1916 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal government">Federal government of the United States">Federal government

• President: Woodrow Wilson
• [Vice President of the United States|President of the United States|Vice President]: Thomas R. Marshall
• Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark
• Congress: 64th

Events

January

• January – The Journal of Negro History is founded by Carter G. Woodson, the father of "Black History" and "Negro History Week".
• January 24
• *In Browning, Montana, the temperature drops from +6.7 °C to −48.8 °C in one day, the greatest change ever on record for a 24-hour period.
• *Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad: The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the national income tax.
• c. January – The Anti-Militarism Committee changes its name to the Anti-Preparedness Committee, later in the year becoming the American Union Against Militarism.

February

• February 11
• * Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.
• * The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents its first concert.

March

• March 3 - The Original Dixieland Jazz Band begin playing at Schiller's Cafe in Chicago. Until June 5 it is known as Stein's Dixie Jazz Band.
• March 6 - Newton D. Baker appointed Secretary of War.
• March 8–9 - Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads about 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 12 U.S. soldiers. A garrison of the U.S. 13th Cavalry Regiment fights back and drives them away.
• March 15 - President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.-Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa; the 13th Cavalry regiment enters Mexican territory.
• March 16 – Mexican Revolution
• * The U.S. 7th and 10th Cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the border to join the hunt for Villa.
• * United States Army aircraft fly their first mission over foreign soil when Curtiss JN-3s of the 1st Aero Squadron carry out reconnaissance over Mexico.

April

• April 20
• * The Escadrille Américaine, later to be known as the Lafayette Escadrille, is established as an American volunteer unit of the French Air Force. Their first aerial victory is claimed on May 18 by Kiffin Rockwell.
• * The Chicago Cubs play their first game at Weeghman Park, defeating the Cincinnati Reds 7–6 in 11 innings.

May

• May 5 - United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1916–24) begins when companies of the United States Marine Corps land in the Dominican Republic.
• May 15 - Lynching of Jesse Washington: Jesse Washington, a black farmhand, is brutally lynched in Robinson, Texas by a crowd of white people, for allegedly murdering his employers' wife.
• May 19 - Norman Rockwell's first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, Boy with Baby Carriage.
• May 22 - The case of United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola is decided.

June

• June 3 - Division of Militia Affairs renamed Militia Bureau.
• June 5 – Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
• June 15 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America. This year also, Robert Baden-Powell founds the Wolf Cubs in Britain, changed to Cub Scouts in the U.S.

July

• July 1 - The United States Marine Corps take control of Santo Domingo.
• July 1-12 - At least one shark mauls five swimmers along of New Jersey coastline during the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, resulting in four deaths and the survival of one youth who required limb amputation. This event is the inspiration for author Peter Benchley, over half a century later, to write Jaws.
• July 8-16 - Massive flooding caused by two hurricanes devastates western North Carolina.
• July 15 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing incorporates Pacific Aero Products.
• July 22 - In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade, killing 10 and injuring 40. Warren Billings and Tom Mooney would later be wrongfully convicted of the bombing.
• July 30 - German agents cause the Black Tom explosion in Jersey City, New Jersey, an act of sabotage destroying an ammunition depot and killing at least seven people.

August

• August 1 – Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park is established in Hawaii
• August 9 - Lassen Volcanic National Park is established in California.
• August 25 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs legislation creating the National Park Service.
• August 29
• * Council of National Defense formed.
• * The United States passes the Philippine Autonomy Act.

September

• September 1 - The Keating–Owen Act, the first federal law to restrict child labor, is passed, but is ruled unconstitutional in 1918.
• September 5 - Release of D. W. Griffith's film Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages.
• September 6 - The first true self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, is founded in Memphis, Tennessee, by Clarence Saunders.
• September 7 - The Merchant Marine Act of 1916 establishes the U.S. Shipping Board.
• September 13 - Mary, a circus elephant, is hanged in the town of Erwin, Tennessee for killing her handler, Walter "Red" Eldridge.
• September 30 - Construction is completed on the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City.

