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January 16: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – January 16 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
1. 16th Jan 1120: The earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem were established in the Council of Nablus which was held on this day.
2. 16th Jan 1219: Thousands of people were killed in floods in the Northern Netherlands after a storm.
3. 16th Jan 1362: The German Island of Strand and the city of Rungholt were destroyed in a great storm tide in the North Sea.
4. 16th Jan 1492: On this day Queen Isabella presented the first grammar of the modern language, Spanish.
5. 16th Jan 1493: Explorer of the New World Columbus leaves the New World on this day and sets sail for Spain on his first trip.
6. 16th Jan 1556: Philip II was appointed King of Spain by his father Emperor Karel on this day.
7. 16th Jan 1581: Law against Catholicism was passed on this day by the English Parliament.
18th Century – What Happened on January 16 – The 1700s
8. 16th Jan 1707: On this day the Scottish Parliament ratifies The Act of Union.
9. 16th Jan 1756: On this day the Treaty of Westminster was signed by Britain and Prussia.
10. 16th Jan 1761: On this day, in India, Pondicherry was captured by the British from the French.
11. 16th Jan 1776: The establishment of free blacks was approved on this day by the Continental Congress.
12. 16th Jan 1793: During the French Revolution the National Convention sentenced the French King Louis XVI to death on this day.
13. 16th Jan 1795: The French army under Pichegru occupies Utrecht in the Netherlands.
19th Century – January 16 This Day That Year – The 1800s
14. 16th Jan 1809: The British defeated the French at the Battle of Corunna in the Peninsular War.
15. 16th Jan 1847: On this day John C. Fremont was appointed Governor of the new California Territory.
16. 16th Jan 1862: On this day 204 people died in the Hartley Colliery disaster.
17. 16th Jan 1865: Drunken sailor attacks munitions at Fort Fischer in North Carolina resulting in the death of 40 people.
18. 16th Jan 1868: A fish dealer in Detroit patents a Refrigerator car on this day.
19. 16th Jan 1870: Virginia State was readmitted to the United States. It became the eighth state to be readmitted after the Civil War.
20. 16th Jan 1871: On this day Jefferson Long of Georgia was sworn in as congressman. He became the second black to be a congressman.
21. 16th Jan 1889: On this day Queensland in Australia recorded its highest temperature of 53°C or 128°F.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day January 16th – The 1900s
22. 16th Jan 1909: On this day British explorer Ernest Shackleton finds Magnetic South Pole.
23. 16th Jan 1913: Home Rule for Ireland was accepted by the British House of Commons on this day.
24. 16th Jan 1915: On this day $1 and $10 Panama-Pacific International Expo gold coins were authorized by Congress.
25. 16th Jan 1920: Georgia declares independence on this day.
26. 16th Jan 1920: There was an acute food shortage in Hungary. It caused the death of about 968 of the 1000 babies that were born in the city of Vienna in the previous year.
27. 16th Jan 1920: The League of Nations holds its first assembly in Paris on this day.
28. 16th Jan 1920: On this day the 18th Amendment, prohibition takes effect.
29. 16th Jan 1925: General M Froensen replaces Trotsky as People’s Commissioner of Defense on this day.
30. 16th Jan 1936: On this day at the Hialeah Race track in Hialeah, Florida the first photo finish camera.
31. 16th Jan 1939: This day marks the debut of comic strip Superman.
32. 16th Jan 1941: The first Army Air Corps squadron for black cadets was formed on this day by the War Department.
33. 16th Jan 1941: Vice Admiral Bellinger of the U.S. warns of an assault on Pearl Harbor.
34. 16th Jan 1942: The US on this day took two steps towards the defense of the Panama Canal and Central America. It lent $ 20 million to construct a highway leading to the Panama Canal and $500,000 to Costa Rica for building its army.
35. 16th Jan 1942: William Knudsen was appointed a general in the US Army. He was the first civilian to be appointed general.
36. 16th Jan 1943: This day marks the first air raid by the U.S. on Ambon.
37. 16th Jan 1943: The Red Army recaptures Pitomnik airport at Stalingrad.
38. 16th Jan 1943: The Island Park Dam, Idaho records the lowest temperature of -60°F or -51°C. This is a state record.
39. 16th Jan 1944: On this day Gen Eisenhower took command of the Allied Invasion Force in London.
40. 16th Jan 1945: Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker the Fuhrerbunker.
41. 16th Jan 1947: On this day Vincent Aurial was elected as president of France.
42. 16th Jan 1950: Israel was recognized on this day by Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands.
43. 16th Jan 1951: Viet Minh launches offensive against Hanoi.
44. 16th Jan 1952: On this day the translation of the New Dutch bible was finished.
