#TodayInHistory – April 16

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April 16 – Some important events on this day

1457 BC 👉🏼 Battle of Megiddo: Egyptian forces of Thutmose III defeat a large Canaanite coalition under King of Kadesh. First battle recorded with a reliable account. The first detailed battle account to have ever survived, it was carved into the walls of the Temple to Amun-Re at Karnak by military scribe Tjaneni.
The battle occurred in the Levant, an area controlled by the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III, who was facing a revolt led by the King of Kadesh.
The Egyptians won the encounter but allowed the enemy to escape into the city of Meggido which led to a seven month siege. This the Egyptians eventually broke to re-establish control in the area.

1178 BC 👉🏼 A solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca, to his kingdom after the Trojan War
1705 👉🏼 Queen Anne of England knights Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge
1746 👉🏼 Jacobite Rising 1745: Battle of Culloden, the last battle on British soil: Royalist troops under the Duke of Cumberland defeat the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart
1780 👉🏼 The University of Münster in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany is founded
1787 👉🏼 1st American comedy, “The Contrast,” made its debut in NYC

1850 👉🏼 Anna Maria “Marie” Tussaud, the woman behind one of London’s most famous tourist attractions, died at the age of 89. ✔️ READ THE ARTICLE!

1853 👉🏼 1st train in Asia (Bombay to Tanna, 36 km)
1900 👉🏼 US Post Office issues 1st books of postage stamps
1917 👉🏼 Vladimir Lenin issues his radical “April Theses” calling for Soviets to take power during the Russian Revolution
1943 👉🏼 Swiss scientist Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychedelic effects of LSD.

1945 👉🏼 Battle of Berlin: Red Army begins its attack on the capital of Nazi Germany.
Instantly popular, this photograph of soldiers raising the flag of the conquering Soviet Union over the German parliament came to be regarded around the world as one of the most significant and recognizable images of World War II.
The photograph was later significantly altered for propaganda purposes with additional smoke added for dramatic effect and multiple wristwatches were removed from the lower soldier’s wrist, as they would imply that he had been looting.

1946 👉🏼 Auto racer and the brother of Chevrolet auto namesake Louis Chevrolet, Arthur Chevrolet dies by suicide in Slidell, Louisiana.
Despite Louis and Arthur’s talent for racing and design (in addition to building cars, they also designed aircraft engines) they had little gift for finance and often were pushed out of their endeavors before they could reap the rewards due to them. By the 1930s, both men were broke and their racing careers were over. Louis returned to Detroit to work in GM’s Chevrolet division, and died on June 6, 1941. His brother Arthur died by suicide on this day, five years later.

1947 👉🏼 Fertilizer explosion kills 581 in Texas
1948 👉🏼 Organization for European Economic Cooperation (EEC) forms in Paris
2003 👉🏼Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union

2007 👉🏼 32 people died after being gunned down on the campus of Virginia Tech by Seung Hui Cho, a student at the college who later committed suicide.
The shooting began around 7:15 a.m., when Cho, a 23-year-old senior and English major at Blacksburg-based Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, shot a female freshman and a male resident assistant in a campus dormitory before fleeing the building. Police were soon on the scene; unaware of the gunman’s identity, they initially pursued the female victim’s boyfriend as a suspect in what they believed to be an isolated domestic-violence incident.
However, at around 9:40 a.m., Cho, armed with a 9-millimeter handgun, a 22-caliber handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, entered a classroom building, chained and locked several main doors and went from room to room shooting people. Approximately 10 minutes after the rampage began, he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.