Love playing hockey? Or rather, enjoy watching it live? On this day in history, Hockey Champion Wayne Gretzky announced his retirement. Read the following list of events to see what made headlines on this day, April 16 in history.
- 1912-Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
- 1917-Lenin returned to Russia after 10 years in exile in Switzerland.
- 1922-Annie Oakley shot 100 clay targets in a row, to set a women’s record.
- 1942-The Island of Malta was awarded the George Cross in recognition for heroism under constant German air attack.
- 1944-The destroyer USS Laffey survived immense damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa.
- 1948-In Paris, the Organization for European Economic Co-operation was set up.
- 1953-The British royal yacht Britannia was launched.
- 1964-The Rolling Stones released their debut album.
- 1968-The Pentagon announced that troops would begin coming home from Vietnam.
- 1972-Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon.
- 1982-Queen Elizabeth proclaimed Canada’s new constitution in effect.
- 1983-Brazil detained four Libyan planes en route to Nicaragua after finding weapons, explosives, and ammunition on the planes.
- 1987-The Federal Communications Commission sternly warned U.S. radio stations to watch the use of indecent language on the airwaves.
- 1987-The U.S. Patent Office began allowing the patenting of new animals created by genetic engineering.
- 1995-The European Union and Canada agreed to protect threatened fish stocks in the North Atlantic.
- 1996-Britain’s Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York, announced that they were in the process of getting a divorce.
- 1999-Hockey champion Wayne Gretzky announced his retirement.
- 2003-Ten new member states were admitted to the European Union.
- 2007-Cho Seung-Hui killed two in a Virginia Tech dorm, then killed 30 more 2 hours later in a classroom building before killing himself.
- 2012-The trial of Anders Behring Breivik begun in Oslo.