June 16
1816 – Lord Byron read Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests – Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori, and inspired his challenge that each guest write a ghost story.
1858 – Abraham Lincoln gave his “a house divided against itself cannot stand” speech.
1884 – The first public roller coaster, LaMarcus Adna Thompson’s “Switchback Railway” (patent #310,966) opened in New York’s Coney Island amusement park.
1893 – Cracker Jack, invented by R.W. Rueckheim, was introduced at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago’s World Fair.
1903 – The Pepsi-Cola Co. registered the Pepsi-Cola trademark.
1903 – The Ford Motor Company was incorporated by Henry Ford and 11 investors.
1904 – Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce during which the events of his novel, Ulysses, takes place.
1911 – IBM as founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York.
1933 – US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was created.
1940 – The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was held for the first time in Sturgis, South Dakota.
1956 #1 Hit June 16, 1956 – July 27, 1956: Gogi Grant – The Wayward Wind
1961 – Dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the US from the Soviet Union.
1963 – Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space on Vostok 6.
1967 – The Monterey Pop Festival began.
1989 – Ghostbusters II was released in theaters
1990 #1 Hit June 16, 1990 – June 29, 1990: Roxette – It Must Have Been Love
1995 – Pocahontas and Batman Forever debuted in theaters
1999 – Tarzan was released in theaters
2000 – Titan A.E. and Shaft debuted in theaters
2006 – The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Nacho Libra, The Lake House and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties were released in theaters
2010 – Hot in Cleveland premiered on TV Land.
