2016 in Jamaica
Events in the year 2016 in Jamaica.
Incumbents
- Monarch: Elizabeth II
- Governor-General: Patrick Allen
- Prime Minister: Portia Simpson-Miller ; Andrew Holness
- Chief Justice: Zaila McCalla
Events
- 30 January - Jamaican health officials confirm the country's first case of the Zika virus in a 4-year-old child who recently returned from a trip to Texas.
- 25 February - Jamaican general election, 2016:
- * Voters in Jamaica go to the polls for a general election, with the Jamaican Labour Party, led by Andrew Holness, winning a narrow victory.
- 1 May - Two missionaries from the United States are found slain in separate areas of rural St. Mary parish. Randy Hentzel and Harold Nichols both worked for a Pennsylvania-based Christian charity called Teams for Medical Missions.
- 30 September - Hurricane Matthew becomes a category-5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds up to 160 mph, the strongest hurricane to form over the Caribbean Sea since Hurricane Felix in 2007.
- 2 October - Heavy rains from Hurricane Matthew's outer bands drench Haiti and Jamaica, killing a Haitian fisherman.
Sports
- 14 August - 2016 Summer Olympics:
- *Athletics: Usain Bolt becomes the first man to win three gold medals in the men's 100 metres.
Deaths
- 26 January - Barrington Watson, painter.
- 3 February - Mercedes Richards, astronomer and physicist.
- 27 February - Winston Blake, record producer.
- 23 March - Jimmy Riley, reggae musician
- 28 March - Yvette Francis-McBarnette, Jamaican-born American pediatrician
- 9 April - Derrick Rochester, politician and trade unionist, MP for South East St Elizabeth, member of the Senate.
- 19 April - Lord Tanamo, ska and mento musician.
- 6 June - Basil McKenzie, Olympic sprinter.
- 12 June - Michelle Cliff, Jamaican-born American writer
- 17 June - Sam Beaver King, 90, Jamaican-born British political activist, Mayor of Southwark, co-founder of the Notting Hill Carnival.
- 1 August - Louis Marriott, actor, director, writer and broadcaster.
- 3 August - Shakira Martin, 30, American-born Jamaican model and beauty queen, Miss Jamaica Universe .
- 21 August - Headley Bennett, saxophonist.
- 8 September - Prince Buster, ska musician .
- 29 September - Nora Dean, singer.
- 18 October - Bobby Ellis, trumpeter.
- 16 November - Alex Stewart, Olympic boxer .