December 16

1497 – During his voyage to discover a ocean route to India, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama passes the Great Fish River at the southern tip of Africa, where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal.

1620 – While exploring around Cape Cod, Myles Standish and a group of 18 settlers of the Plymouth colony, are confronted by 30 Nauset Indians – which became known as the “First Encounter: – resulting in a brief exchange of hostilities with no casualties on either side.

1689 – The co-reigning English King and Queen William and Mary give the royal ascent to the English Bill of Rights.

1773 – Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

1777 – Virginia becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

1811 – The first 2 in a series of 4 severe earthquakes occur in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri.

1863 – Joseph E. Johnston replaces Braxton Bragg as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

1880 – The Boers of South Africa declare their independence and war breaks out between their South African Republic and the British Empire.

1907 – The U.S. Navy’s Great White Fleet begins its cruise of circumnavigation.

1912 – During the First Balkan War, the Royal Hellenic Navy defeats the Ottoman Navy near the mouth of the Dardanelles causing the Turks to  retreat within the Straits and leaving the Aegean Sea open to the Greeks.

1930 – Bank robber Herman Lamm commits suicide and all but 2 members of his gang are killed when surrounded by a 200 member strong posse, in Sidell, Illinois, following a car chase after a botched robbery of the Citizens State Bank in Clinton, Indiana.

1944 – The German Army initiates the Ardennes Offensive – The Battle of the Bulge – beginning with the surprise attack of 3 German armies through the Ardennes forest.

1947 – At Bell Telephone Laboratories, William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.

1960 – United Airlines Flight 826, a Douglas DC-8 and TWA Flight 266, a Lockheed Super Constellation, collide over Staten Island, New York and crash, killing all 128 passengers and crews aboard both aircraft and 6 more on the ground.

1978 – Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first major American city to default on its financial obligations since the Great Depression.

1989 – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Smith Vance is assassinated by a mail bomb sent by Walter Leroy Moody, Jr.

1991 – The Major League Baseball expansion club Florida Marlins sign their 1st player, 16 year old pitcher Clemente Nunez

2016 – The State Department increases the reward for information on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to $25 million

2020 – A major winter storm hits the U.S. Northeast, resulting in at least 7 deaths and Binghamton, New York, receiving a record 41 inches of snowfall.