Today in History: May 16, China’s Cultural Revolution begins

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Today is Saturday, May 16, the 136th day of 2026. There are 229 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 16, 1966, the Chinese Communist Party issued the May 16 Notification, a document that criticized “counterrevolutionary revisionists” within the party and marked the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

Also on this date:

In 1770, Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.

In 1868, having already been impeached by the House of Representatives, President Andrew Johnson narrowly avoided impeachment by the Senate, which voted 35-19 in favor of impeachment — one vote shy of the required two-thirds majority.

In 1929, the first Academy Awards were presented. “Wings” won the award for Outstanding Picture, while Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor were named Best Actor and Best Actress.

In 1943, the nearly monthlong Warsaw Ghetto Uprising came to an end as German forces crushed the Jewish resistance and blew up the city’s Great Synagogue.

In 1960, the first working laser was demonstrated at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, by physicist Theodore Maiman.

In 1975, Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

In 1988, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop declared that nicotine is as addictive as heroin or cocaine as part of his campaign to warn against the health hazards of smoking and make America smoke-free by 2000.

In 1991, Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress, speaking to a joint meeting of both chambers during her state visit to the United States.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton publicly apologized for the notorious 40-year Tuskegee Experiment, in which government scientists deliberately allowed Black men to weaken and die of treatable syphilis.

In 2011, Space Shuttle Endeavour launched on its 25th and final flight into space, bound for the International Space Station. The launch came as NASA was winding down the 30-year shuttle program that would end with a final flight by the orbiter Atlantis in July of the same year.

In 2018, officials at Michigan State University said they had agreed to pay $500 million to settle claims from more than 300 women and girls who said they were assaulted by sports doctor Larry Nassar.

In 2022, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 reached 1 million.

In 2025, a devastating tornado claimed several lives and damaged hundreds of homes in Somerset, Kentucky, during a severe weather outbreak in the South and Midwest that killed at least 19 people.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Danny Trejo is 82. Actor Pierce Brosnan is 73. Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Olga Korbut is 71. Baseball Hall of Famer Jack Morris is 71. Actor Debra Winger is 71. Olympic marathon gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson is 69. Actor Mare Winningham is 67. Rock musician Krist Novoselic (Nirvana) is 61. Singer Janet Jackson is 60. Football Hall of Famer Thurman Thomas is 60. Singer Ralph Tresvant (New Edition) is 58. Actor David Boreanaz is 57. Tennis Hall of Famer Gabriela Sabatini is 56. Actor Tori Spelling is 53. Actor Megan Fox is 40. Actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster is 36. Rapper Travis Bennett is 32. Model Lani Randol is 27. Basketball player Kamorea ‘KK’ Arnold is 21.