Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Jan
08
In the early hours of January 8, 2016, Mexican authorities apprehend the drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. It was the third time that the law caught up to El Chapo, a figure whose crimes, influence and mystique rival those of Pablo Escobar.
Apr
21
On the morning of April 21, 2016, Prince, the virtuosic musician who created more than 30 albums and won seven Grammy Awards over a 40-year career, is found dead in Paisley Park, his Minnesota home and recording studio. The cause of death was an accidental overdose of the opioid fentanyl. He was 57 years old.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
May
19
Jun
12
As Latin music blared inside Pulse, one of Orlando’s biggest nightclubs on June 12, 2016, a gunman forced his way inside and opened fire on the predominantly gay crowd. In the end, 49 people were dead and dozens more injured, in what was, at the time, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Jul
14
On July 14, 2016, thousands gathered along the seafront of Nice, France to celebrate Bastille Day—the country's independence holiday. The mood turned from joy to horror, when a white truck barreled through a pedestrian-filled closed street. In the end, 86 were dead, including 10 children, and over 400 spectators were left injured.
Jul
28
Ninety-five years after women were first granted the right to vote, on July 28, 2016, former Secretary of State, Senator and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton makes history by accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president, becoming the first woman to lead a major U.S. political party.
Aug
26
At an NFL preseason game on August 26, 2016, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick remains seated as other players stand to observe the national anthem. This simple action, which Kaepernick makes no attempt to broadcast to the public, gives rise to a controversy that will bring to light the racial tensions within American sports, determine the fate of Kaepernick’s football career and reverberate across the sporting world for years to come.
Sep
04
Sep
24
More than 15 years after it was first established, the National Museum of African American History and Culture opens on the National Mall on September 24, 2016. Barack Obama, the nation’s first African American president, leads the ceremony and officially opens the museum by ringing the Freedom Bell, a bell from an African American Baptist church founded in 1776.
Nov
03
In the early hours of November 3, 2016, the Chicago Cubs win their first World Series championship since 1908, beating the Cleveland Indians, 8-7, in a thrilling Game 7 delayed by rain. "Let It Reign," reads the headline in the next day's Chicago Tribune sports section. The win snaps the “Billy Goat Curse,” one of the more infamous sports curses, and baseball's longest World Series title drought.
Nov
04
Dec
09
On December 9, 2016, the World Anti-Doping Agency details a vast "institutional conspiracy" involving Russian officials and more than 1,000 athletes in systematic doping at major athletic competitions, including the Olympics. A second WADA report says the conspiracy involves the Russian Sports Ministry, national anti-doping agency and the FSB intelligence service and that the cheating and cover-ups were on an "unprecedented scale" from 2011-15.
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