Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May 16

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 * 1811 – Peninsular War: Allied British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces clashed with French troops at the Battle of Albuera fought south of Badajoz, Spain.
 * 1832 – Prospector Juan Godoy discovered a silver outcrop in Chañarcillo, sparking the Chilean silver rush.
 * 1866 – The United States Congress authorized the minting of the Shield nickel (example pictured), the country's first five-cent piece to be made of a copper–nickel alloy.
 * 1918 – The Sedition Act was passed in the United States, forbidding Americans from using "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the government, flag, or armed forces during the ongoing World War I.
 * 1925 – The first modern performance of Claudio Monteverdi's opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria occurred in Paris.
 * 1943 – Second World War: The Royal Air Force's "Dambusters" squadron embarked on an attack on German dams using bouncing bombs designed by Barnes Wallis.
 * 1958 – The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, a supersonic interceptor aircraft, set a world flight airspeed record of 2259.538 km/h.
 * 1959 – The Tritons' Fountain in Valletta, one of Malta's most important Modernist landmarks, was turned on for the first time.
 * 1960 – American physicist Theodore Maiman operated the first working laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu.
 * 1961 – Led by Park Chung-hee, the Military Revolution Committee carried out a bloodless coup against the government of Yun Posun in Seoul, ending the Second Republic of Korea.
 * 1975 – Based on the results of a referendum held about one month earlier, the Kingdom of Sikkim (flag pictured) abolished its monarchy and was annexed to become the 22nd state of India.
 * 1977 – The first Chuck E. Cheese location, the first family restaurant to integrate food, animated entertainment (example pictured), and an indoor arcade, opened in San Jose, California.
 * 2014 – At least 12 people were killed and 70 others injured when two bombs exploded in a market in Nairobi, Kenya.
 * Born/died: | John Komnenos Vatatzes |d|1182| Liu Bowen |d|1375| Andrew Bobola |d|1657| Horace Hutchinson |b|1859|Margaret Fountaine |b|1862| Pierre Gilliard |b|1879| Henri-Edmond Cross |d|1910| Margaret Ursula Jones |b|1916| Margaret Ursula Jones |b|1916| Nancy Roman |b|1925| Janet Jackson |b|1966| Tucker Carlson |b|1969| Anna Costanza Baldry |b|1970|