November 16

November 16 is the 320th day of the year (321st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 45 days remaining.

Events

534 - A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published.

1384 - Hedwig is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman.

1532 - Francisco Pizarro and his men capture Inca Emperor Atahualpa.

1776 - American Revolutionary War: Hessian mercenaries capture Fort Washington from the Patriots.

1821 - American Old West: Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.

1849 - A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his execution is canceled at the last minute.

1857 - The relief of Lucknow. The most Victoria Crosses won in a single day (24).

1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Campbell's Station near Knoxville, Tennessee. Confederate troops unsuccessfully attack Union forces.

1885 - Canadian rebel leader of the Métis and "Father of Manitoba", Louis Riel is executed for high treason.

1896 - First transmission of electrical power between two cities was sent from Niagara Falls to industries in Buffalo, New York. (See War of Currents.)

1904 - John Ambrose Fleming invents the vacuum tube.

1906 - Opera star Enrico Caruso is charged with an indecent act after allegedly pinching a woman's bottom in the monkey house of New York's Central Park Zoo.

1907 - Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma and are admitted as the 46th U.S. state.

1914 - The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens for business.

1933 - The United States and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.

1940 - World War II: In response to Germany leveling Coventry two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.

1940 - Holocaust: In Poland, Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.

1940 - New York City's Mad Bomber places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.

1943 - World War II: American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vermork, Norway.

1945 - Cold War: The United States controversially imports 88 German scientists to help in the production of rocket technology.

1957 - Serial killer Edward Gein murders his last victim, Bernice Worden.

1965 - Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.

1969 - The first episode of The Clangers is broadcast by the BBC.

1973 - Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.

1973 - US President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.

1977 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind opens in theaters.

1979 - The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea in Bucharest, Romania.

1980 - Louis Althusser murders his wife and immediately confesses.

1981 - Luke and Laura marry on General Hospital; it is the highest-rated hour in daytime television history.

1988 - The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that the Estonia was "sovereign" but stopped short of declaring independence.

1988 - In the first open election in more than a decade, voters inPakistan choose populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister.

1989 - A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops kill six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.

1990 - Rocky V is the 5th and final Rocky sequel to open in theaters, starring Sylvester Stallone.

1996 - Mother Teresa receives honorary US citizenship.

1997 - After nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People's Republic of China releases Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons.

2000 - Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting US President to visit Vietnam.

2001 - The first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is released, becoming the second highest grossing film around the world of all time.

2004 - X-43A scramjet becomes the fastest air-breathing jet flying at nearly Mach 10 at approx. 11,200 km/h or 3.11 km/s