1912: American Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel. She took off from Dover, en route to Calais, France and made the flight in 59 minutes, landing about 25 miles from Calais, on a beach. Although Quimby died at the age of thirty-seven (in an aeroplane accident), she had a major influence upon the role of women in aviation.
1917: Vladimir Lenin returns to Russia from exile
The communist revolutionary became leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) later that year. From 1922, he was the first Premier of the Soviet Union.
1919: Gandhi organized a day of ‘prayer and fasting’ in response to the killing of Indian protesters in the Amritsar Massacre by the British. Official Government of India sources estimated the fatalities at 379, with 1,100 wounded, many of them women and children.
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1943: Hallucinogenic effects of LSD discovered. Albert Hofmann at Sandoz Pharmaceutical Laboratories in Switzerland first synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and personally experienced its effects (later described as a voyage into madness or a chemically induced psychosis).
1946: Arthur Chevrolet dies by suicide
1964: The Rolling Stones release their debut album
The album The Rolling Stones, released in the United States with the added title “England’s Newest Hit Makers”, topped the UK charts for twelve weeks.
2003: Michael Jordan, at age 40, Michael Jordan, widely regarded as the best player in the history of basketball, played his last game in the National Basketball Association.
2003: Ten new member states are admitted to the European Union. The Treaty of Accession admitted countries including Poland, Cyprus, and the Czech Republic to the EU. Its original title contains 99 words.
2007: 32 people died after being gunned down on the campus of Virginia Tech by Seung-Hui Cho, a student at the college who later died by suicide. The Virginia Tech shooting began around 7:15 a.m., when Cho, a 23-year-old senior and English major at Blacksburg-based Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, shot a female freshman and a male resident assistant in a campus dormitory before fleeing the building. Police were soon on the scene; unaware of the gunman’s identity, they initially pursued the female victim’s boyfriend as a suspect in what they believed to be an isolated domestic-violence incident.
However, at around 9:40 a.m., Cho, armed with a 9-millimeter handgun, a 22-caliber handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, entered a classroom building, chained and locked several main doors and went from room to room shooting people. Approximately 10 minutes after the rampage began, he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
2012: The trial of Anders Behring Breivik begins in Oslo. The right-wing extremist had killed 77 people, mostly teenagers, in Oslo with a car bomb and at a youth camp on Utøya island. After doubts about his mental health emerged before the trial, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
2011: An explosion hit a police station in the city of Maiduguri in Nigeria just as presidential elections were beginning.
Births on This Day, April 16
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 77
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. He was born in 1947. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player.
Taye Taiwo, 39 years
Taye Ismaila Taiwo is a Nigerian professional footballer who last played as a defender for Kakkonen club SalPa.
Charles Chaplin (16 April 1889-25 December 1977)
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin KBE was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. Charlie Chaplin is born Charles Spencer Chaplin in London, on 16 April 1889. Chaplin, one of the most financially successful stars of early Hollywood, was introduced to the stage when he was five. The son of London music hall entertainers, young Chaplin was watching a show starring his mother when her voice cracked. He was quickly shuffled onto the stage to finish the act. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry’s most important figures. He died at the age of 88 years.
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