On August 16
No pivotal events are recorded on exactly August 16 in the Human Saga — here is the surrounding week in history.
This week in history (Aug 13 – Aug 19)
At midnight on 14–15 August 1947 the British Raj was dissolved and replaced by two independent dominions, Pakistan (14 August) and India (15 August), under the Indian Independence Act passed by the UK Parliament on 18 July 1947.
In the early hours of 13 August 1961 the government of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), with Soviet approval, began sealing the border between East and West Berlin.
On 13 August 1521 the Mexica (Aztec) capital Tenochtitlan fell to a coalition of Spanish conquistadors under Hernán Cortés and tens of thousands of Indigenous allies, above all the Tlaxcalans.
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited the denial of the right to vote on the basis of sex.
On 19 August 1953 Iran's democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was overthrown in a coup organised by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6, under the codename Operation Boot) and the American Central…
On 15 August 1971 President Richard Nixon announced a 'New Economic Policy' that suspended the convertibility of the US dollar into gold, alongside a 90-day wage and price freeze and a temporary import surcharge.
From 13 to 17 August 1876 Richard Wagner's complete four-opera cycle 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' was performed for the first time, inaugurating the first Bayreuth Festival in a purpose-built theatre, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, designed to…
Over the weekend of 15 to 18 August 1969, an estimated 400,000 people gathered at Max Yasgur's dairy farm near Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, billed as an Aquarian Exposition of three days of peace and music.