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December 16
December 16 is the 16th day in December.
Events[edit]
1431 — France: 10-yearâ€old King Henry VI of England is crowned king of France, Paris. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1631 — Mount Vesuvius erupts, destroys 6 villages and kills 4,000.
1689 — England: Parliament adopts Bill of Rights after Glorious Revolution. [1]
1770 — Composer Ludvig von Beethoven lives, Bonn, Germany.
1773 — United States of America: Boston Tea Party celebration, Boston, Massachusetts — blatant terrorism and violation of property rights. [2]
1775 — Jane Austen lives, the parsonage of Steventon, Hampshire. [3] [4]
1787 — Mary Russell Mitford lives, Alresford, Hampshire. English dramatist/poet/essayist, chiefly remembered for sketches of English village life. The sketches published in “The Ladies Magazine†from 1819, fill five volumes of Our Village.
1811 — United States of America: At the Mississippi River Valley near New Madrid, Missouri, the greatest series of earthquakes in U.S. history begins when a quake of an estimated 8.6 magnitude on the Richter scale rocks the region. Although the earthquake greatly changed the topography of the region, the area was only sparsely inhabited at the time and there were no known fatalities. The earthquake raised and lowered parts of the Mississippi Valley by as much as 15 feet, changed the course of the Mississippi River, and actually caused the river to momentarily reverse its direction, giving rise to Reelfoot Lake in northwest Tennessee.
1835 — United States of America: Most of New York City consumed by a fire which destroyed 650 buildings. The estimated $22 million loss bankrupted most NY insurance companies, precipitating the Depression of 1837.
1851 — Earliest specific date in Willa Cather novel Death Comes for the Archbishop. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1863 — George Santayana lives. Philosopher, he supported Francoʼs fascist takeover of Spain. [5] [6]
1869 — United States of America: Decree by US Emperor Norton I, historically Americaʼs greatest and most enlightened ruler, demands that Sacramento clean its muddy streets and place gaslights on streets leading to the capitol. [7] [8]
1871 — France: Louise Michel, a 36-yearâ€old popular communard and teacher, is brought to trial by the Versailles Government.
1871 — Dante Gabriel Rossetti responds to the anonymous attack, “The Fleshly School of Poetry,†by publishing “The Stealthy School of Criticism.†[9] [10] [11]
1872 — Spain: The Congress of Cordoue unanimously adopts the positions of the anarchist lʼinternationale Antiâ€autoritaire de Saint Imier, in opposition to the Marxist First International. [12]
1878 — Karl Gutzkow dies in Sachsenhausen, Frankfurt am Main. First a journalist, he first attracted attention with the publication of Maha Guru: Geschichte eines Gottes in 1833.
1878 — France: Amédée Dunois lives.
1893 — United States of America: At a benefit concert and ball held in New York City for Emma Goldman and others imprisoned for speaking at an August 21 demonstration, Voltairine de Cleyre delivers a speech , “In Defense of Emma Goldman and the Right of Expropriation.â€
1899 — Songwriter Noel Coward lives, London, England.
1900 — V.S. Pritchett, British novelist, literary critic, lives. Known for ironic style and lively portraits of middleâ€class life.
1900 — United States of America: National Civic Federation established to deal with confrontations between labor and management.
1901 — Radical anthropologist Margaret Mead lives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [13]
1902 — Poet Rafael Alberti lives, Puerto de Santa MarÃa, Spain, of Italianâ€Irish ancestry. One of the major Spanish poets of the last century.
1902 — United States of America: Majestic Theater, New York, ushers in a new era by becoming first in US to employ women ushers.
1906 — United States of America: Emma Goldman lectures on “False and True Conceptions of Anarchism†before the Brooklyn Philosophical Association.
1907 — The “Great White Fleet,†comprising most of the US Navy, is sent by President Ted Roosevelt on a world cruise, principally to show Japan, whose laborers he just excluded from the US, how powerful and large his is.
