Historical Events in 2016

Events 1 - 200 of 497

• Jan 1 After floods along the Mississippi River kill 31, Exxon Mobil Corp decides to close a plant in flood threatened Memphis
• Jan 1 Dubai skyscraper "The Address" burns as the New Year is rung in. Fire started on the 31st.
• Jan 2 Saudi Arabia executes 47 alleged terrorists, including Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr

• Jan 3 Jimmy Butler breaks Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls record for points in an NBA half, scoring 40 of his 42 points in the second half to lead the Bulls in a 115-113 victory over the Toronto Raptors
• Jan 3 Scotsman Gary Anderson retains his PDC World Darts Championship beating Adrian Lewis of England, 7-5 at the Alexandra Palace, London
• Jan 4 Colombo's Gemology Institute certifies world's largest ever blue star sapphire at 1404.49 carats, found in a Sri Lankan mine in August 2015
• Jan 5 First batsman to ever score 1000 runs in a single innings in cricket - 15 year-old Mumbai schoolboy Pranav Dhanawade is 1009 not out
• Jan 6 "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" breaks North American box office record, passing the $760.5M taken by "Avatar"

• Jan 6 North Korea states that they have successfully conducted their fourth nuclear test, saying it was a hydrogen bomb in a claim disputed by most international experts
• Jan 6 Opera "Angel's Bone" by composer Du Yun and librettist Royce Vavrek premieres at the Prototype Festival, New York City (Pulitzer Prize for Music 2017)

• Jan 13 Record Powerball lottery held in America - $1.6 billion, (3 winning tickets)
• Jan 14 Sixth republican presidential candidates debate hosted by Fox, held in North Charleston, South Carolina
• Jan 15 American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan unveils newest exhibit replica skeleton of a Titanosaur dinosaur (found 2010 Argentina), largest known dinosaur at 70 tons, 37m
• Jan 15 Islamist militants attack a hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso killing 28, injuring 56
• Jan 16 First ever flower grown in space - a zinnia aboard the International Space Station using NASA Veggie system

• Jan 18 World's 62 richest people are now as wealthy as half the world's population according to a report published by Oxfam
• Jan 19 China's economic growth revealed as lowest for 25 years - 6.9% in 2015

• Jan 22 Winter storm conditions strand 500 motorists for 24 hours in Somerset and Bedford counties, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike

• Jan 23 Category 5 blizzard delivers record 3ft of snow to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast US, killing 55 and incurring estimated $500m - $3bn economic losses
• Jan 23 Zika virus outbreak in Brazil prompts Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Jamaica to recommend women delay pregnancies for up to 2 years
• Jan 24 TV drama "The X-Files" returns after 13 years, reuniting lead actors David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson and produced again by Chris Carter
• Jan 25 British rowing team becomes first female crew and first crew of four to cross the Pacific, San Francisco to Cairns in 257 days
• Jan 26 Cold snap across East Asia leads to more than 50 deaths and 60,000 travellers stranded in South Korea
• Jan 26 Leader of Oregon militia occupying Malheur wildlife refuge arrested and another killed in shoot-out with Federal agents
• Jan 27 On This Day receives its second substantial face-lift, courtesy of a fresh new website design and brand by design studio Fhoke. Dedicated history and film and television channels are launched alongside the new design.
• Jan 28 Seventh Republican presidential candidates debate hosted by Fox, held in Des Moines, Iowa
• Jan 30 Boko Haram militants on motorcycles attack Dalori village near Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing at least 65 and injuring 136
• Jan 31 "World's Best Chef" French-Swiss Benoît Violier found dead after apparent suicide weeks after being named world's best by La Liste
• Feb 1 Alphabet, Google's parent company surpasses Apple as the world's most valuable company ($568bn vs $535bn), after releasing income results

• Feb 1 Myanmar's first freely elected parliament in 50 years has its opening session in Nay Pyi Taw
• Feb 1 Poor weather conditions strand 100,000 Chinese New Year travelers at a railway station in Guangzhou, China
• Feb 1 WHO declares a global public health emergency over the rapid spread of zika-linked conditions
• Feb 2 First case of Zika contracted on US mainland (Texas) and second known sexually transmitted case confirmed in Texas
• Feb 3 Lord Lucan's death certificate is granted, 42 years after he disappeared following the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett

