Person report

★16 Nov 1855
Explorer David Livingstone became the first European to see Victoria Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world, on what is now the Zambia–Zimbabwe border.

★16 Feb 1859
The French government passed a law setting the musical note A4 to a frequency of 435 hertz, in the first attempt to standardize concert pitch.

★29 Dec 1860
To counter the French Navy's Gloire, the world's first ironclad warship, the British Royal Navy launched the world's first iron-hulled armoured warship, HMS Warrior.

★25 Jul 1893
The Corinth Canal, which bisects the narrow Isthmus of Corinth, was formally opened, connecting the Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean Sea's Saronic Gulf.

★16 Aug 1900
Second Boer War: A 10,000-strong column of soldiers led by Lord Kitchener broke a 13-day siege of a small garrison.

★18 Jan 1915
Japanese prime minister Ōkuma Shigenobu issued the Twenty-One Demands to China in a bid to increase Japan's power in East Asia.

★03 Feb 1918
At 11,675 feet long, the Twin Peaks Tunnel opened in San Francisco as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at the time.

★16 Dec 1922
Gabriel Narutowicz, the first president of Poland, was assassinated only five days after having taken office.

★20 Mar 1923
The Arts Club of Chicago hosted the opening of Pablo Picasso's first United States showing, entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso, becoming an early proponent of modern art in the U.S.

★31 Aug 1939
Nazi forces, posing as Poles, staged an attack against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany, creating an excuse to invade Poland the next day.

Historical data by Wikipedia Contributors CC BY-SA 3.0.