1908 — Spain: Remedios Varo lives.
1910 — England: “Houndsditch Murders,†in Londonʼs East End.
1912 — France: General strike against the World War II, organized by CGT. [14]
1913 — Charlie Chaplin begins his film career at Keystone for $150 a week.
1913 — United States of America: Despite warnings by the Paterson, N.J., police forbidding Emma Goldman from speaking, she addresses members of the Industrial Workers of the World on “The Spirit of Anarchism in the Labor Struggle.†Emma is forced off the platform. Audience members engage in battle with the cops to release her.
1915 — Melvin Edward Alton “Turk†Murphy lives, Palermo, California.
1916 — Gregori Rasputin, a powerful Russian monk, is murdered.
1916 — Writer Theodore Weiss lives.
1917 — Arthur C. Clarke, scienceâ€fiction author (2001, Childhoodʼs End), lives. [15]
1917 — Cuba: Government declares war on Austria (WWI). Österreicher fangen shakin in ihren Aufladungen/Austriacos comienzan el shakin en sus cargadores/Austrians begin shakin in their boots. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1918 — Germany: First National Congress of Workers and Soldiers Councils held in Reichstag in Berlin, votes in favor of parliamentary democracy. [16]
1920 — China: One of the deadliest earthquakes in history hits the Gansu province of western China, causing massive landslides and the deaths of over 200,000 people. The earthquake, which measures an 8.5 magnitude on the Richter scale, affects an area of some 25,000 square miles, including ten major cities.
1922 — USSR: Lenin has a stroke that leaves him partially paralyzed. After recovering somewhat, Lenin plans a Party congress scheduled for April 1923 in which he plans to denounce Stalin publically and strip him of all power.
1928 — Scienceâ€fiction great Philip K. Dick lives. American science fiction writer par excellence. [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
1936 — Spain: The POUM is excluded from the Generalidad government. [22]
1939 — China: Mass demonstration against the Japanese by the students of Peking. [Source: K.S. Karol]
1944 — General Ike D. Eisenhowerʼs clerk Rickey marries corporal Pearlie.
1944 — Belgium: Nazi forces create a large bulge in the Allied front of the Ardennes Forest with a surprise counterâ€attack. Hitler masterminded the attack against his generalʼs advice, in the hope of splitting Allied ground forces near Germanyʼs border.
1944 — On or about today the first number appears, of the newspaper “Le Rebelleâ€, organe de combat et dʼexpression libertaire. Published without authorization, it changes its name to “LʼInsurgé†(The Insurrectionist) in December 1945. [23]
1955 — NATO decides to equip forces with nuclear weapons.
1956 — United States of America: Cardinal Francis Spellman, the Archbishop of New York, personally denounced the yetâ€to-be released movie “Baby Doll,†saying Catholics would be committing a sin if they saw it. The flock flocks.
1961 — United States of America: Martin Luther King, Jr., 266 others arrested in Albany, Georgia.
1962 — United States of America: Only man ever to reach the mainland alive after an escape from Alcatraz Prison emerges from San Francisco Bay, immediately captured by waiting authorities.
1965 — United States of America: In Seattle, Washington Juvenile Court, Judge Stanley C. Soderland orders haircuts for three boys accused of burglaries. The young men, two aged 17, one 15, are chastised by the judge, who likens their looks to that of young girls. “If you think youʼre being cute with that long hair,†bellowed the judge, “youʼre wrong! You may think you are showing yourselves as rebels but you just look ridiculous. Why donʼt you go all the way and wear skirts and paint your faces?†[24]
1966 — The Diggersʼ “Death of Money and Rebirth of the Haight Paradeâ€, SF. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1967 — Second annual Grope for Peace at the Straight Theatre, Frisco.
1968 — Spain: The order expelling Jews from country imposed by Queen Isabella in 1492 is revoked.