• Feb 4 Fifth Democratic presidential candidates debate, broadcast on MSNBC, held in Durham, New Hampshire
• Feb 4 Morocco's Mohammed VI switches on world's largest solar plant near Ouarzazate. Planned to power 1 million homes when fully completed 2018

• Feb 5 Computer hackers try to steal 1 billion from Federal Reserve Bank of New York using Bangladesh banking codes, steal 81 million before a typo alerts authorities
• Feb 6 Eighth Republican presidential candidates debate hosted by ABC, held in Goffstown, New Hampshire
• Feb 7 Super Bowl L, Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara, CA: Denver Broncos beat Carolina Panthers, 24–10; MVP: Von Miller, Denver, LB

• Feb 9 Two German passenger trains collide near Bad Aibling, Bavaria, killing 10 and seriously injuring 18
• Feb 9 US primary elections: New Hampshire Primary, In Republican race Donald Trump wins (35%), John Kasich 2nd (16%), and Bernie Sanders (60%) defeats Hillary Clinton (38%) in Democratic race

• Feb 10 Venezuelan government orders more than 100 malls to close early to save electricity, due to drought caused by El Niño
• Feb 11 Discover of gravitational waves (through collision of two black holes) announced by physicists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo)
• Feb 11 Last of Oregon militia occupying Malheur wildlife refuge surrenders to authorities after 41 days
• Feb 11 Riot between rival drug cartels at a prison in Monterrey, Mexico, leaves 52 dead
• Feb 11 Sixth Democratic presidential candidates debate, broadcast on CNN and PBS, and held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Feb 12 Britain's Ordnance Survey, using NASA data posts map of Mars on Flickr
• Feb 12 Fiji becomes the first country to ratify the UN climate deal (signed Paris, December 2015)

• Feb 12 Pope Francis meets Patriarch Kirill in Havana - first meeting between Catholic and Russian Orthodox church heads for nearly 1,000 years
• Feb 12 Student leader Kanhaiya Kumar is arrested on “anti-nationalism” charges by Indian police at an anniversary event of the death of Afzal Guru, at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University
• Feb 13 Ninth Republican presidential candidates debate held in Greenville, South Carolina

• Feb 16 China announces it will relocate 9,000 people in Guizhou province, before completion of world's largest telescope (FAST), designed to look for extraterrestrial life
• Feb 16 Former French President Nicholas Sarkozy is placed under investigation for campaign funds
• Feb 17 Car bomb attack on military convoy in Ankara, Turkey, by Kurdish militant eaves 28 dead
• Feb 17 Channing Dungey announced new President of ABC Entertainment Group, first African-American to lead a major US broadcast network

• Feb 17 Oldest known case of human-Neanderthal sex (100,000 yrs ago) revealed by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), 50,000 yr old Neanderthal woman's remains from Altai mountains show traces of Homo Sapiens DNA
• Feb 18 Pope Francis questions US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump's Christianity over his call to build a wall on the Mexican border

• Feb 20 Gunman goes on random killing spree in Kalamazoo, Michigan, killing 6

• Feb 20 Tropical Cyclone Winston hits Fiji, killing at least 29 - most powerful storm on record in Southern Hemisphere winds 296 kilometers per hour (184 mph)
• Feb 20 US primary elections: Nevada Democratic Primary - Hillary Clinton wins with 52.6%
• Feb 20 US primary elections: South Carolina Republican Primary - Donald Trump wins with 32.5%
• Feb 21 58th Daytona 500: Denny Hamlin wins closest finish in race history - by just 0.01s from Martin Truex Jr
• Feb 21 Bombings in the Syrian cities of Homs and Damascus kill 140 people, Islamic State claims responsibility
• Feb 22 10 million people are without water in Delhi after caste protests in Jat sabotage the Munak water canal

• Feb 23 US primary elections: Nevada Republican Primary - Donald Trump wins with 45.9.5%
• Feb 24 Oldest Muslim graves in Europe, from the 8th century, identified at a burial site in Nimes, France

• Feb 25 Tenth Republican presidential candidates debate hosted by CNN, held in Houston, Texas
• Feb 26 Iranian elections: reformers and moderates win control of parliament

