Old clock in sand with the words: It Happend in April

Browse Historical Events by Day: What Happened on April 16th?

Discover major events and cultural milestones that happened on this day — organized by year. Dates for earlier events may be approximate.

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1057 CE, April 16

Pope Stephen IX (X) becomes the 154th pope.

1336 CE, April 16

Francesco Petrarca, commonly known as Petrarch, is crowned poet laureate in Rome, marking the revival of the Roman tradition.

1374 CE, April 16

Cola di Rienzo, an Italian populist and later self-proclaimed "Tribune of the People," is killed by a Roman mob.

1520 CE, April 16

The Revolt of the Comuneros begins in Spain against King Charles V's rule.

1701 CE, April 16

The privateer-turned-pirate Captain Kidd is captured in Boston and sent to England to stand trial.

1746 CE, April 16

The Battle of Culloden ends the Jacobite rising of 1745 in Scotland, marking the defeat of Charles Stuart's attempt to reclaim the British throne.

1947 CE, April 16

An explosion triggered by a mid-morning fire on board the French-registered vessel SS Grandcamp, docked in the port at Texas city, Galveston Bay, detonates her cargo of about 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate.[The explosion is started a chain reaction of fires and explosions aboard other ships and in nearby oil-storage facilities, ultimately killing almost 600 people, including all but one member of Texas City's 100 fire department volunteers. It was the deadliest industrial accident in U.S. history and one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions. More

1963 CE, April 16

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pens his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" advocating for civil rights.

1972 CE, April 16

Apollo 16, the fifth of six U.S. lunar landing missions, is successfully launched on its 238,000-mile journey to the moon from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronauts John W. Young (Commander), Charles M. Duke (Lunar Module Pilot) and Thomas K. Mattingly (Command Module Pilot). More