October

• October 16 - Margaret Sanger opens a family planning and birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn, the first of its kind in the U.S., a forerunner of Planned Parenthood. Nine days later, she is arrested for breaking a New York state law prohibiting distribution of contraceptives. This same year, she publishes What Every Girl Should Know, providing information about such topics as menstruation and sexuality in adolescents.

November

• November 1 - The first 40-hour work week officially begins in the Endicott-Johnson factories of Western New York.
• November 5 - Everett massacre: An armed confrontation in Everett, Washington, between local authorities and members of the Industrial Workers of the World results in seven deaths.
• November 7
• *U.S. presidential election, 1916: Democratic President Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeats Republican Charles E. Hughes.
• *Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.
• November 19 – Ruth Law sets a new distance record for cross-country flight by flying 590 miles non-stop from Chicago to New York State. She flies on to New York City the next day.
• November 21 – The U.S. rejects a German offer of £10000 per American lost in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

December

• December – Wilbur Sweatman records his hot ragtime for Emerson Records in New York City.
• December 5 – "Petticoat Revolution" in Umatilla, Oregon: 7 women successfully capture the mayorship and a majority of council seats.
• December 31
• *The Hampton Terrace Hotel in North Augusta, South Carolina, one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the nation at this time, burns to the ground.
• *14 journals have published Louis Raemaekers's anti-German cartoons.

Undated

• The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers is founded as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers.

Ongoing

• Progressive Era
• Lochner era in the Supreme Court of the United States
• U.S. occupation of Haiti
• Pancho Villa Expedition

Births

January–June

• January 3
• * Maxene Andrews, singer
• * Betty Furness, actress and consumer activist
• * Bernard Greenhouse, cellist
• * Warren King, cartoonist
• January 6 - Eugene Thomas Maleska, American journalist
• January 9 - Vic Mizzy, television theme composer
• January 14
• * Maxwell Davis, R&B musician
• * Glenn Simmons, outdoorsman and guide, skiff builder
• January 15 - Artie Shapiro, jazz bassist
• January 17 - Peter Frelinghuysen, Jr., politician
• January 19 - Harry Huskey, computer designer
• January 23 - David Douglas Duncan, photojournalist
• January 24 - Marvin Creamer, sailor
• February 7 - Floyd Haskell, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1973 to 1979
• February 9 - Tex Hughson, baseball player
• February 10
• * Louis Guttman, mathematician
• * Julia Hawkins, athlete
• February 14 - Denham Harman, gerontologist
• February 20 - Jean Erdman, dancer
• February 23 - Retta Scott, animator
• February 26
• * Jackie Gleason, film actor
• * Preacher Roe, baseball player
• February 29 - Dinah Shore, popular singer
• March 1 - Emelyn Whiton, Olympic sailor
• March 4 - William Alland, film actor, producer, writer and director
• March 5 - Jack Hamm, cartoonist
• March 13
• *Lindy Boggs, politician
• * Jacque Fresco, futurist and designer
• * John Aspinwall Roosevelt, businessman and philanthropist
• March 14 - Horton Foote, writer
• March 15
• * Junior Coghlan, film actor and naval aviator
• * Harry James, musician and band leader
• March 16 - Mercedes McCambridge, actress
• March 19 - Irving Wallace, novelist
• March 26 - Christian B. Anfinsen, biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• March 29 - Eugene McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1959 to 1971
• March 31 - Lucille Bliss, voice actress
• April 3
• * Herb Caen, journalist
• * Peter Gowland, photographer
• April 4 - Robert S. McMillan, architect
• April 5
• * Albert Henry Ottenweller, bishop
• * Gregory Peck, film actor
• April 12
• * Beverly Cleary, children's author
• * Benjamin Libet, pioneering scientist in the field of human consciousness
• April 13 - Phyllis Fraser, actress and publisher
• April 16 - Ted Mann, businessman
• April 15 - Alfred S. Bloomingdale, department store heir
• April 20 - Phil Walters, race car driver and pilot
• April 22 - Yehudi Menuhin, violinist
• April 24
• * Stanley Kauffmann, film critic
• * Lou Thesz, wrestler
• April 25 - R. J. Rushdoony, founder of Christian Reconstructionism
• April 26
• * Dorothy Salisbury Davis, writer
• * Vic Perrin, voice actor
• * George Tuska, comic strip artist
• April 30
• * Claude Elwood Shannon, mathematician, "father of information theory"
• * Robert Shaw, choral and orchestral conductor
• May 2 - Two Ton Baker, entertainer
• May 4 - Jane Jacobs, née Butzner, urban activist
• May 6
• * Adriana Caselotti, voice actress
• * Robert H. Dicke, physicist
• May 10 - Milton Babbitt, composer
• May 21
• * Lydia Mendoza, singer-guitarist
• * Harold Robbins, novelist
• May 28 - Dorothy McGuire, film actress
• June 3 - Jack Manning, actor
• June 4 - Robert F. Furchgott, biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• June 5 - Eddie Joost, baseball player and manager
• June 6 - Jack Miller, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1961 to 1973
• June 12 - Raúl Héctor Castro, politician
• June 14 - John Ciardi, poet, translator and etymologist
• June 15
• * Olga Erteszek, lingerie designer and manufacturer
• * Herbert A. Simon, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics
• June 16 - Phil Chambers, film and television actor
• June 17 - David "Stringbean" Akeman, country music banjo player
• June 24 - William B. Saxbe, politician
• June 29
• * John M. Johansen, architect
• * Ruth Warrick, television actress