• Feb 28 Explosion at Severnaya coal mine in Vorkuta, Russia kills 36, including 5 rescuers

• Mar 1 Gene for grey hair (IRF4) discovery announced by Scientists from University College London in "Nature Communications"
• Mar 1 MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred sends a strong message on the issue of domestic violence; issues a 30-game suspension to NY Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman
• Mar 1 South Korean opposition MPs set a world record for longest filibuster - 9 days (192 hours) trying to block anti-terror bill
• Mar 1 Two Guatemalan military officers are convicted of sexual slavery during country's civil war - first ever prosecution of sexual slavery during an armed conflict
• Mar 1 US primary elections: Super Tuesday - both Republican Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton win seven state races each
• Mar 2 Longest non-stop scheduled commercial flight by distance, Emirates A380 flies 14,200km (8,824 miles) Dubai to Auckland in 17 hours, 15 minutes
• Mar 2 Oldest known land fossil (Tortotubus - 440 million years old) from Gotland, Sweden, revealed by British scientists

• Mar 3 11th debate for Republican presidential candidates, hosted by Fox News, is held at the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit, Michigan
• Mar 4 Ben Carson announces he is dropping out of the Republican presidential nomination race
• Mar 5 US air strike kills 150 Al-Shabaab militants north of Mogadishu, Somalia
• Mar 5 US primary elections: Super Saturday - Republican Donald Trump and Ted Cruz win 2 states, Democratics Bernie Sanders wins 2, Hillary Clinton one
• Mar 6 Seventh Democratic presidential candidates debate hosted by CNN and held in Flint, Michigan

• Mar 9 Eighth Democratic presidential candidates debate hosted by Univision and the Washington Post and held in Miami, Florida
• Mar 9 EU Migrant Crisis: Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia close their borders to migrants trying to reach Northern Europe
• Mar 10 Twelfth Republican presidential candidates debate hosted by CNN, held in Coral Gables, Florida
• Mar 13 Suicide Bombing in Ankara, Turkey kills 37 people
• Mar 14 Marco Rubio announces he is dropping out of the Republican presidential nomination race
• Mar 14 NASA releases data showing February 2016 warmest month ever recorded globally - 1.35C above the long-term average

• Mar 15 Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence wins Go challenge against Lee Se-dol 4-1
• Mar 16 US college student Otto Warmbier is sentenced to 15 years hard labour for trying to steal a political poster, in Pyongyang, North Korea

• Mar 17 Archaeologists announce the discovery of an 2,500 year old iron age warrior king burial ground, with 75 graves in Pocklington, Northern England

• Mar 22 Suicide bombings at Brussel's Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station, leave around 28 victims dead and 260 injured, ISIS claim responsibility

• Mar 24 Former English international footballer Adam Johnson sentenced to 6 years in prison for sexual activity with a schoolgirl
• Mar 25 Suicide attack during a football match in Iskandariya, Iraq kills at least 32 people, ISIS claim responsibility

• Mar 26 US primary elections: Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders wins Washington, Hawaii and Alaska
• Mar 27 Suicide bomb kills more than 70 people at a park in Lahore, Pakistan, Taliban connected Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claim responsibility
• Apr 1 The Golden State Warriors NBA record winning home run ends at 54 games with a 109-106 defeat to the Boston Celtics; the loss at Oracle Arena was the Warriors’ first since January 2015

• Apr 3 ICC Women's Cricket T20 World Cup, Eden Gardens, Kolkata: Hayley Matthews with 66 from 45 balls leads West Indies to 149/2; beat Australia 148/5 by 4 wickets with 2 balls to spare
• Apr 3 Panama Papers published - 11.5 million confidential documents from offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca expose widespread illegal activities including fraud, kleptocracy, tax evasion and the violation of international sanctions by the world's elite in the world's largest ever data leak

• Apr 5 Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigns after the Panama Papers leak show a conflict of interest
• Apr 5 PayPal announces it is cancelling a $3.6 million investment in North Carolina after the state passes anti-gay legislation
• Apr 5 San Francisco becomes the first US city to mandate paid parental leave
• Apr 6 First baby born with DNA from 3 parents through mitochondrial transfer in Mexico
• Apr 6 France passes legislation making it illegal to pay for sex

