This day in history – November 16

• 1380 French King Charles VI declares no taxes forever.

• 1532 Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizarro captures Inca Emperor Atahualpa after a surprise ambush at Cajamarca.

• 1763 English journalist John Wilkes injured in a duel.

• 1835 Charles Darwin’s voyage published in Cambridge Philosophical Society

• 1841 Life preservers made of cork are patented by Napoleon Guerin.

• 1849 Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labour.

• 1875 William Bonwill, patents dental mallet to impact gold into cavities

• 1938 LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland.

• 1939 Al Capone freed from Alcatraz jail.

• 1945 Founding of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

• 1945 Two new elements discovered by Glenn Seaborg, James, Morgan and Albert Ghiorso were are announced: americium (atomic number 95) and curium (atomic number 96).

• 1955 1st speed-boat to exceed 322 kph (Donald Campbell).

• 1957 US murderer and body snatcher Ed Gein kills his last victim.

• 1963 Touch-tone telephone introduced.

• 1968 The Derry Citizens Action Committee defies a ban on marches in Derry, Northern Ireland, by marching with an estimated 15 000 people.

• 1970 Two men are shot dead by the Irish Republican Army (IRA)

• 1970 Elton John records a show in New York City which was later released as his 11-17-70 album

• 1971 The Compton inquiry is published, acknowledging that there was ill-treatment of internees, but rejected claims of systematic brutality or torture (Northern Ireland).

• 1973 John Lennon releases “Mind Games” album

• 1974 John Lennon’s only solo #1 “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”

• 1974 ABBA begin their first tour of Europe – their first tour outside of Sweden.

• 1979 Paul McCartney releases “Wonderful Christmas”

• 1984 John Lennon’s ‘Every Man has a Woman Who Loves Him’ released posthumously

• 1987 Paul McCartney releases “Once Upon a Long Ago”

• 1989 South African President F. W. de Klerk announces scrapping of Separate Amenities Act.

• 1998 Monica Lewinsky signs a deal for the North American rights to a book about her affair with US President Clinton.

• 2002 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein says that he had to accept UN Resolution 1441 because the United States and Israel had shown their “claws and teeth” and declared unitlateral war on the Iraqi people.

• 2009 “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”, based on the book by Stephenie Meyer, directed by Chris Weitz, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, premieres in Los Angeles.

• 2012 ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 2’ grosses $500 million in 24 hours to become the biggest entertainment launch of all time.

• 2015 French President François Hollande declares the country at war with ISIS in an address to parliament.

• 2015 Largest diamond discovered in more than a century, a 1 111 carat stone found in the Karowe mine, Botswana.

Source: www.onthisday.com