April 16
April 16, 2008 by: admin
Holidays
Feast day of St. Bernadette, St. Magnus, St. Paternus of Avranches, St. Encratis, St. Fructuosus Braga, St. Turibius of Astorga, St. Drogo, St. Joseph Benedict Labre, and St. Optatus and the Martyrs of Saragossa.
Israel: Remembrance Day / Yom Ha’zikkaron.
Denmark: Queen Margreth’s Birthday, a national holiday.
Puerto Rico: Jose de Diego’s Birthday.
Easter
Events
1851 – A lighthouse was swept away in a gale at Minot’s Ledge, Massachusetts.
1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signed an act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia.
1900 – The first books of U.S. postage stamps were issued.
1908 – Utah’s Natural Bridges National Monument was established.
1917 – Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returned to Petrograd after a decade of exile to take the reins of the Russian Revolution.
1926 – The Book-of-the-Month Club in New York City chose as its first selection, “Lolly Willowes” or “The Loving Huntsman” by Sylvia Townsend.
1935 – The radio comedy program “Fibber McGee and Molly” premiered.
1943 – The hallucinogenic effects of LSD were discovered accidentally by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman.
1947 – In Texas City’s port on Galveston Bay, a fire aboard the French ship Grandcamp ignited ammonium nitrate and other explosive materials in the ship’s hold, causing a massive blast that destroyed much of the city and killed nearly 600.
1947 – Bernard Baruch coined the term “Cold War.”
1962 – Walter Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of “The CBS Evening News.”
2003 – Michael Jordan played his last NBA game as his Washington Wizards lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in the last game of the season.
2003 – The Treaty of Accession was signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union.
Births
1844 – Anatole France (photo), French writer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1921).
1867 – Wilbur Wright, American aviator, inventor.
1889 – Charlie Chaplin (born Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin), English comedian, actor, and director.
1919 – Merce Cunningham, American dancer and choreographer.
1921 – Sir Peter Ustinov, Academy Award-winning actor.
1922 – Sir Kingsley Amis, novelist.
1924 – Henry Mancini, American award-winning composer, musician.
1947 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr.), American basketball player.
1965 – Martin Lawrence, German-born American actor.
Deaths
1850 – Marie Tussaud, French wax-modeller.
1946 – Arthur Chevrolet, Swiss-born race car driver and automobile designer.
