What Happened Today in History on December 16

The Byzantine emperor Basil II wins a decisive victory against the Bulgarians at the Battle of Spercheios.

Pope Innocent IV canonizes Saint Edmund of Abingdon, the Archbishop of Canterbury on December 16, six years after his death.

The Mayflower Pilgrims arrive at modern-day Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts after spending a month in Cape hook, known today as Provincetown Harbor. While there, several small scouting groups were sent ashore to collect firewood and scout for a good place to build their settlement. They decided to proceed to get ready to establish their Colony on a site chosen for its defensive location, cleared land, and access to fresh water; which they decided to call Plymouth. Thirteen years before in 1607, 104 settlers aboard three ships had landed in Virginia at a place they named Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World With these two colonies, English settlement in North America were born. More

"The Boston Tea Party" Defiant colonists dump crates of tea into Boston Harbor. This was the culmination of a series of events which led the thirteen American colonies closer to independence. More

The First Anglo-Boer War begins as Boer forces invade British territories (Transvaal)  on December 16, 1880. The war was a result of the Boers' desire to regain their independence after Britain had annexed the South African Republic (Transvaal) in 1877. The conflict is also known as the Transvaal Rebellion. More

An earthquake, believed to be the world’s second deadliest of the twentieth century, hits China’s remote Gansu Province leading to the deaths of more than 200,000 people and causing severe destruction over an area of 20,000 square kilometers. More

The German army launches a counteroffensive intended to cut through the Allied forces and turn the tide of the war in Hitler's favor. The German offensive was code-named Wacht am Rhein (the “Watch on the Rhine”), but is better known in the United States as the “Battle of the Bulge". More

President Harry S. Truman Proclaims the "Existence of a National Emergency", stating that “the increasing menace of the forces of communist aggression spreading throughout the globe via North Korean forces requires that the national defense of the United States be strengthened as speedily as possible,” The U.S. forces had seemed on the verge of victory in Korea. but in November, hundreds of thousands of communist Chinese troops. joined the fight and broke through the American lines driving them back just days after General Douglas MacArthur declared an “end to the war offensive". More

A United DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collide over New York City, killing 134 people on the planes and on the ground. More

The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, marking a significant moment in human rights history.

A terrorist bomb mailed to his home, kills Federal Judge Robert Vance in Alabama. Two days later a second bomb killed civil rights Attorney Robert Robertson in Georgia. Two other bombs were discovered before they exploded. A massive investigation ensued involving the FBI and several other law enforcement agencies. In June 1991, a federal jury convicted Walter LeRoy Moody, Jr. on charges related to the bombings. He was executed in 2018. More

President Clinton orders air attack on Iraq and the United States joined by Britain begin operation "Desert Fox" as a reaction to Saddam Hussein's refusal to cooperate with UNSCOM's inspectors and to degrade Iraq's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction as well as to diminish" the Iraqi threat to its neighbors. More