July–December

• July 1
• * Olivia de Havilland, Japanese born-British actress
• * Lawrence Halprin, architect
• July 3 - John Kundla, basketball coach
• July 4 - Iva Toguri D'Aquino, propaganda broadcaster
• July 6 - Harold Norse, writer
• July 8 - Jean Rouverol, actress, screenwriter and author
• July 18
• * L. Patrick Gray III, Federal Bureau of Investigation director
• * Johnny Hopp, baseball player and coach
• July 19 - Phil Cavarretta, baseball player
• July 25 - Fred Lasswell, cartoonist
• July 27 - Elizabeth Hardwick, literary critic and novelist
• July 28 - David Brown, producer
• July 31 - Bill Todman, game show producer
• August 5 - Kermit Love, puppeteer
• August 14 - Ralph de Toledano, conservationist and author
• August 16 - Iggy Katona, race car driver
• August 21 - Frank O. Braynard, maritime writer and historian
• August 24 - Hal Smith, actor
• August 25
• * Van Johnson, film actor
• * Frederick Chapman Robbins, pediatrician and virologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• August 27 - Martha Raye, film actress
• August 28 - Jack Vance, writer
• August 29 - Luther Davis, screenwriter
• August 30 - Shag Crawford, baseball umpire
• August 31
• * Daniel Schorr, journalist
• * John S. Wold, politician
• September 1
• * Dorothy Cheney, tennis player
• * Joseph Minish, politician
• September 13 - John Malcolm Brinnin, poet and literary critic
• September 15 Frederick C. Weyand, U.S. Army General
• September 18 - John Jacob Rhodes, politician and lawyer
• September 24 - Ruth Leach Amonette, businesswoman
• September 27 - Frank Handlen, marine artist
• October 3 - Shelby Storck, television producer
• October 8 - Spark Matsunaga, U.S. Senator from Hawaii from 1977 to 1990
• October 9 - Robert Brubaker, television Western actor
• October 12 - Alice Childress, actress, playwright and novelist
• October 24 - Ramsay D. Potts, American air force general
• October 28 - Bill Harris, jazz trombonist
• October 29 - Hadda Brooks, pianist, singer and composer
• October 30
• * Leon Day, baseball player
• * Charles E. Potter, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1952 to 1959
• November 4 - Walter Cronkite, television journalist
• November 5 - Bill Fisk, football player and coach
• November 6 - Ray Conniff, trombonist and bandleader
• November 10 - Billy May, composer and arranger
• November 14 - Sherwood Schwartz, television writer and producer
• November 15 - Bill Melendez, animator
• November 16 - Daws Butler, voice actor
• November 17 - Shelby Foote, historian and novelist, author of The Civil War: A Narrative
• November 24 - Forrest J. Ackerman, writer
• November 27 - Chick Hearn, basketball announcer
• November 29 - Fran Ryan, actress
• November 30 - John C. Harkness, architect
• December 7
• * John G. Morris, picture editor
• * George Russell Weller, retired salesman known for the Santa Monica Farmers Market crash in 2003
• December 8 - Richard Fleischer, film director
• December 9
• * Jerome Beatty, Jr., children's author
• * Kirk Douglas, film actor
• * Esther Wilkins, pioneer of dental hygiene
• December 14 - Shirley Jackson, writer
• December 18 - Betty Grable, film actress
• December 25 - Oscar Moore, swing jazz guitarist
• December 27 - Johnny Frigo, jazz violinist and bassist

