History for December 16

History for December 16 - On-This-Day.com
Catherine of Aragon 1485, Ludwig Van Beethoven 1770 - Composer, Jane Austen 1775
 

George Santayana 1863, Margaret Mead 1901 , Arthur C. Clarke 1917 - Author
  

1773 - Nearly 350 chests of tea were dumped into Boston Harbor off of British ships by Colonial patriots. The patriots were disguised as Indians. The act was to protest taxation without representation and the monopoly the government granted to the East India Company.


1838 - The Zulu chief Dingaan was defeated by a small force of Boers at Blood River celebrated in South Africa as 'Dingaan's Day'.


1901 - "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," by Beatrix Potter, was printed for the first time.


1944 - During World War II, the Battle of the Bulge began in Belgium. It was the final major German counteroffensive in the war.


1950 - U.S. President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight "Communist imperialism."


1973 - O.J. Simpson broke Jim Brown’s single-season rushing record in the NFL. Brown had rushed for 1,863 yards, while Simpson attained 2,003 yards.


1996 - Britain's agriculture minister announced the slaughter of an additional 100,000 cows thought to be at risk of contracting BSE in an effort to persuade the EU to lift its ban on Britain.


1998 - Eric Michelman filed the earliest patent for a scroll wheel for a computer mouse.