• Apr 6 US primary elections: Wisconsin won by Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Ted Cruz
• Apr 7 Longest-ever captured python found on Penang Island in Malaysia (26ft/8m)

• Apr 10 Explosions and a fire caused by fireworks at Puttingal Temple in Kerala, India, kills more than 100 and injures nearly 400

• Apr 11 UN-backed ceasefire comes into effect in Yemen conflict between Iranian-backed Houthis rebels and government forces
• Apr 11 Updated "Tree of Life" published in "Nature Microbiology" by scientists from Berkeley University in California

• Apr 21 US President Barack Obama begins a 4 day visit to the UK with Michelle Obama
• Apr 22 Paris Agreement on climate change signed in New York binding 195 nations to an increase in the global average temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C

• Apr 26 CEO of Chobani, Hamdi Ulukaya, announces that he will be giving his employees 10% of the shares in Chobani
• Apr 28 NFL Draft: Cal quarterback Jared Goff first pick by Los Angeles Rams
• Apr 29 "H.O.L.Y" single released by Florida Georgia Line (Billboard Song of the Year, 2016)
• Apr 29 Canadian musician Drake releases "Views", his 4th studio album
• Apr 29 Iranian run-off elections give moderates and reforms a majority in parliament
• May 2 Leicester City win the English Premier League title after starting the season at 5,000-1 odds
• May 2 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Mark Selby of England beats China's Ding Junhui, 18-14 for his second world crown

• May 4 Ohio Governor John Kasich bows out of the race for US Republican Presidential nominee
• May 5 Fort McMurray wildfires: Canadian province of Alberta declares a state of emergency as evacuation of 80,000 people continues

• May 10 Indian fertility clinic announces that a 70-year-old woman has successfully gave birth to a baby boy
• May 11 Brazilian senate votes to suspend President Dilma Rousseff and put her on trial for budgetary violations
• May 12 Michel Temer, former vice-president, becomes Brazilian interim President after a vote to impeach Dilma Rousseff

• May 19 EgyptAir flight MS804 goes missing over the Mediterranean on route Paris to Cairo
• May 21 Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, leader of the Afghan Taliban is reportedly killed by a US drone in Pakistan
• May 21 On same card, American boxer Jermell Charlo KOs John Jackson in 8th to claim vacant WBC super welterweight title, and Jermall Charlo beats Austin Trout on points to retain IBF version; first twins to hold world championships in same weight division
• May 22 69th Cannes Film Festival: "I, Daniel Blake," directed by Ken Loach wins the Palme d'Or
• May 22 Independent Alexander Van der Bellen defeats Freedom Party's Norbert Hofer by just 31,000 votes to become President in Austrian elections
• May 22 The Tradition Senior Men's Golf, Greystone G&CC: Germany's Berhard Langer wins sixth of 13 Champions Tour majors by 6 strokes from Olin Browne
• May 22 TV series "Preacher", developed by Evan Goldberg, Sam Catlin, and Seth Rogen, premieres on AMC
• May 22 US President Barack Obama arrives in Vietman for a 3 day tour
• May 23 Chinese archaeologists announce findings of earliest use of barley in China to make beer, Shaanxi province 3400-2900 BC

• May 24 Kaduna state in Nigeria declares a state of emergency due to 'Tomato Ebola', as moth destroys 80% of tomato crops
• May 27 3 ships in 3 days sink carrying immigrants across the Mediterraneann, drowning over 700 people
• May 28 Harambe, a gorilla at Cincinnati Zoo, is shot after dragging a 3-year-old boy who had slipped into its enclosure (Cincinnati, Ohio)

• Jun 1 Switzerland’s Gotthard Base Tunnel is completed - world’s longest at 57km and most expensive tunnel costing €11bn
• Jun 3 A week of heavy rains in Germany and France leave 10 dead and closing Paris museums along the Seine, including the Louve

• Jun 5 Swiss vote to reject referendum to give each citizen a guaranteed income of $2,500 Swiss francs per month
• Jun 7 "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", a play written by Jack Thorne with JK Rowling, premieres in London
• Jun 7 Car bomb attack on a police bus in central Istanbul kills 11

• Jun 9 MLB Draft: Philadelphia Phillies select La Costa Canyon HS (CA) shortstop Mickey Moniak at #1

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