1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January-February

• January 1 - The Royal Army Medical Corps first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled.
• January 1 - Impressionist painter Monet paints 'Water Lilies'.
• January 5 - Heavy rain - allegedly caused by rainmaker Charles Hatfield - begins; it will cause flooding around San Diego, California
• January 8 - Allied forces withdraw from Gallipoli
• January 13/14 - A heavy storm sweeps through the Zuiderzee in the Netherlands, causing extensive damage. This storm helped the Dutch parliament to decide to build the Afsluitdijk and build polders in the current IJsselmeer.
• January 17 - The Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) is formed
• January 18 - A 611 gram chondrite type meteorite struck a house near Baxter, Stone County, Missouri.
• January 23 to January 24 In Browning, Montana, the temperature drops from +6.7°C to -48.8°C (44°F to -56°F) in one day, the greatest change ever on record for a 24-hour period.
• January 24 - In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad the Supreme Court of the United States upholds the federal income tax
• January 28 - Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
• January 29 - World War I: Paris is bombed by German zeppelins for the first time.
• February 3 - Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada are burned down.
• February 9 - 6.00 p.m. - Tristan Tzara "founds" Dadaism (according to Hans Arp
• February 11 - Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.
• February 11 - Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents its first concert
• February 11 – Romanian football club Sportul Studenţesc is founded
• February 21 - World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins.

March-June

• March 1 - Liberal British Columbia Premier Harlan Carey Brewster term in office ends
• March 6 - Sydney conservatorium of music in Australia accepts first students
• March 8-9 night - Mexican Revolution - Pancho Villa leads 1,500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17. Garrison of US 13th Cavalry Regiment fights back and drives them away.
• March 15 - President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.-Mexico border border to pursue Pancho Villa; 13th Cavalry regiment enters Mexican territory.
• March 16 - US 7th and 10th cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing crosses the border to join the hunt of Villa
• March 19 - First United States air combat mission in history as eight US planes take off in pursuit of Pancho Villa
• March 22 - Marriage of Edith Bratt and John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. They would serve as the inspiration for the fictional characters Lúthien and Beren.
• April 24 - April 30 - Easter Rising in Ireland
• April 27 - Battle of Hulluch in World War One, 47th Brigade, 16th Irish Division decimated in one of the most heavily-concentrated gas attacks of the war
• May 5 - United States Marines invade the Dominican Republic.
• May 20 - The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting ("Boy with Baby Carriage").
• May 21 - Britain initiates daylight saving time.
• May 31 - June 1 - Battle of Jutland
• June 5 - Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
• June 5 - HMS Hampshire sinks off the Orkney Islands, Scotland, with Lord Kitchener aboard
• June 8 - The Brusilov Offensive, the height of Russian operations in WWI, begins with the breakthrough of Austro-Hungarian lines.
• June 15 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America. ^*

July-September

• July 1 - November 18: More than 1 million soldiers die during The Battle of the Somme including 60,000 soldiers from the British Commonwealth on the first day.
• July 1 through July 12, at least one shark mauled five swimmers along 80 miles of New Jersey coastline during the Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916, resulting in four deaths and survival of one youth who required limb amputation. This event was the inspiration for author Peter Benchley, over half a century later, to write Jaws.
• July 8-16- Massive flooding caused by two different hurricanes devastates Western North Carolina.
• July 15 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing incorporates Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).
• July 22 - In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 injuring 40. (Warren Billings and Tom Mooney are later wrongly convicted of it)
• July 29 - In Ontario, Canada, a lightning strike ignites a forest fire that destroys the towns of Cochrane and Matheson - 233 dead
• August 25 - President Woodrow Wilson signs legislation creating the National Park Service.
• September - Bulgaria takes Dobruja from the Romanians.
• September 13 - Mary, a circus elephant, is hanged in the town of Erwin, Tennessee for killing her handler, Walter "Red" Eldridge.

October-December

• October 16 - Margaret Sanger founds Planned Parenthood by opening the first U.S. birth control clinic.
• October 27 - Battle of Segale: Negus Mikael, marching on the Ethiopian capital in support of his son Emperor Iyasu, is defeated by Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis, securing the throne for Empress Zauditu.
• November 5 - Kingdom of Poland proclaimed by joint act of emperors of Germany and Austria
• November 7 - Woodrow Wilson defeats Charles E. Hughes in the U.S. presidential election.
• November 7 - Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.
• November 13 - Prime Minister of Australia Billy Hughes is expelled from the Labor Party over his support for conscription.
• November 18 - World War I: First Battle of the Somme ends - In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916.
• November 25 - Friedrich Adler shoots Karl von Stürgkh, Prime Minister of Austria
• December 12 - In the Dolomites, an avalanche buries 18,000 Austrian and Italian soldiers.
• December 23 - World War I: Battle of Magdhaba - In the Sinai desert, Australian and New Zealand mounted troops capture the Turkish garrison.
• December 29 - Grigori Rasputin is murdered by two Romanov family members.
• December 30 - Humberto Gómez and his mercenaries seize Arauca in Colombia and declare Republic of Arauca. He proceeds to pillage the region before fleeing to Venezuela
• December 31 - The Hampton Terrace Hotel in North Augusta, South Carolina, one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the nation at the time, burns to the ground.

