A lone gunman fatally shot twelve people and injured three others at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C.
16 September 1964
A Wednesday in history
Weekday
Wednesday
Season
Autumn (N. Hemisphere)
Century
20th century
Records
457
2013- 2007
Seventeen Iraqi civilians were shot and killed by Academi guards in Baghdad.
2007One-Two-Go Airlines Flight 269 crashed after attempting a poorly executed go-around while landing in Thailand, killing 90 of the 130 people on board.
1992The British pound (coin pictured) was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday and suffered a major devaluation.
1989During a tour of the United States, Soviet politician Boris Yeltsin visited a grocery store in Texas that had a major impact on his views regarding the Soviet Union's economic system.
1982A Lebanese militia under the direct command of Elie Hobeika carried out a massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila, killing at least 460 civilians.
1979Eight people escaped from East Germany to West Germany in a home-made hot air balloon.
1975The prototype of the Soviet Mikoyan MiG-31, one of the fastest combat jets in the world, made its maiden flight.
1963Malaysia was formed as an independent nation from the Federation of Malaya, the Colony of Singapore, the Crown Colony of North Borneo, and the Crown Colony of Sarawak.
1961The U.S. National Hurricane Research Project sought to weaken Hurricane Esther by seeding it with silver iodide, leading to the establishment of Project Stormfury.
- 1961
Typhoon Nancy (pictured), which possibly had the strongest winds ever measured in a tropical cyclone, made landfall in Muroto, Japan.
1940Second World War: Italian forces captured the town of Sidi Barrani, but their invasion of Egypt progressed no further.
1920A bomb in a horse-drawn wagon exploded in front of 23 Wall Street in New York City, killing 38 people and injuring several hundred others.
1844Felix Mendelssohn completed the score of his Violin Concerto, his final concerto.
1776American Revolutionary War: American colonists defeated British troops at the Battle of Harlem Heights on the island of Manhattan.
681Pope Honorius I was posthumously excommunicated at the Third Council of Constantinople, with his support for monothelitism deemed to be heretical.
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