This is a list of selected December 16 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Flag of Bangladesh -
Half-crown coin of Oliver Cromwell -
Oliver Cromwell -
Mount Fuji -
Peter Rabbit -
Andries Pretorius -
Battle of the Bulge -
Auditorium of the Army Public School Peshawar -
Recruitment poster for the Canterbury Association -
First movement of Dvořák's
New World Symphony
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| National Day in Bahrain (1961); | outdated |
| ; Independence Day in Kazakhstan (1991) | refimprove section |
| ; Victory Day in Bangladesh and India (1971) | Bangladesh: unreferenced section; India: refimprove |
| 755 – An Lushan revolted against Tang Chinese Chancellor Yang Guozhong, initiating an eight-year rebellion. | refimprove section |
| 1838 – Great Trek: Over 450 Voortrekkers led by Andries Pretorius defeated an estimated 10,000 Zulu at the Battle of Blood River in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. | refimprove section |
| 1944 – World War II: The Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany launched its final offensive in the western front, the Battle of the Bulge. | refimprove section |
| 1960 – Two airliners collided in mid-air in heavy clouds over Staten Island, New York City, killing 134 people. | multiple issues |
| 1986 – Dinmukhamed Kunaev was dismissed as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, sparking riots throughout the country. | refimprove (sections) in both |
| 1989 – The Romanian Revolution began as a protest in the city of Timişoara against an attempt by the government to evict dissident priest László Tőkés. | single-source sections, outdated |
| 1998 – The United States and United Kingdom launched a major four-day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets in response to Iraq's failure to comply with several U.N. Security Council resolutions as well as their interference with U.N. Special Commission inspectors. | requires expansion |
| 2014 – Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants attacked an Army Public School in Peshawar, killing 145 people, mostly schoolchildren. | refimprove section |
| Mary Hartwell Catherwood |b|1847| | Birthday not cited |
| Stuart Donaldson |b|1812| | Later life mostly uncited |
Eligible
- 1653 – Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England.
- 1689 – The Parliament of England enacted the Bill of Rights, setting out basic civil rights and later influencing other documents such as the U.S. Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- 1707 – The last recorded eruption of Japan's Mount Fuji released some 800 million m3 (28 billion cu ft) of volcanic ash.
- 1761 – Seven Years' War: After a four-month siege, Russian forces captured Kolberg, the last major Prussian port on the Baltic Sea.
- 1811 – The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes struck the Midwestern United States and made the Mississippi River appear to run backward.
- 1850 – Settlers of the Canterbury Association (poster pictured) aboard Randolph and Charlotte Jane arrived to establish a colony at Christchurch, New Zealand.
- 1893 – Czech composer Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony (audio featured) premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
- 1901 – English writer Beatrix Potter privately published 250 copies of The Tale of Peter Rabbit (illustration shown) after several publishers' rejections.
- 1914 – First World War: The Imperial German Navy attacked ports in northern England, resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties.
- 1918 – Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas declared the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, a puppet state created by Soviet Russia to justify the Lithuanian–Soviet War.
- 1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz, the first president of Poland, was assassinated only five days after having taken office.
- 1930 – German-American gangster Herman Lamm killed himself during a botched robbery attempt in Clinton, Indiana, to avoid being captured by police.
- 1942 – World War II: Americans engaged Imperial Japanese forces at the Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse in the hills near the Matanikau River area on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal campaign.
- 1971 – The surrender of Pakistani forces in Dacca, East Pakistan, concluded the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Indo-Pakistani War.
- 1997 – "Dennō Senshi Porygon", an episode of the Japanese television series Pokémon, induced epileptic seizures in 685 children.
- 2014 – A hostage crisis in a Lindt chocolate café in Sydney, Australia, ended with police storming the building, killing the perpetrator and one of the hostages.
- Born/died: | Haakon IV of Norway |d|1263| Manuel III of Trebizond |b|1364| Nathaniel Fiennes |d|1669| Maria Rundell |d|1828| Bertha Lamme Feicht |b|1869| Noël Coward |b|1899| Carol Browner |b|1955 | H. D. Kumaraswamy |b|1959| W. Somerset Maugham|d|1965| Deyda Hydara |d|2004|
Notes
- United States Bill of Rights appears on December 15, so Bill of Rights 1689 should not appear in the same year
- Malmedy massacre appears on December 17, so Battle of the Bulge should not appear in the same year
December 16: Day of Reconciliation in South Africa
Boston Tea Party
- 1598 – Led by Admiral Yi Sun-sin, the Korean navy defeated a Japanese fleet at the Battle of Noryang, ending their invasions of the Korean peninsula.
- 1773 – American Revolution: A group of colonists threw chests of tea into Boston Harbor (pictured) to protest British taxation without representation.
- 1938 – Adolf Hitler instituted the Cross of Honour of the German Mother as an order of merit for German mothers with at least four children.
- 1997 – Amid an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the British government banned the sale of beef on the bone for human consumption.
- 2012 – A woman was gang-raped and fatally assaulted on a bus in Delhi, generating protests across India against inadequate security for women.
- Elizabeth Carter (b. 1717)
- James Murrell (d. 1860)
- Camille Saint-Saëns (d. 1921)
- Taliep Petersen (d. 2006)
More anniversaries: