June 16 birthdays & history

Famous people born on June 16

• 1723Adam Smith, Scottish philosopher and economist
• 1971Tupac Shakur, American rapper and producer
• 1902Barbara McClintock, American geneticist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1967Jürgen Klopp, German footballer and manager
• 1829Geronimo, Apache military leader
• 1929Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait
• 1890Stan Laurel, English actor and comedian
• 1938Joyce Carol Oates, American novelist, short story writer, critic, and poet
• 1888Alexander Friedmann, Russian physicist and mathematician
• 1978Daniel Brühl, Spanish-German actor

What happened on June 16

• 632The final king of the Sasanian Empire of Iran, Yazdegerd III, ascended the throne at the age of eight.
• 1836The formation of the London Working Men's Association gives rise to the Chartist Movement.
• 1846The Papal conclave of 1846 elects Pope Pius IX, beginning the longest reign in the history of the papacy.
• 1858Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.
• 1871The Universities Tests Act 1871 allows students to enter the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests (except for those intending to study theology).
• 1884The first purpose-built roller coaster, LaMarcus Adna Thompson's "Switchback Railway", opens in New York's Coney Island amusement park.
• 1904Irish author James Joyce began a relationship with Nora Barnacle, and subsequently used the date to set the actions for his 1922 novel Ulysses, commemorated as Bloomsday.
• 1960Psycho, a psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on a novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, premiered.
• 1963Aboard Vostok 6, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.
• 1972English musician David Bowie released his breakthrough album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
• 1997The English rock band Radiohead released their landmark third album OK Computer in the United Kingdom.
• 2012Liu Yang, a member of the Shenzhou 9 crew, became the first Chinese woman in space.

Also observed on June 16

• Birthday of Leonard P. Howell (Rastafari)
• Bloomsday (Dublin, Ireland)
• Engineer's Day (Argentina)
• Father's Day (Seychelles)
• International Day of the African Child (Organisation of African Unity)
• Sussex Day (Sussex)