April 16, 2024, today’s almanac: births, deaths and saint of the day

It happened today

On April 16, 1867, Wilbur Wright was born, the older of the two famous aviation pioneer brothers. Together with Orville, four years younger, he will be the protagonist of the first flight with a powered aircraft – the Wright Flyer – in December 1903. That day, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the two took turns at the helm. The first to succeed was the youngest: he flew for 12 seconds, covering about 40 meters. In 2021, a fragment of that pioneering vehicle arrived on Mars aboard Ingenuity. A fitting tribute to two “fathers” of the aeronautics. One of the “mothers” of aviation, however, was Harriet Quimby. In 1911 she was the first woman to obtain a pilot’s license in the United States. The following year, on April 16, 1912, she took off from Dover, England, aboard her Bleriot 50 monoplane, for France. 59 minutes later she landed near Calais. She was the first lady to fly over the Channel, but the newspapers dedicated very little space to her feat: the Titanic had sunk the day before… (Luigi Gaetani)

Born of the day

Charlie Chaplin, 16 April 1889, British actor, comedian and director

Pietro Barilla, 16 April 1913, entrepreneur

Nilla Pizzi, 16 April 1919, singer and actress

Peter Ustinov, 16 April 1921, British actor, director and screenwriter

Henry Mancini, April 16, 1924, American composer, conductor and arranger

Pope Benedict XVI, 16 April 1927, German Pope, Catholic Archbishop and Cardinal

Dusty Springfield, 16 April 1939, British singer

Giampiero Mughini, 16 April 1941, journalist and commentator

Leo Nucci, 16 April 1942, baritone

Moni Ovadia, 16 April 1946, actor, singer and writer

Freak Antoni, 16 April 1954, singer-songwriter, writer and actor

Rafael Benitez, 16 April 1960, Spanish football manager and former player

Ettore Bassi, 16 April 1970, actor and television presenter

Akon, April 16, 1973, American singer, record producer and entrepreneur

Antonino Cannavacciuolo, 16 April 1975, chef and television personality

Claire Foy, 16 April 1984, British actress

Valentina Bellè, 16 April 1992, actress

Anya Taylor-Joy, April 16, 1996, American actress and model

Deaths of the day

Francisco Goya, 16 April 1828, Spanish painter and engraver

Alexis de Tocqueville, 16 April 1859, French philosopher, politician and historian

Nora Ricci, 16 April 1976, actress

Gianni Boncompagni, 16 April 2017, radio host, lyricist and television author

Piero Ottone, 16 April 2017, journalist and writer

Luis Sepúlveda, April 16, 2020, Chilean writer, journalist and screenwriter

Helen McCrory, 16 April 2021, British actress

Saint of the day

Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, born in 1748 into a large and poor family. He tried several times to enter various monasteries until he was admitted as a novice to the Trappist abbey of Sept-Fons. In 1770 he understood that he wanted to become a “wanderer of God”, preaching the Gospel with humility and poverty. He then began to travel and make pilgrimages in Spain, Germany, France and Italy, so much so that he traveled, it is estimated, 30 thousand kilometers in almost 14 years. During his travels he slept on the streets, giving away everything he considered superfluous. He arrived in Rome for the first time on 3 December 1770 and decided to stay there, settling under an arch of the Colosseum. His spiritual advice soon became sought after by the city’s nobles and cardinals. He died on Holy Wednesday 1783.