1858
Aug 16, A telegraphed message from Britain’s Queen Victoria to President Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable. The cable linked Ireland and Canada and failed after a few weeks.

1912
Aug 16, Virginia executed Virginia Christian (b.1895) in the electric chair. Christian, an African-American maid, was convicted for the murder of her white employer Mrs. Ida Virginia Belote (72), a white woman, in her home at Hampton on March 18.

1985
Aug 16, Mary Gioia (22) of New York and Gregory Kniffin (18) of Connecticut were shot and killed in Berkeley, Ca. Their bodies were soon found in the SF Bay with gunshot wounds to the head. They had been staying at a homeless encampment in the Berkeley Marina while waiting for the next Grateful Dead concert. Ralph International Thomas was convicted of the murders. In 2009 the 2 convictions against Thomas (55) were overturned. In 2012 the US Ninth Circuit court of Appeals said Thomas (57) was entitled to a new trial due to missing witnesses in his first trial.

1986
Aug 16, Flozelle Woodmore (18), shot and killed her abusive boyfriend, Clifton Morrow, with a .357 magnum in the presence of their 2-year-old son in Los Angeles. In 2007 Gov. Schwarzenegger, said he no longer oppose her parole.

1995
Aug 16, In Orinda, Ca., Maria Corrieo and her sister, Gina Roberts, were killed by Dalton Lolohea and 2 others during a robbery. Lolohea was tried and convicted for the double murder in 2000 along with robbery and burglary. David Ross was sentenced to 20 years in prison in exchange for testifying against Corey Williams. In 2013 the state Supreme Court upheld the death sentence against Williams.

2004
Aug 16, Kamala Markandaya (79), Indian novelist, died. Her books focused on rural life, interracial relationships and conflicting Eastern and Western values.

2007
Aug 16, Kathleen Culhane (40), former private investigator in California, was sentenced to 5 years in state prison for forging documents to save the lives of Death Row inmates.



2007
Aug 16, CARE spokeswoman Alina Labrada said the donation of wheat and other crops does not help in regions where people consistently go hungry because local farming has been weakened by international competition. The Atlanta-based group turned down $46 million worth of US food aid, arguing that the way the American government distributes its help hurts poor farmers.

2008
Aug 16, Carol Huynh, whose parents fled communist Vietnam in the 1970s, won Canada's first gold of the Olympics in the women's 48 kg freestyle wrestling. Usain Bolt of Jamaica was crowned the world's fastest man when he raced to victory in the Olympic men's 100 meters final in a world record time of 9.69 sec.

2008
Aug 16, In Rwanda Jozefina Zaninka (75), a woman who lost nearly all her family in the 1994 genocide, was murdered, in the latest of several killings of survivors of the slaughter. Some 167 survivors of the genocide have been murdered between 1995 and mid-May 2008.

2010
Aug 16, In South Carolina Shaquan Duley suffocated her 2 sons, ages 3 years and 14 months, put their bodies into a car and rolled the car into the North Edisto River. On March 16, 2012, she pleaded guilty to murder charges.


2011
Aug 16, Romania’s controversial Tourism Minister Elena Udrea sparked outrage with a frock she admitted cost as much as many Romanians make in more than a month. She defended the $1290 dress, insisting it cost less than the thousands of euros that media has reported.

2013
Aug 16, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb late today killed 3 women in Helmand's Sangin district.


2014
Aug 16, In California the search for Erin Corwin (19) ended when her body was spotted with a video camera 140 feet down a mine shaft on federal land near her home in Twentynine Palms, where her Marine husband was stationed. Former Marine Christopher Brandon Lee (24) was arrested the next day in Alaska. Corwin had disappeared on June 28.

These are real women not social media slay idiots.

So much death