Unknown dates

• Hipolito Irigoyen elected as the President of Argentina.
• Blaise Diagre, first black representative of Senegal in the French parliament
• Cours de linguistique générale by Ferdinand de Saussure is published.
• Summer Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, are cancelled.
• Food is rationed in Germany.
• Ernst Rudin published his initial results on the genetics of schizophrenia.
• The Netherlands is hit by a North Sea storm that floods lowlands and kills 10.000 people.
• Woman's International Bowling Congress established in the US.
• Robert Baden-Powell founds Wolf Scouts in Britain, changed to Cub Scouts in the USA.
• Sopwith Camel aircraft is introduced to combat the German-built Fokker fighter aircraft.
• Louis Enricht claims he has a substitute for gasoline
• Gustav Holst composes The Planets, Opus 32
• Bray Studios created the Farmer Alfalfa series, the first of the Terrytoons.
• Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers founded
• The Enrico Parodi sinks while in tow off the The Carracks in Cornwall, England.

Ongoing events

• World War I (1914-1918)
• Mexican Revolution

Disputed events

• Armenian Genocide (1915-1918)
• July 16 - Hellenic Holocaust
• November 30 - Hellenic Holocaust

Births

January-March

• January 3 - Betty Furness, American actress and consumer activist (d. 1994)
• January 7 - Paul Keres, Estonian chess player (d. 1975)
• January 9 - Peter Twinn, English mathematician and World War II code-breaker (d. 2004)
• January 10 - Sune Bergström, Swedish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
• January 12 - Pieter Willem Botha, President of South Africa
• January 22 - Henri Dutilleux, French composer
• January 24 - Marvin Creamer, American amateur sailor
• February 2 - Olaf Pooley, British actor
• February 9 - Tex Hughson, baseball player (d. 1993)
• February 11 - Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco (d. 1998)
• February 14 - Sally Gray, British actress
• February 14 - Masaki Kobayashi, Japanese film director (d. 1996)
• February 20 - Jean Erdman, American dancer
• February 26 - Jackie Gleason, American comedian (d. 1987)
• February 29 - Dinah Shore, American singer (d. 1994)
• March 3 - Paul Halmos, Hungarian-born mathematician
• March 4 - Hans Eysenck, German-born psychologist (d. 1997)
• March 11 - Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1995)
• March 13 - John Aspinwall Roosevelt, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1981)
• March 14 - Horton Foote, American writer
• March 15 - Harry James, American musician and band leader (d. 1983)
• March 17 - Ray Ellington, British singer (d. 1985)
• March 19 - Irving Wallace, American novelist (d. 1990)
• March 26 - Christian B. Anfinsen, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
• March 29 - Eugene McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Minnesota and Presidential candidate (d. 2005)

April-June

• April 3 - Herb Caen, American journalist (d. 1997)
• April 5 - Gregory Peck, American actor (d. 2003)
• April 11 - Alberto Ginastera, Argentine composer (d. 1983)
• April 12 - Beverly Cleary, American author
• April 15 - Alfred S. Bloomingdale, American department store heir (d. 1982)
• April 22 - Yehudi Menuhin, American-born violinist (d. 1999)
• April 25 - R.J. Rushdoony, American founder of Christian Reconstructionism (d. 2001)
• April 28 - Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian automobile manufacturer (d. 1993)
• April 30 - Claude Elwood Shannon, American information theorist (d. 2001)
• April 30 - Robert Shaw, American conductor (d. 1999)
• May 1 - Glenn Ford, American actor
• May 6 - Robert H. Dicke, American experimental physicist (d. 1997)
• May 8 - Chinmayananda, Indian spiritual leader (d. 1993)
• May 8 - João Havelange, Brazilian industrialist and football league president
• May 10 - Milton Babbitt, American composer
• May 11 - Camilo José Cela, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2002)
• May 15 - Ephraim Katzir, Israeli president 1973 to 1978
• May 20 - Trebisonda Valla, Italian athlete
• May 21 - Lydia Mendoza, American Tejano musician
• May 21 - Tinus Osendarp, Dutch runner (d. 2002)
• May 21 - Harold Robbins, American novelist (d. 1997)
• May 26 - Henriette Roosenburg, Dutch journalist (d. 1972)
• May 31 - Bert Haanstra, Dutch filmmaker (d. 1997)
• June 4 - Robert F. Furchgott, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• June 8 - Francis Crick, English molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
• June 9 - Robert McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense
• June 15 - Herbert Simon, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
• June 18 - Julio César Turbay Ayala, Colombian politician (d. 2005)
• June 23 - Hermann Gmeiner, Austrian educator (d. 1986)
• June 23 - Len Hutton, English cricketer (d. 1990)

