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Events

Special days marked on this website, for November 16, 2025

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November 16 ns

November 3 os

We mark certain days of the year with ‘On This Day’ posts, recalling events associated with them.

Our events are grouped under two calendars. The Gregorian ‘New Style’ (NS) is the worldwide calendar first issued at Rome in 1582. On that calendar, today is November 16. The Julian ‘Old Style’ (OS), also issued at Rome but in 46 BC, was used in Roman Britain and then in England from Anglo-Saxon times until 1752. It is still used today by roughly 100 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. On that calendar, today is November 3.

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Today

Thundering Smoke

David Livingstone relives the historic moment when he became the first European to see the Victoria Falls.

In 1852-56, David Livingstone mapped the course of the Zambesi, hoping that agricultural trade along the river would crush the horrible trade in slaves (recently outlawed in the British Empire). On November 16, 1855, he was transported by canoe to a magnificent cataract named Mosi-oa-Tunya, ‘the smoke that thunders’, so becoming the first European to see the Victoria Falls.

On This DayDecember 22 ns1 post

The Discovery of the Victoria Falls (1855)

Today

The Fleming Valve

A Victorian children’s book inspired the birth of modern electronics.

Sir Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945) was a Lancashireman who invented the vacuum-tube diode or ‘valve’, for fifty years the essential component of modern electronics.

On This DayDecember 22 ns1 post

John Ambrose Fleming patents the valve (1904)

Today

William Hall VC

Canadian sailor William Hall was summoned over to India to help face down the Indian Mutiny.

William Nelson Hall (1827-1904) had every reason to love the Royal Navy. Under instructions from the Admiralty in London, the Navy had helped his parents and thousands of others to escape slavery in Maryland. The Halls were resettled as free citizens in Nova Scotia, where William was born, and he repaid the Navy handsomely during the Indian Mutiny thirty years later.

On This DayDecember 22 ns1 post

William Hall wins the VC (1857)

Today

St George and the Dragon

In one of the world’s most popular legends, bold hero St George rides to the rescue of a maiden in distress.

St George was a real person, a Roman soldier martyred in 303, but the story of the Dragon is a myth. The dragon symbolises the devil, a serpent with honey on his forked tongue, whose angels (St Paul tells us) are the real rulers behind the darkness of this world. George is the Christian, who puts on the whole armour of God and stands up to them armed with unceasing prayer.

On This DayDecember 9 os3 posts

Translation of St George

The Calendar below shows the year on the Roman (Gregorian or ‘New Style’) Calendar for 2025. Click on any date to see the events we have marked for it.

Roman Easter 2025: Sunday April 20

Old English Easter 2025: Sunday April 20

Christmas 2025: Thursday December 25

Old English Christmas 2025: Wednesday January 7, 2026