Events for June 16
2012 – China successfully launches its Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, carrying three astronauts, including the first female Chinese astronaut Liu Yang, to the Tiangong-1 orbital module.
1824 – A meeting at Old Slaughter's coffee house in London leads to the formation of what is now the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).
1903 – The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.
1760 – French and Indian War: Robert Rogers and his Rangers surprise French held Fort Sainte Thérèse on the Richelieu River near Lake Champlain. The fort is raided and burned.
1977 – Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California, as Software Development Laboratories (SDL), by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
1997 – Fifty people are killed in the Daïat Labguer (M'sila) massacre in Algeria.
1911 – IBM founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York.
1925 – Artek, the most famous Young Pioneer camp of the Soviet Union, is established.
1819 – A major earthquake strikes the Kutch district of western India, killing over 1,543 people and raising a 6-metre-high (20 ft), 6-kilometre-wide (3.7 mi), ridge, extending for at least 80 kilometres (50 mi), that was known as the Allah Bund ("Dam of God").
1961 – While on tour with the Kirov Ballet in Paris, Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union.
2015 – American businessman Donald Trump announces his campaign to run for President of the United States in the upcoming election.
1904 – Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called "Bloomsday".
2000 – The Secretary-General of the UN reports that Israel has complied with United Nations Security Council Resolution 425, 22 years after its issuance, and completely withdrew from Lebanon. The Resolution does not encompass the Shebaa farms, which is claimed by Israel, Syria and Lebanon.
2019 – Upwards of 2,000,000 people participate in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, the largest in Hong Kong's history.
1922 – General election in the Irish Free State: The pro-Treaty Sinn Féin party wins a large majority.
2012 – The United States Air Force's robotic Boeing X-37B spaceplane returns to Earth after a classified 469-day orbital mission.
1958 – Imre Nagy, Pál Maléter and other leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising are executed.
1883 – The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland, England, kills 183 children.
1746 – War of the Austrian Succession: Austria and Sardinia defeat a Franco-Spanish army at the Battle of Piacenza.
1846 – The Papal conclave of 1846 elects Pope Pius IX, beginning the longest reign in the history of the papacy.
1632 – The Plymouth Company granted a land patent to Thomas Purchase, the first settler of Pejepscot, Maine, settling at the site of Fort Andross.
1897 – A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States is signed; the Republic would not be dissolved until a year later.
Notable Births & Deaths for June 16
1995 – Joseph Schooling, Singaporean swimmer
1995 – Euan Aitken, Australian rugby league player
2013 – Ottmar Walter, German footballer (born 1924)
2010 – Maureen Forrester, Canadian singer and academic (born 1930)
2003 – Anna Cathcart, Canadian actress
1995 – Akira Ioane, New Zealand rugby Union player
2011 – Östen Mäkitalo, Swedish engineer and academic (born 1938)
1992 – Maik Brückner, German politician
2015 – Charles Correa, Indian architect and urban planner (born 1930)
2002 – Sam Walker, English-Australian rugby league player
2013 – Hans Hass, Austrian biologist and diver (born 1919)
1999 – Snail Mail, American singer-songwriter
2012 – Sławomir Petelicki, Polish general (born 1946)
2008 – Mario Rigoni Stern, Italian soldier and author (born 1921)
1992 – Vladimir Morozov, Russian swimmer
1998 – Karman Thandi, Indian tennis player
1988 – Jermaine Gresham, American football player
2010 – Ronald Neame, English director, producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter (born 1911)
1994 – Rezar, Albanian wrestler
1994 – Grete-Lilijane Küppas, Estonian footballer
1991 – Joe McElderry, English singer-songwriter
1991 – Siya Kolisi, South African rugby player
1995 – Ki Hui-hyeon, South Korean singer-songwriter and actress
2013 – Norman Ian MacKenzie, English journalist and author (born 1921)
