Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/August 16
- 1650 - Birth of Vincenzo Coronelli, Italian cartographer and encyclopedist (d. 1718)
- 1705 - Death of Jakob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and scientist (b. 1654)
- 1836 - Death of Marc-Antoine Parseval, French mathematician (b. 1755)
- 1842 - Birth of Jakob Rosanes, German mathematician (d. 1922)
- 1845 - Birth of Gabriel Lippmann, French physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 1921)
- 1858 - U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal will force a shutdown of the service in a few weeks
- 1899 - Death of Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, German chemist (b. 1811)
- 1904 - Birth of Wendell Meredith Stanley, American chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 1971)
- 1907 - Death of James Hector, Scottish geologist (b. 1834)
- 1957 - Death of Irving Langmuir, American chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate (b. 1881)
- 1973 - Death of Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-born biochemist, Nobel Prize Laureate (b. 1888)
- 1989 - A solar flare from the Sun creates a geomagnetic storm that affects micro chips, leading to a halt of all trading on Toronto's stock market