THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― MAY 16

May 16 is the 136th day of the year (137th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 229 days remaining until the end of the year.

NATIONAL COLLOQUIES SAINT JACQUES DAY 

1204 ― Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople.


1532 ― Sir Thomas More resigns as English Lord Chancellor. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary ideal island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and beheaded.


1648 ― The Battle of Zhovti Vody:  The events took place about 20 miles north of Zhovti Vody, today on the border of Kirovohrad Oblast andDnipropetrovsk Oblast in south-central Ukraine when advance forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth army led by Stefan Potocki met a numerically superior force of Ukrainian Cossacks and Crimean Tatars under the command of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Tuhaj Bej. After the Registered Cossacks who were originally allied with the Commonwealth arrived and unexpectedly sided with Khmelnytsky, the Commonwealth forces were vanquished while attempting to retreat following an 18-day battle, only days before reinforcements were to arrive.


1763 ― Samuel Johnson first meets his future biographer James Boswell in London. Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single biographical work in the whole of literature," James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.

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.

1817 ― Mississippi River steamboat service begins.


1866 ― Charles Elmer Hires invents root beer.


1868 ― By one vote, the U.S. Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson on the 11th Article of Impeachment, high misdemeanor with respect to dismissing Secretary of War, William Stanton (did "unlawfully and in disregard of the requirements of the Constitution that he should take care that the laws be faithfully executed, attempt to prevent the execution of an act entitled, 'An act regulating the tenure of certain civil office...'").

1918 ― The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress, under President Woodrow Wilson during WWI, making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense. Specifically, it forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years.

1927 ― The U.S. Supreme Court ruled bootleggers must pay income tax.

1929 ― The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its first Academy Awards, at a dinner party for around 250 people held in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California.

1939 ― Food stamps are first issued (now called SNAP). One of FDR's final socialist programs that prolonged the Great Depression.

1951 ― The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between Idlewild Airport (New York International Airport) and Heathrow Airport (London), operated by El Al Israel Airlines.

1960 ― In the wake of the Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane on May 1, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev lashes out at the United States and President Dwight D. Eisenhower at a Paris summit meeting between the two heads of state. Khrushchev’s outburst angered Eisenhower and doomed any chances for successful talks or negotiations at the summit. 


1963 ― American astronaut, Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper, Jr., completes 22 orbits in Faith 7, ends NASA's Project Mercury program. The flight of Sigma 7 had been so nearly perfect that some at NASA thought America should quit while it was ahead and make MA-8 the last Mercury mission, and not risk the chance of future disaster. Manned Spacecraft Center officials, however, believed that the Mercury team should be given the chance to test man in space for a full day.

1965 ― The Campbell Soup Company introduces SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand.

1971 ― First class U.S. postage now costs 8 cents (was 6 cents). The last increase, to 49 cents in 2013, means the rate has increased 717% in less than 42 years (17.1% per year).

1988 ― U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop reports nicotine as addictive as heroin.

1989 ― Soviet president Mikhail S Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping ended a 30-year rift when they formally met in Beijing.


1991 ― Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.


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.


2011 ― Space shuttle Endeavour launches for its final commission in space at 8:56 EDT. It was the fitfh and final space shuttle built. Endeavour flew the first servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope and it's last to the International Space Station.

BORN TODAY 

1801 – William H. Seward, American lawyer and politician, 24th United States Secretary of State, purchase of Alaska Territory (d. 1872)

1804 – Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, American educator who founded the first U.S. kindergarten (d. 1894)

1827 – Pierre Cuypers, Dutch architect, designed the Amsterdam Centraal railway station and Rijksmuseum (d. 1921)

1912 – Studs Terkel, American historian and author (d. 2008)

1923 – Victoria Fromkin, American linguist and academic (d. 2000)

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted.