In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

On December 16, 1893, the Philharmonic Society of New York gave the world premiere performance of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor “From the New World” at Carnegie Hall. In his review of the performance the following day, New York Times music critic W.J. Henderson called the piece better known today as the New World Symphony, “a vigorous and beautiful work” that “must take the place among the finest works in this form produced since the death of Beethoven.”

On December 16, 1938, Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother’s Cross, to encourage women of "pure" German origin to increase the size of their families and grow the population of the Third Reich.

On December 16, 1944, the Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Autumn Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a “bulge” around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front.

On December 16, 1960, two airplanes collide over New York City, killing 134 people on the planes and on the ground. The improbable mid-air collision was the only such accident to have occurred over a major city in the U.S.

On December 16, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary releases a 265-page report recommending the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for high crimes and misdemeanors.

On December 16, 1998, President Bill Clinton announces he has ordered air strikes against Iraq because it refused to cooperate with United Nations (U.N.) weapons inspectors. Clinton’s decision did not have the support of key members of Congress, who accused Clinton of using the air strikes to direct attention away from ongoing impeachment proceedings against him.