December 16 birthdays & history

Famous people born on December 16

• 1770Ludwig van Beethoven, composer
• 1775Jane Austen, English novelist
• 1917Arthur C. Clarke, English science fiction writer
• 1866Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-French painter and theorist
• 1901Margaret Mead, American anthropologist and author
• 1928Philip K. Dick, American philosopher and author
• 1485Catherine of Aragon, Spanish princess, Queen Consort of England
• 1863George Santayana, Spanish philosopher, novelist, and poet
• 1988Mats Hummels, German footballer
• 1938Liv Ullmann, Norwegian actress, director, and screenwriter

What happened on December 16

• 533The Digest, the great collection of all Roman jurists' law, is issued together with a new official law textbook for legal schools, The Institutes.
• 1497Vasco da Gama passes the Great Fish River at the southern tip of Africa, where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal.
• 1689The Parliament of England enacted the Bill of Rights, setting out basic civil rights and later influencing other documents such as the U.S. Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• 1777Virginia becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
• 1850Settlers of the Canterbury Association aboard Randolph and Charlotte Jane arrived to establish a colony at Christchurch, New Zealand.
• 1882Wales and England contest the first Home Nations (now Six Nations) rugby union match.
• 1893Czech composer Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony (audio featured) premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
• 1901English writer Beatrix Potter privately published 250 copies of The Tale of Peter Rabbit (illustration shown) after several publishers' rejections.
• 1905In rugby union, the "Match of the Century" is played between Wales and New Zealand at Cardiff Arms Park.
• 1971The United Kingdom recognizes Bahrain's independence, which is commemorated annually as Bahrain's National Day.
• 1972The Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh is enacted.
• 1997"Dennō Senshi Porygon", an episode of the Japanese television series Pokémon, induced epileptic seizures in 685 children.

Also observed on December 16

• Day of Reconciliation, formerly celebrated as Day of the Vow by the Afrikaners (South Africa)
• Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Kazakhstan from the Soviet Union in 1991.
• International Day of the Belt and Road Initiative
• National Sports Day (Thailand)