December 16
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Featured Event
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On this day in 1773, a group of men dressed in Mohawk headdresses and cheered by a crowd of thousands threw tea belonging to the British East India Company into Boston Harbor. Britain’s punitive response to the Boston Tea Party, which was a protest against taxes, helped push American colonists closer to war. [Read today’s edition of Today in History >>]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
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Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
English writer Jane Austen, born this day in 1775, gave the novel its distinctly modern character through her treatment of ordinary people in everyday life and created comedies of contemporary middle-class manners in England.
Famous Birthdays
More on December 16
© Metin Aktas—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
2014
Members of the Pakistani Taliban carried out a terrorist attack on a school in Peshawar, killing 150 people, at least 134 of whom were students.
© 2009 Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
2009
Avatar, a science-fiction thriller directed by James Cameron, was released internationally. It went on to make more than $2.7 billion worldwide and spawn a film franchise.
AP/REX/Shutterstock.com
1985
Paul Castellano, who was reportedly the “boss of bosses” of the Mafia’s Five Families, was fatally shot in New York City. John Gotti was later convicted of arranging the murder. [Take our quiz about mobster names.]
U.S. Army photograph
1944
During World War II, German forces attempted to push through Allied lines in the Ardennes, beginning the Battle of the Bulge. [Test your knowledge of some of the greatest moments in military history.]
Horst Tappe/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1899
English playwright and actor Noël Coward, best known for his highly polished comedies of manners, was born. [Take our quiz about English and Irish playwrights.]
© Matthew Corrigan/Shutterstock.com
1653
Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about famous Englishmen.]
© BlackMac/stock.adobe.com
1631
More than 3,000 people were killed by a major eruption of Mount Vesuvius. [Take our quiz about disasters of historic proportions.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
882
Marinus I became pope after the death (possibly murder) of John VIII. [Test your knowledge of popes.]