Deaths

• January 1 - Alfred W. Benson, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1906 to 1907
• January 9 - Ada Rehan, Shakespearean actress
• January 16 - Charles A. Zimmermann, band composer
• January 17
• * Jeannette Leonard Gilder, author and editor
• * Arthur V. Johnson, silent movie actor and director, of tuberculosis
• February 3 - Bowman Brown Law, politician
• February 12 - John Townsend Trowbridge, author
• February 28 - Henry James, naturalised English novelist
• March 20
• * Ota Benga, pygmy, suicide
• * Stephen Wallace Dorsey, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1873 to 1879
• March 25 - Ishi, last known member of the Yana people
• April 11 - Richard Harding Davis, journalist and author
• April 15 - Joanna P. Moore, Baptist missionary and educator
• April 19 - Ephraim Shay, inventor
• April 21 - John Surratt, suspected of involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, son of Mary Surratt
• May 12 - Fred T. Perris, railroad civil engineer
• May 13
• * Clara Louise Kellogg, operatic soprano
• * Sholem Aleichem, Yiddish writer
• May 29 - James J. Hill, financier
• May 30 - John S. Mosby, Confederate army cavalry battalion commander in the American Civil War
• June 9 - Richard C. Saufley, naval aviation pioneer, killed in aviation accident
• June 22 - Oliver Ernesto Branch, politician
• June 24 - Victor Chapman, fighter pilot in the French Air Force, killed in action
• June 25 - Thomas Eakins, realist painter
• June - Addison Hutton, architect
• July 3 - Hetty Green, financier and miser
• July 4 - Alan Seeger, poet, killed in action
• July 22 - James Whitcomb Riley, poet
• July 23 - Thomas M. Patterson, newspaper publisher and U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1901 to 1907
• August 31 - Martha McClellan Brown, temperance activist
• September 8 - James Gray, journalist and 19th Mayor of Minneapolis
• September 9 - Sydney Ayres, silent film actor
• October 1 - James Paul Clarke, 18th Governor of Arkansas from 1895 to 1897 and U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1903 to 1916
• October 12 - Tony Jannus, aviator and aircraft designer, killed in aviation accident in Russia
• October 25 - William Merritt Chase, Impressionist painter
• October 28 - Cleveland Abbe, meteorologist
• October 29 - John Sebastian Little, politician and congressman
• October 31 - Charles Taze Russell, Protestant evangelist, forerunner of Jehovah's Witnesses
• November 4 - James D. Moffat, 3rd president of Washington & Jefferson College
• November 10 - Walter Sutton, geneticist and surgeon
• November 13 - Percival Lowell, astronomer
• November 14
• * Henry George, Jr., politician
• * Franklin Ware Mann, inventor
• November 15 - Molly Elliot Seawell, novelist
• November 22
• * Ida Dixon, socialite and golf course architect
• * Jack London, writer
• November 24 - Sir Hiram Maxim, firearms inventor
• November - Charlie Case, vaudeville entertainer
• December 8 - John Porter Merrell, admiral
• December 20 - William W. Gilchrist, composer
• December 31 - Alice Ball, African-American chemist