Happy 37th anniversary, Benney and Linda!
May 16 is Love a Tree Day
National Sea Monkey Day
Wear Purple for Peace Day
National Barbecue Day
1568 – Mary Queen of Scotland fled to England.
1771 – The Battle of Alamance, a pre-American Revolutionary War battle between local militia and a group of rebels called “The Regulators”, occurs in present-day Alamance County, North Carolina.
Birthday of William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801), American statesman, secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln; negotiator of the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. The U.S. got 586,412 square miles. The Russians were paid $7.2 million, about 2 cents an acre.
1817 – Mississippi River steamboat service begins.
Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir built first automobile in 1862. He was a Belgian engineer who developed the internal combustion engine in 1858.
Charles Elmer Hires invented root beer in 1866.
In 1866, Congress authorized the nickel 5 cent piece to replace the silver half-dime.
By one vote, Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson in 1868.
The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress, making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense.
1927 – Supreme Court ruled bootleggers must pay income tax.
Food stamps are first issued on May 16, 1939.
The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between John F Kennedy International Airport in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London, operated by El Al Israel Airlines in 1951.
First class postage cost increased to 8 cents in 1971 (was 6 cents)
May 16, 1987 – Wedding of the two creators of this website! Happy anniversary, Benney and Linda!
May 16, 1988, Surgeon General C Everett Koop reports that nicotine as addictive as heroin.
1988 – US Supreme Court rules trash may be searched without a warrant.
Queen Elizabeth became first British monarch to address US Congress on May 16, 1991.
1992 – US space shuttle STS-49 lands (maiden voyage of Endeavour). It launched its final commission on this date in 2011.
2004 – The Day of Mourning at Bykivnia forest, just outside of Kiev, Ukraine. Here during 1930s and early 1940s communist bolsheviks executed over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians.
2013 – Human stem cells are successfully cloned.