April 16, 1981 (Thursday)
- Sigurd Debus, an imprisoned West German terrorist who had started a hunger strike a month before Bobby Sands did the same in Northern Ireland, died after ten weeks without food. Debus had been one of 25 members of the Red Army Faction to refuse to eat in protest of imprisonment conditions. Most of the other participants called off their strike after his death.
- Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau rejected a plan, endorsed by the Premiers of 8 of the nation's 10 provinces, that would have allowed individual provincial legislatures to reject constitutional changes, saying that it would turn Canada into a loose confederation.
- Died: Effa Manley, 84, Negro League baseball team owner and manager (Newark Eagles); baseball HOF in 2006
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