1970 — Poland: Pacification of Polish coastal cities where workers rebel against high prices; the Communist army and police shoot shipyard workers, killing over 50 (among the victims are soldiers who refuse to shoot people): officially, 47 are killed; independent sources claim 147 are killed in Szczecin (ger. Stettin) alone.
1976 — United States of America: Government flu inoculation program halted after 535 cases of Guillainâ€Barre Syndrome (& numerous deaths) result.
1976 — George, a goose that lived to 49 years 8 months, dies returning from the evening meal. His last mortal words: “Iʼm stuffed.†[25]
1977 — Italy: Nellʼottobre 1975 il processo si conclude senza né suicidio né omicidio ma con lʼallucinante verdetto di malore attivo. Il Pinelli secondo la giustizia si sarebbe sentito male e avvicinatosi alla finestar con attorno 6 persone sarebbe inavvertitamente scivolato. Cosa impossibile perchè il baricentro della sua altezza(1,67 m) era inferiore allʼaltezza della ringhiera (97 cm).In pochi credono a quella sentenza il 16-12-77 con un corteo i democratici e dli antifascisti milanesi portano per ricordare Pinelli una lapide in piazza Fontana dove si trova tuttora. [26]
1980 — Poland: Leaders of the workersʼ union, Solidarnoœæ, leaders of a new government, and representatives of the Catholic Church + 150,000 gather in Gdansk to recognize the dramatic change which has come to Poland. [27] [28] [29]
1981 — Poland: ZOMO riot police shoot miners defending their occupied ‘Wujek’ mine in Katowice, Upper Silesia; 9 killed, 21 wounded. [Source: Piero]
1983 — Columnist Larsâ€Erik Nelson after checking the citations on all 434 Congressional Medal of Honor awarded during World War II, reveals that not one of them matches the story acting President Reagan told the other day. “Itʼs not true,†writes Nelson. “It didnʼt happen. Itʼs a Reagan story … The President of the United States went before an audience of 300 real Congressional Medal of Honor winners and told them about a make-believe Medal of Honor winner.†Responds Reaganʼs man, Larry Speakes, “If you tell the same story five times, itʼs true.â€
1988 — United States of America: Political cult leader Lyndon LaRouche convicted of tax, mail fraud. Setâ€up, like a bowling pin, by the Queen of England.
1990 — Haiti: Populist priest Jean Aristide elected President despite extensive U.S. assistance to his opposition.
1991 — Canada: Indian Affairs Minister announces “final†agreement with the Inuit of the eastern Arctic, creating the new nativeâ€run Territory of Nunavut. When details are worked out three years later, it develops that natives will only control land deemed not to be of commercial or military value to Canadian government.
1991 — Belgium: Activists in Brussels, protesting Vatican funding for an observatory desecrating sacred Apache site at Mount Graham, Arizona, pull a bulldozer up to a prominent local cathedral.
1991 — United States of America: A drunk driver hits a truck carrying 5 tons of nuclear fuel, Massachusetts. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1994 — Russian General Babichev refuses orders to kill Chechen civilians.
1996 — Thailand: The torching of two Sanyo Universal Electric PLC buildings after negotiations over yearâ€end bonuses broke down stirs fears about Thailandʼs record of “harmonious†labor relations.
1997 — President Bill Clinton names his Labrador retriever, “Buddy†(after his penis “Good Buddyâ€.)
1998 — William Gaddis dies.
1998 — United States of America: Microradio movement news accounts on the struggle to free the airwaves: FCC Shuts down 19 micropower stations in Miami, Florida. [30] [Source: Pirate Radio Kisok]
2000 — United States of America: The president of the Florida Holocaust Museum recently noted that George W. Bushʼs grandfather derived a portion of his personal fortune through his affiliation with a Naziâ€controlled bank.
2007 — United States of America: The show that was part of the Southern California Anarchist Conference at a community space called El Centro de Accion Popular in Boyle Heights was shut down by police. [Source: Cop Watch LA]
