Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 16
This is a list of selected April 16 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
April 16: Great Thursday (Eastern Christianity, 2009); Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C.
- 1853 – The first passenger line of what would become Indian Railways, the state-owned railway company of India, opened between Bombay and Thane.
- 1912 – American Harriet Quimby (pictured) became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
- 1947 – American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch first described the post-World War II tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States as a "cold war".
- 2003 – The Treaty of Accession was signed in Athens, admitting ten new member states, including several countries of the former Eastern Bloc, into the European Union.
- 2007 – In one of the deadliest shooting incidents in United States history, a gunman killed 32 people and wounded over 20 more before committing suicide at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.