1993 – Park Bo-gum, South Korean actor
1993 – Gnash, American singer, songwriter, rapper, DJ and record producer
2012 – Nils Karlsson, Swedish skier (born 1917)
2012 – Susan Tyrrell, American actress (born 1945)
2024 – Barbara Gladstone, American art dealer and film producer (born 1934)
1990 – John Newman, English musician, singer, songwriter and record producer
2015 – Jean Vautrin, French director, screenwriter, and critic (born 1933)
2017 – Helmut Kohl, German politician, Chancellor of Germany (born 1930)
1999 – Justin Jefferson, American football player
2023 – Gino Mäder, Swiss cyclist (born 1997)
2013 – Sam Farber, American businessman, co-founded OXO (born 1924)
1988 – Keshia Chanté, Canadian singer
2000 – Bianca Andreescu, Canadian tennis player
2014 – Cándido Muatetema Rivas (born 1960), Equatoguinean politician and diplomat, Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea
2024 – Ludwig Adamovich Jr., Austrian constitutional scholar (born 1932)
1989 – Odion Ighalo, Nigerian footballer
2013 – Khondakar Ashraf Hossain, Bangladesh poet and academic (born 1950)
2014 – Tony Gwynn, American baseball player and coach (born 1960)
1991 – Matt Moylan, Australian rugby league player
1999 – Ibrahima Koné, Malian footballer
2012 – Jorge Lankenau, Mexican banker and businessman (born 1944)
2010 – Marc Bazin, Haitian lawyer and politician, 49th President of Haiti (born 1932)
2020 – Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., Filipino businessman and politician (born 1935)
Quick Start
Our API is incredibly easy to use, check out the code samples below to get started:
Fetch Historical Events
All you need to do is send a request to https://today.zenquotes.io/api/[month]/[day]/[key] in order to generate a JSON array of historical events, including notable births and deaths. API data pulled from WikiPedia.
*[key] not required but recommended.
Sample Requests
https://today.zenquotes.io/api - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for current server time (UTC).
https://today.zenquotes.io/api/1/1 - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for January 1.
https://today.zenquotes.io/api/5/5 - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for May 5.
https://today.zenquotes.io/api/12/25 - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for December 25.
Response
The result data is formatted as a JSON array, grouped by event type.
{ "info":"OnThisDay API", "date":"April_20", "updated":"1615972324",
"data":{
"Events":[
{
"text":"1303 – The Sapienza University of Rome is instituted by a bull of Pope Boniface VIII.[1]",
"html":"<a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/1303\" title=\"1303\">1303</a> – The <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapienza_University_of_Rome\" title=\"Sapienza University of Rome\">Sapienza University of Rome</a> is instituted by a <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_bull\" title=\"Papal bull\">bull</a> of <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Boniface_VIII\" title=\"Pope Boniface VIII\">Pope Boniface VIII</a>."
},
//.. MORE DATA ..//
],
"Births":[
{
"text":"1494 – Johannes Agricola, German theologian and reformer (d. 1566)[8]",
"html":"<a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/1494\" title=\"1494\">1494</a> – <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Agricola\" title=\"Johannes Agricola\">Johannes Agricola</a>, German theologian and reformer (d. 1566)"
},
//.. MORE DATA ..//
],
"Deaths":[
{
"text":"689 – Cædwalla, king of Wessex (b. 659)[21]",
"html":"<a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/689\" title=\"689\">689</a> – <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A6dwalla_of_Wessex\" title=\"Cædwalla of Wessex\">Cædwalla</a>, king of <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex\" title=\"Wessex\">Wessex</a> (b. 659)" },
//.. MORE DATA ..//
}
]
} }Usage Limits and Attribution
Requests are restricted to 5 per 30 second period, an API key or registered IP is required for unlimited access and to enable Access-Control-Allow-Origin headers. We require that you show attribution with a link back to https://today.zenquotes.io/ when using the free version of this API. Contact support@zenquotes.io to chat with our friendly dev team and get registered.
Historical event data provided by <a href="https://today.zenquotes.io/" target="_blank">ZenQuotes.io</a>