16 December 2025 (MIA)

1431 – Hundred Years’ War: Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris.

1497 – Vasco da Gama passes the Great Fish River, where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal.

1575 – An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 8.5 strikes Valdivia, Chile.

1598 – Seven-Year War: Battle of Noryang: The final battle of the Seven-Year War is fought between the China and the Korean allied forces and Japanese navies, resulting in a decisive allied forces victory.

1653 – English Interregnum: The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

1689 – Convention Parliament: The Declaration of Right is embodied in the Bill of Rights.

1761 – Seven Years’ War: After a four-month siege, the Russians under Pyotr Rumyantsev take the Prussian fortress of Kołobrzeg.

1773 – American Revolution: Boston Tea Party: Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

1811 – The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes occur in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri.

1826 – Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.

1838 – Great Trek: Battle of Blood River: Voortrekkers led by Andries Pretorius and Sarel Cilliers defeat Zulu impis, led by Dambuza (Nzobo) and Ndlela kaSompisi in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

1850 – The Charlotte Jane and the Randolph bring the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton, New Zealand.

1863 – American Civil War: Joseph E. Johnston replaces Braxton Bragg as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Nashville: Major General George Thomas’s Union forces defeat Lieutenant General John Bell Hood’s Confederate Army of Tennessee.

1880 – Outbreak of the First Boer War between the Boer South African Republic and the British Empire.

1883 – Tonkin Campaign: French forces capture the Sơn Tây citadel.

1869 – One of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization’s founders and its president until 1901, Hristo Tatarcev, born in Resen. He passes away in Turin on 5 January 1952.

1903 – Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel in Bombay first opens its doors to guests.

1907 – The American Great White Fleet begins its circumnavigation of the world.

1912 – First Balkan War: The Royal Hellenic Navy defeats the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Elli.

1912 – Macedonian poet and revolutionary Kole Nedelkovski born in Vojnica near Veles. Publishes several poetry books during World War II. Commits suicide while chased by Bulgarian fascist police in Sofia on 2 September 1941.

1914 – World War I: Admiral Franz von Hipper commands a raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby.

1918 – Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas declares the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic; it is dissolved in 1919.

1920 – The Haiyuan earthquake, magnitude 8.5, rocks the Gansu province in China, killing an estimated 200,000.

1922 – President of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz is assassinated by Eligiusz Niewiadomski at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw.

1930 – Bank robber Herman Lamm and members of his crew are killed by a 200-strong posse, following a botched bank robbery, in Clinton, Indiana.

1937 – Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.

1938 – Adolf Hitler institutes the Cross of Honour of the German Mother.

1941 – World War II: Japanese forces occupy Miri, Sarawak.

1942 – The Holocaust: Schutzstaffel chief Heinrich Himmler orders that Roma candidates for extermination be deported to Auschwitz.

1944 – World War II: The Battle of the Bulge begins with the surprise offensive of three German armies through the Ardennes forest.

1946 – Thailand joins the United Nations.

1947 – William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.

1950 – Korean War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman declares a state of emergency, after Chinese troops enter the fight in support of communist North Korea.

1960 – A United Airlines Douglas DC-8 and a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation collide over Staten Island, New York and crash, killing all 128 people aboard both aircraft and six more on the ground.

1965 – Vietnam War: General William Westmoreland sends U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a request for 243,000 more men by the end of 1966.

1968 – Second Vatican Council: Official revocation of the Edict of Expulsion of Jews from Spain.

1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: The surrender of the Pakistan Army brings an end to both conflicts. This is commemorated annually as Victory Day in Bangladesh, and as Vijay Diwas in India.

1971 – The United Kingdom recognizes Bahrain’s independence, which is commemorated annually as Bahrain’s National Day.

1978 – Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first major American city to default on its financial obligations since the Great Depression.

1979 – Libya joins four other OPEC nations in raising crude oil prices, which has an immediate, dramatic effect on the United States.

1985 – Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti are shot dead on the orders of John Gotti, who assumes leadership of New York’s Gambino crime family.

1989 – Romanian Revolution: Protests break out in Timișoara, Romania, in response to an attempt by the government to evict dissident Hungarian pastor László Tőkés.

1989 – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Smith Vance is assassinated by a mail bomb sent by Walter Leroy Moody, Jr.

1991 – Kazakhstan declares independence from the Soviet Union.

2013 – A bus falls from an elevated highway in the Philippines capital Manila killing at least 18 people with 20 injured.

2014 – Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants attacked an Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 145 people, mostly schoolchildren.