April 16
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Featured Event
© Jason Koerner/Getty Images
On this day in 2018, Kendrick Lamar became the first artist beyond the genres of classical and jazz to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. His album DAMN., which won the award, wrestles with identity, race, and faith. Lamar’s Pulitzer was widely celebrated as a milestone for hip-hop. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Nils Jorgensen/Shutterstock.com
English actor, director, playwright, and humanitarian Peter Ustinov, who was born this day in 1921, made more than 70 films in Rome, Hollywood, and London during an acclaimed career that spanned some six decades.
Famous Birthdays
More on April 16
© The Republic of Korea Coast Guard/Getty Images
2014
The South Korean ferry Sewol, traveling from Inch’ŏn to Cheju, capsized and sank, killing 304 people, most of whom were high-school students. [Learn about seven of the world’s deadliest shipwrecks.]
© Michael Levy
2007
In one of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States, 33 people, including the shooter, were killed on the Blacksburg, Virginia, campus of Virginia Tech.
© John Swart/AP/REX/Shutterstock.com
2003
At age 40, Michael Jordan, widely regarded as one of the best players in the history of basketball, played his last game in the National Basketball Association. [Find out if Michael Jordan tops our list of the 10 greatest basketball players of all time.]
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
1962
Walter Cronkite became anchor of the CBS Evening News, a position he held for nearly two decades, during which time he became known as “the most trusted man in America.” [Test your knowledge of famous Americans.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1948
In order to restore the economy of Europe after World War II, 16 European countries formed the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (later the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about European history.]
© Jerry Coli/Dreamstime.com
1947
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers (1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, and 1988), was born in New York, New York. [How well do you know basketball player nicknames?]
Graham Harrison/Shutterstock.com
1922
Kingsley Amis, who created in his first novel, Lucky Jim (1954), a comic figure that became a household word in Great Britain in the 1950s, was born in London. [Test your knowledge of the life and works of English novelists.]
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
1917
Vladimir Lenin ended his 17-year exile and returned to Russia to form a provisional government. [Take our quiz about Russian history.]
George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZ62-35551)
1912
The American aviator Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel, guiding her airplane through heavy overcast from Dover, England, to Hardelot, France. [How much do you know about the history of flight?]
© Centrill/Dreamstime.com
1908
Natural Bridges National Monument was formally established in southeastern Utah. [Test your knowledge of national parks and landmarks.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1838
French forces occupied Veracruz, Mexico, during the Pastry War; the conflict began after a French pastry cook living near Mexico City claimed that Mexican army officers had damaged his restaurant. [Take our history of warfare quiz.]
© Ronald Sheridan/Ancient Art & Architecture Collection
1755
Painter Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, known for her portraits of Queen Marie-Antoinette, was born in Paris. [Did Marie-Antoinette really say “Let them eat cake?”]
Courtesy of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. Purchased 1949
1746
An English army defeated a Scottish force under Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) at the Battle of Culloden, ending the Jacobite effort to restore the Stuarts to England’s throne. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about English royalty.]
© Pablo Hidalgo/Dreamstime.com
1646
Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who redesigned and expanded the Palace of Versailles, was born in Paris. [Test your knowledge of architecture and architects.]