• January 8 - Allied forces withdraw from Gallipoli
• January 17 - The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) is formed
• January 24 - In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad the Supreme Court of the United States declares the federal income tax void
• January 28 - Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
• January 29 - World War I: Paris is bombed by German zeppelins for the first time.
• February 3 - Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada are burned down.
• February 11 - Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.
• February 11 - Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents its 1st concert
• February 21 - World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins
• March 6 - Sydney conservatorium of music in Australia accepts first students
• March 9 - Pancho Villa leads 1,500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17.
• March 15 - President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the Mexican border to pursue Pancho Villa.
• March 19 - First United States air combat mission in history as eight American planes take off in pursuit of Pancho Villa
• April 24 - April 30 - Easter Rising in Ireland
• May 20 - The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting ("Boy with Baby Carriage").
• May 31 - June 1 - Battle of Jutland
• July 1 - November 18: More than 1 million soldiers die during The Battle of the Somme including 60,000 soldiers from the British Commonwealth on the first day. The United States is still unwilling to join in the war with Britain, Canada, Australia and the other commonwealth countries.
• July 15 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing incorporates Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).
• July 16 - Hellenic Holocaust: The entire Greek population of Sinope and the coastal region of the county of Kastanome has been exiled or killed.
• July 22 - In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 injuring 40.
• December 31 - The Hampton Terrace Hotel in North Augusta, South Carolina, one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the nation at the time, burns to the ground.
• November 7 - Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.
• November 18 - World War I: First Battle of the Somme ends - In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916.
• November 30 - Hellenic Holocaust: According to the Austrian consul: "on 26 November Rafet Bey (Turkish Minister of the Interior) told me: "we must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians … on 28 November.""
• December 23 - World War I: Battle of Magdhaba - In the Sinai desert, Australian and New Zealand mounted troops capture the Turkish garrison.
• Woman's International Bowling Congress established in America.

• Summer Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, are cancelled.
• Cours de linguistique générale by Ferdinand de Saussure published
• November - Woodrow Wilson defeats Charles E. Hughes in the U.S. presidential election
• Federal charter granted to the Boy Scouts of America
• Robert Baden-Powell founds Wolf Scouts in Britain, changed to Cub Scouts in the USA.
• Food rationed in Germany

Ongoing events

• World War I (1914-1918)
• Armenian Genocide (1915-1918)
• Hellenic Holocaust (1914-1922)

Year in topic

• 1916 in film
• 1916 in literature
• 1916 in music
• 1916 in science
• 1916 in sports
• 1916 in Canada

Births

• Jack Agazarian, SOE agent and hero of WW II (d. 1945)
• January 3 - Betty Furness, actress, consumer activist (d. 1994)
• January 12 - Pieter Willem Botha, President of South Africa
• February 11 - Bernice Levin Neugarten, social scientist/gerontologist (d. 2001)
• February 11 - Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco (d. 1998)
• February 14 - Masaki Kobayashi, director
• February 26 - Jackie Gleason, comedian (d. 1987)
• February 29 - Dinah Shore, singer (d. 1994)
• March 4 - Hans Eysenck, psychologist (d. 1997)
• March 11 - Harold Wilson, British prime minister (d. 1995)
• March 13 - John Aspinwall Roosevelt, businessman, philanthropist (d. 1981)
• March 14 - Horton Foote, writer
• March 15 - Harry James, musician, band leader (d. 1983)
• March 19 - Irving Wallace, novelist (d. 1990)
• April 3 - Herb Caen, newspaper columnist (d. 1997)
• April 5 - Gregory Peck, actor (d. 2003)
• April 12 - Beverly Cleary, author
• April 15 - Helene Hanff, author (d. 1997)
• April 22 - Yehudi Menuhin, violinist (d. 1999)
• May 8 - João Havelange, industrialist and FIFA president 1974-1998
• May 10 - Milton Babbitt, composer
• May 21 - Harold Robbins, novelist (d. 1997)
• May 26 - Henriette Roosenburg, journalist (d. 1972)
• June 8 - Francis Crick, scientist, Nobel laureate
• June 23 - Hermann Gmeiner, pedagogue (d. 1986)
• June 23 - Irene Worth, actress (d. 2002)
• July 11 - Gough Whitlam, Prime Minister of Australia, 1972-1975
• July 14 - Natalia Ginzburg, author (d. 1991)
• July 22 - Marcel Cerdan, World Champion Boxer (d. 1949)
• July 31 - Bill Todman, game show producer (d. 1979)
• September 13 - Roald Dahl, author (d. 1990)
• October 30 - Leon Day, baseballer (d. 1995)
• November 10 - Louis le Brocquy, leading Irish painter
• November 24 - Forrest J. Ackerman, writer
• November 28 - Mary Lilian Baels, Princess of Rethy, Belgium (d. 2002)
• December 9 - Kirk Douglas, American actor
• December 19 - Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, publicist
• Lee Hutton - English Cricketer

Deaths

• February 6 - Rubén Darío, writer
• February 12 - Richard Dedekind, mathematician
• February 28 - Henry James, writer
• May 11 - Max Reger, composer
• June 6 - Yuan Shikai, Chinese military officials and politician
• June 29 - Georges Lacombe, French artist
• July 6 - Odilon Redon, painter
• July 23 - Sir William Ramsay, chemist and Nobel prize winner
• May 13 - Sholom Aleichem, author
• October 7 - James Whitcomb Riley, poet
• November 22 - Jack London, author
• December 5 - Her Royal Highness Princess Augusta of Cambridge - the last grandchild of George III
• December 29/December 30 - Grigori Rasputin, Russian monk & mystic

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - not awarded
• Chemistry - not awarded
• Medicine - not awarded
• Literature - Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam
• Peace - not awarded