History Events on April 16

The Great Indian Peninsula Railway opens the first passenger rail in India, from Bori Bunder to Thane.

#Great_Indian_Peninsula_Railway

The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced, it was the first time since 1977 that no book won the Fiction Prize.

#2012_Pulitzer_Prize

World War II: The Nazi-affiliated Ustaše is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis powers after Operation 25 is effected.

#Ustaše

The Battle of Culloden is fought between the French-supported Jacobites and the British Hanoverian forces commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, in Scotland. After the battle many highland traditions were banned and the Highlands of Scotland were cleared of inhabitants.

#Battle_of_Culloden

The United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager (high security) prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz).

#United_States_Army

American Civil War: The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia, becomes law.

#District_of_Columbia_Compensated_Emancipation_Act

In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle.

#Dodge_City,_Kansas

The Revolt of the Comuneros begins in Spain against the rule of Charles V.

#Revolt_of_the_Comuneros

Shooting of a M?ori by an English sailor results in the opening of the Wanganui Campaign of the New Zealand Wars.

#M?ori_people

The South Korean ferry MV Sewol capsizes and sinks near Jindo Island, killing 304 passengers and crew and leading to widespread criticism of the South Korean government, media, and shipping authorities.

#South_Korea

American Civil War: Battle at Lee's Mills in Virginia.

#American_Civil_War

French Revolutionary Wars: The Battle of Mount Tabor: Napoleon drives Ottoman Turks across the River Jordan near Acre.

#French_Revolutionary_Wars

Polish-Soviet War: The Polish army launches the Vilna offensive to capture Vilnius in modern Lithuania.

#Polish-Soviet_War

Bernard Baruch first applies the term "Cold War" to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

#Bernard_Baruch

Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of the research drug LSD. He intentionally takes the drug three days later on April 19.

#Albert_Hofmann

Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.

#Harriet_Quimby

World War II: The Italian-German Tarigo convoy is attacked and destroyed by British ships.

#World_War_II

Apollo program: The launch of Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

#Apollo_program

The United States Senate ratifies the Rush-Bagot Treaty, establishing the border with Canada.

#United_States_Senate

The 2013 Baga massacre is started when Boko Haram militants engage government soldiers in Baga.

#2013_Baga_massacre

Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma founds the settlement of Salta, Argentina.

#Conquistador

"Doctor Death", Jack Kevorkian, participates in his first assisted suicide.

#Jack_Kevorkian

The oldest existing indoor ice hockey arena still used for the sport in the 21st century, Boston Arena, opens for the first time.

#Ice_hockey

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pens his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.

#Martin_Luther_King_Jr.

Virginia Tech shooting: Seung-Hui Cho guns down 32 people and injures 17 before committing suicide.

#Virginia_Tech_shooting

The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting ten new member states to the European Union.

#Treaty_of_Accession_2003

Vladimir Lenin returns to Petrograd, Russia, from exile in Switzerland.

#Vladimir_Lenin

India and Bangladesh begin a five-day border conflict, but are unable to resolve the disputes about their border.

#Bangladesh

Natural Bridges National Monument is established in Utah.

#Natural_Bridges_National_Monument

Mohandas Gandhi organizes a day of "prayer and fasting" in response to the killing of Indian protesters in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the British colonial troops three days earlier.

#Mahatma_Gandhi

In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.

#Cuba

Masada, a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the Great Jewish Revolt.

#Masada

The trial for Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, begins in Oslo, Norway.

#Trial_of_Anders_Behring_Breivik

Likely date of the Battle of Megiddo between Thutmose III and a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh, the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail.

#Battle_of_Megiddo_(15th_century_BC)

World War II: The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin, with nearly one million troops fighting in the Battle of the Seelow Heights.

#Red_Army

Franz Friedrich Wilhelm von Fürstenberg founds the University of Münster.

#Franz_Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Fürstenberg

The Treaty of Rapallo, pursuant to which Germany and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic relations, is signed.

#Treaty_of_Rapallo_(1922)

An explosion on board a freighter in port causes the city of Texas City, Texas, to catch fire, killing almost 600.

#Texas_City_disaster

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran, killing at least 35 people and injuring 117 others.

The Katina P runs aground off of Maputo, Mozambique and 60,000 tons of crude oil spill into the ocean.

More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine.

World War II: Allied forces start bombing Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. This bombing fell on the Orthodox Christian Easter.

During the Communist St Nedelya Church assault in Sofia, Bulgaria, 150 are killed and 500 are wounded.

American Civil War: During the Vicksburg Campaign, gunboats commanded by acting Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter run downriver past Confederate artillery batteries at Vicksburg.

The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is wound up.

Dušan the Mighty is proclaimed Emperor, with the Serbian Empire occupying much of the Balkans.