saddam Hussein replaced the resigning Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as President of Iraq, after having gradually usurped power from his cousin. | refimprove section |
| 1981 – Mahathir Mohamad was sworn in as Malaysia's fourth prime minister, a post which he held for 22 years, making him the country's longest-serving one. | refimprove section |
| 1990 – The parliament of Ukrainian SSR adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine. | stub |
| 1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette were killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. | refimprove section |
| 2001 – Russia and the People's Republic of China signed the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, a twenty-year strategic treaty. | no footnotes |
| 2013 – At least 23 students died and dozens more fell ill at a primary school in the village of Dharmashati Gandaman in the Saran district of the Indian state of Bihar after eating a Midday Meal contaminated with pesticide. | outdated |
Eligible
- 1790 – U.S. President George Washington signed the Residence Act, selecting a new permanent site along the Potomac River for the capital of the United States, which later became Washington, D.C.
- 1945 – Manhattan Project: "Trinity", the first nuclear test explosion, was carried out near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
- 1950 – Korean War: A Korean People's Army unit massacred twenty-one U.S. Army prisoners of war.
- 1951 – The Catcher in the Rye, an American coming-of-age novel by J. D. Salinger, was first published.
- 1965 – South Vietnamese Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo—an undetected communist spy—was hunted down and killed after being sentenced to death in absentia for a February 1965 coup attempt against Nguyễn Khánh.
- 1990 – A 7.8 MS earthquake struck the densely populated Philippine island of Luzon, killing an estimated 1,621 people.
- 1994 – Fragments of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 began hitting the planet Jupiter, with the first one causing a fireball which reached a peak temperature of about 24,000 K.
- 2004 – Chicago's Millennium Park, currently the world's largest rooftop garden, opened.
- 2008 – Sixteen infants in Gansu Province, China, were diagnosed with kidney stones due to tainted milk powder; overall 300,000 infants were affected.
- Born/died: Mildred Lewis Rutherford (b. 1851) · Ellen G. White (d. 1915) ·
July 16: Feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Roman Catholic Church)
- 1769 – Spanish friar Junípero Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá (pictured), the first Franciscan mission in the Alta California region of New Spain.
- 1782 – Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail made its premiere, after which Emperor Joseph II anecdotally made the comment that it had "too many notes".
- 1931 – Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie signed the nation's first constitution, intended to officially replace the Fetha Nagast, which had been the supreme law since the Middle Ages.
- 1983 – A British Airways Sikorsky S-61 helicopter crashed in the Celtic Sea in thick fog, killing 20 of the 26 on board, and sparking a review of helicopter safety in the United Kingdom.
- 2007 – A magnitude 6.6 MW earthquake struck Niigata Prefecture, Japan, causing a leak of radioactive gases from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.
Fulrad (d. 784) · Anna Vyrubova (b. 1884) · Assata Shakur (b. 1947)