July-December

• July 1 - Olivia de Havilland, British actress
• July 2 - Hans-Ulrich Rudel, German pilot (d. 1982)
• July 9 - Sir Edward Heath, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 2005)
• July 11 - Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, Russian physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 2002)
• July 11 - Gough Whitlam, twenty-first Prime Minister of Australia
• July 14 - Natalia Ginzburg, Italian author (d. 1991)
• July 18 - L. Patrick Gray III, American Federal Bureau of Investigation director (d. 2005)
• July 22 - Marcel Cerdan, French boxer (d. 1949)
• July 22 - Larry Hooper, American singer and musician (d. 1983)
• July 25 - Fred Lasswell, American cartoonist (d. 2001)
• July 31 - Bill Todman, American game show producer (d. 1979)
• August 25 - Frederick Chapman Robbins, American pediatrician and virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2003)
• August 25 - Van Johnson, American actor
• August 27 - Martha Raye, American actress (d. 1994)
• September 13 - Roald Dahl, Welsh author (d. 1990)
• October 3 - James Herriot, English veterinarian and author (d. 1995)
• October 4 - Vitaly Ginzburg, Russian physicist, Nobel laureate
• October 14 - C. Everett Koop, United States Surgeon General
• October 19 - Jean Dausset, French immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• October 19 - Emil Gilels, Ukrainian pianist (d. 1994)
• October 26 - François Mitterrand, President of France (d. 1996)
• October 30 - Leon Day, baseball player (d. 1995)
• November 1 - John C. Harkness, American architect
• November 4 - Walter Cronkite, American television journalist
• November 5 - Jim Tabor, baseball player (d. 1953)
• November 10 - Louis le Brocquy, Irish painter
• November 14 - Sherwood Schwartz, American television writer and producer
• November 16 - Daws Butler, American voice actor (d. 1988)
• November 24 - Forrest J. Ackerman, American writer
• November 27 - Chick Hearn, American basketball announcer (d. 2002)
• November 28 - Mary Lilian Baels, queen of Léopold III of Belgium (d. 2002)
• November 29 - Fran Ryan, American actress (d. 2000)
• December 8 - Richard Fleischer, American film director (d. 2006)
• December 9 - Kirk Douglas, American actor
• December 11 - Dámaso Pérez Prado, Cuban musician (d. 1989)
• December 14 - Shirley Jackson, American writer (d. 1965)
• December 15 - Maurice Wilkins, New Zealand-born physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
• December 18 - Betty Grable, American actress (d. 1973)
• December 19 - Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, German political scientist
• December 19 - Jack Agazarian, English World War II spy (d. 1945)

Deaths

• January 13 - Victoriano Huerta, President of Mexico (b. 1854)
• February 6 - Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan writer (b. 1867)
• February 12 - Richard Dedekind, German mathematician (b. 1831)
• February 13 - Vilhelm Hammershøi, Danish painter (b. 1864)
• February 19 - Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher (b. 1838)
• February 20 - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1844)
• February 28 - Henry James, American writer (b. 1843)
• March 4 - Franz Marc, German artist (b. 1880)
• March 24 - Enrique Granados, Spanish composer (ship sinking) (b. 1867)
• April 19 - Ephraim Shay, American inventor (b. 1839)
• May 3 - Padraig Pearse, Irish nationalist (b. 1879)
• May 11 - Max Reger, German composer (b. 1873)
• May 12 - James Connolly, Irish socialist (b. 1868)
• May 13 - Sholom Aleichem, Ukrainian Yiddish writer (b. 1859)
• June 6 - Yuan Shikai, Chinese military official and politician (b. 1859)
• June 29 - Georges Lacombe, French artist (b. 1868)
• July 6 - Odilon Redon, French painter (b. 1840)
• July 16 - Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, Russian microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1845)
• July 23 - Sir William Ramsay, Scottish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
• August 31 - Martha McClellan Brown, American activist (b. 1838)
• September 4 - José Echegaray y Eizaguirre, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1832)
• October 7 - James Whitcomb Riley, American poet (b. 1849)
• October 28 - Cleveland Abbe, American meteorologist (b. 1838)
• October 31 - Charles Taze Russell, American preacher (b. 1852)
• November 13 - Lanoe Hawker, British fighter pilot (b. 1890)
• November 14 - Saki, British writer (b. 1870)
• November 15 - Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1846)
• November 21 - Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (b. 1830)
• November 22 - Jack London, American author (b. 1876)
• November 24 - Hiram Stevens Maxim, American firearms inventor (b. 1840)
• December 28 - Eduard Strauss, Austrian composer (b. 1835)
• December 29 - Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic (b. 1870)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - not awarded
• Chemistry - not awarded
• Medicine - not awarded
• Literature - Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam
• Peace - not awarded

External links

• Early Advertising Publications: "Fishing for Suckers" From the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress

1916

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