Sept 16 in History
1736 — Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, 50, Dutch physicist (born in Poland of German parents), dies in The Hague. He invented the first practical, accurate (mercury-in-glass) thermometer and the first standardised temperature scale to be widely used. 1810 — The Mexican revolt against Spanish rule begins with Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s “Grito de Dolores” (Cry of Dolores) call to arms in the small town of Dolores. Hidalgo, 58, is defrocked and excommunicated on July 27 1811, found guilty of treason and executed on the 30th. The Mexican War of Independence ends on September 27 1821, but Mexican Independence Day is celebrated on September 16. The town is renamed Dolores Hidalgo. 1859— David Livingstone, British explorer missionary, reaches Lake Nyasa( Malawi ).
1939 — Breyten Breytenbach, South African-French poet and painter, is born in Bonnievale, Western Cape. 1953 — “The Robe”, the first movie filmed in the widescreen process CinemaScope, premieres at the Roxy Theatre, NYC.
1976 — Shavarsh Karapetyan, 23, Armenian-born Soviet champion finswimmer, saves 20 people after a trolleybus with 92 passengers plunges into the Yerevan Lake. Karapetyan, an 11-time world-record breaker, is at the end of a 20km training run alongside the reservoir when the bus crashes over a dam wall. He swims to it (now 25m offshore and 10m deep with almost zero visibility), breaks the back window with his legs and makes 30 dives to pull people out; 20 survive. He loses consciousness and spends 46 days in a coma. The combined effects of the cold, polluted water, lacerations from the glass shards, subsequent sepsis and lung complications, end his sporting career. 1977 — Maria Callas, 53, US-born Greek singer famed for her lyric soprano, dies in Paris of a heart attack. 1978 — A magnitude 7.4 earthquake hits 85 villages in northeast Iran and kills 15,000-25,000 people, 80% in Tabas.
1986 — At the Kinross mine, Mpumalanga, 177 mineworkers are choked to death by toxic fumes when an acetylene tank sparks flames that ignite plastic covering on the wiring and polyurethane foam used to keep the walls dry.
1987 — Shakespeare’s “Othello” is staged for the first time in SA (at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg), with a black actor, John Kani, in the title role.
1998 — Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, 51, of Norway, too depressed to work (amid plunging oil prices, surging interest rates and political bickering), is reported to be on sick leave. The highest-ranking world leader to admit to a mental illness while in office, Bondevik is off from August 30 to September 23 and returns to thousands of supportive letters.