Coney Island Cyclone

1884

First roller coaster in America opens

Born on This Day

Tupac Shakur Live In Concert

Tupac Shakur

1971 - 1996

Rapper and actor who popularized "gangster rap," combining traditional hip-hop themes with social commentary.

Geronimo

Geronimo

1829 - 1909

Apache leader and medicine man. Fearless in resisting anyone who tried to remove his people from their tribal lands. 

Portrait Of Publisher Katharine Graham

Katharine Graham

1917 - 2001

Washington Post publisher who played a key role in supporting reporters during the Pentagon Papers and Watergate scandals.

1904

JUN

16

James Joyce's first date with his wife, immortalized in his novel "Ulysses," sparked literary history—and the annual Irish holiday “Bloomsday.” Fans in Edwardian duds, sipping Guinness, trace the couple's path through Dublin.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on June 16th

1858

Lincoln warns that America is becoming a “house divided”

On June 16, 1858, newly nominated senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln addresses the Illinois Republican Convention in Springfield and warns that the nation faces a crisis that could destroy the Union. Speaking to more than 1,000 delegates in an ominous tone, Lincoln paraphrased a passage from the New Testament: “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” […]

1862

Union thwarted at the Battle of Secessionville

On June 16, 1862, a Union attempt to capture Charleston, South Carolina, is thwarted when the Confederates turn back an attack at Secessionville, just south of the city on James Island. In November 1861, Union ships captured Port Royal, South Carolina, which lay about halfway between Charleston and Savannah, Georgia. This gave the Federals an […]

1903

Ford Motor Company incorporated

At 9:30 in the morning on June 16, 1903, Henry Ford and other prospective stockholders in the Ford Motor Company meet in Detroit to sign the official paperwork required to create a new corporation. Twelve stockholders were listed on the forms, which were signed, notarized and sent to the office of Michigan’s secretary of state.  […]

1943

Charlie Chaplin marries Oona O’Neill

Oona O’Neill, the daughter of the famed playwright Eugene O’Neill, is an 18-year-old freshly minted high-school graduate and fledgling actress when she marries 54-year-old Charles Chaplin, the internationally renowned actor, filmmaker and Hollywood legend, on June 16, 1943, in Santa Barbara, California. Her famous father (already a Pulitzer Prize-winner for Beyond the Horizon and Anna […]

1961

Russian ballet star Rudolf Nureyev defects from USSR

Rudolf Nureyev, the young star of the Soviet Union’s Kirov Opera Ballet Company, defects during a stopover in Paris. The high-profile defection was a blow to Soviet prestige and generated international interest. Nureyev became a star of Russian ballet in 1958 when, at barely 20 years old, he was made one of the Kirov Opera […]

1963

Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space

On June 16, 1963, aboard Vostok 6, Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to travel into space. After 48 orbits and 71 hours, she returned to earth, having spent more time in space than all U.S. astronauts combined to that date. Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova was born to a peasant family in Maslennikovo, Russia, […]

1965

Bob Dylan records “Like A Rolling Stone”

On June 16, 1965, on their second day of recording at Columbia Records’ Studio A in Manhattan, folk rock singer Bob Dylan, along with a band featuring electric guitars and an organ, laid down the master take of “Like A Rolling Stone.” It would prove to be Dylan’s magnum opus and, arguably, one of the […]

1977

Leonid Brezhnev is elected Soviet president

Leonid Ilych Brezhnev, first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party since 1964, is elected president of the Supreme Soviet, thereby becoming both head of party and head of state. A member of the Soviet Communist Party since 1931, Brezhnev was Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s protege and deputy in the early 1960s. In 1964, however, he […]

1999

SLA member captured after more than 20 years

On June 16, 1999, Kathleen Ann Soliah, a former member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), is arrested near her home in St. Paul, Minnesota. Soliah, who now calls herself Sara Jane Olson, had been evading authorities for more than 20 years. In the mid-1970s, the SLA, a small, radical American paramilitary group, made a […]

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