May 16

1771 – The Battle of Alamance, a pre-Revolutionary War battle between local Militia and a group of rebels called the “Regulators”, occurs in present day Alamance County, North Carolina.

1842 – The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail from Elm Grove, Missouri.

1866 – Beginning the replacement of the silver ‘half dime’, Congress establishes the 5¢ coin, called the ‘nickel’, being made of 75% copper and 25% nickel. Today, the only U.S. coin in circulation that is actually worth as much, or more, than the face amount.

1868 – The Senate fails to convict President Andrew Johnson at his impeachment trial by 1 vote.

1888 – Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York City, describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances.

1891 – The International Electrotechnical Exhibition opens in Frankfurt, Germany, featuring the world’s first long distance transmission of high power, three-phase alternating electric current transmitted from a powerplant 75 miles away.

1916 – Great Britain and France sign the secret wartime Sykes-Picot Agreement, partitioning former Ottoman territories in Arabia.

1918 – Congress passes the Sedition Act of 1918, making criticism of the government during wartime an criminal offense.

1919 – A U.S Navy Curtiss NC-4 aircraft commanded by Albert Cushing Read leaves Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight.

1943 – The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is finally defeated, with the survivors taken to the Majdanek and Treblinka death camps.

1951 – The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between Idlewild Airport – now John F Kennedy International Airport – and Heathrow Airport in London

1960 – At Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser.

1988 – A report by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.

1991 – Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.

2011 – On its 25th and final flight, Shuttle Endeavour launches on mission STS-134, International Space Station assembly flight ULF6, from the Kennedy Space Center.