45. 16th Jan 1953: The Corvette is brought to New York for the first time. The first Corvette was presented at a car show that took place at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. It had a fiberglass body giving the car a unique look.
46. 16th Jan 1953: All political parties in Egypt were disbanded by Egyptian Prime Minister Gen Naguib.
47. 16th Jan 1956: President Nasser of Egypt pledges to re-conquer Palestine.
48. 16th Jan 1961: The presence of a Russian espionage ring in Great Britain was detected.
49. 16th Jan 1962: New York City’s Board of Education was accused of using “racial quotas” and a suit was filed.
50. 16th Jan 1963: The First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev claims to have a 100-megaton nuclear bomb.
51. 16th Jan 1965: On this day the USSR performs a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk.
52. 16th Jan 1966: Harold R Perry becomes a Catholic bishop in the US. He was only the 2nd black to become a bishop.
53. 16th Jan 1967: Lucius Amerson becomes a sheriff. He was the first black to become a sheriff.
54. 16th Jan 1969: Russian spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the transfer of crew in space. It was the first time that such a thing was performed in space.
55. 16th Jan 1969: A grasshopper plague causes serious damage across the state of Colorado and also the neighboring states causing crop damage, tourist annoyance, and loss of millions of dollars.
56. 16th Jan 1969: An agreement was made on this day to start Vietnam peace talks. The talks are to take place in Paris and will be participated by North and South Vietnam, the United States of America, and the National Liberation Front.
57. 16th Jan 1970: The Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects was won by Buckminster Fuller.
58. 16th Jan 1970: The reserve clause in the baseball rules was challenged on this day by Curt Flood, who filed a civil lawsuit.
59. 16th Jan 1970: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi takes over rule of Libya, 4 months after leading a coup against the monarchy.
60. 16th Jan 1971: World record established in 1500M skating. Ard Schenk skates the distance in 1:58.7.
61. 16th Jan 1972: On this day Atje Keulen-Deelstra became the European all-round lady skating champion.
62. 16th Jan 1973: On this day USSR’s Lunakhod 2 begins radio-controlled exploration of the Moon.
63. 16th Jan 1973: On this day Chauncey Browning Jr. was sworn in as Attorney General. Browning’s father was also an Attorney General at one time.
64. 16th Jan 1974: Mountaineer Scholarship Fund representative at West Virginia University, Jack Tenet was sent to Louisville, Kentucky. He was offered the position of Athletic Director at, the University of Louisville.
65. 16th Jan 1974: There was a landslide in Los Angeles on this day. It killed nine people.
66. 16th Jan 1978: On this day the Russian spacecraft Soyuz 27 returns to Earth.
67. 16th Jan 1979: The Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was the leader of Iran since 1941 is forced to flee the country and flee to Egypt.
68. 16th Jan 1981: Protestant gunmen shoot and injure Bernadette Devlin in Northern Ireland. The injuries were serious but not life-threatening.
69. 16th Jan 1981: In Northern Ireland gunmen burst into Bernadette McAliskey’s home and shot at her. She sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries.
70. 16th Jan 1981: Tennis Player and eight-time major champion Ivan Lendl loses a match in Volvo Masters, an international tournament, to avoid having to play Bjorn Borg.
71. 16th Jan 1986: On this day in Amsterdam 3 IRA- terrorists were arrested by the police.
72. 16th Jan 1986: The Internet Engineering Task Force had a meeting for the first time on this day.
73. 16th Jan1989: On this day the USSR announced plans for a 2-year manned mission to Mars.
74. 16th Jan 1990: On this day two members of the Credit and Commerce bank pleaded guilty to money laundering.
75. 16th Jan 1991: Operation Desert Storm was to begin past midnight on this day if Iraq did not pull out of Kuwait. Iraq did not pull out and Operation Desert Storm began by evening. 32 other nations including France, Britain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait were involved in the operation.
76. 16th Jan 1994: World record created in 1000m skating. Scott skates 1000m in 1:12.54
77. 16th Jan 1995: Avalanches following heavy rain swept two buses off the Jammu Srinagar highway in Kashmir. The avalanche lasted for two more days taking the death toll to 200. Five thousand others had to be rescued.
21st Century – January 16 This Day In History – The 2000s
78. 16th Jan 2001: In Congo, Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was shot and assassinated. One of his bodyguards shot him.
79. 16th Jan 2001: In honor of President Theodore Roosevelt’s service in the Spanish-American War, US President Bill Clinton awards a Medal Posthumously.
80. 16th Jan 2001: On this day the fuel supply tanker Jassica ran aground on the Island of San Cristobal in the Galapagos Islands. It leaked 1,80,000 gallons of oil causing an ecological disaster. Up to 62% of the marine iguana population on one Island was killed.
81. 16th Jan 2002: The UN Security Council was unanimous in clamping an arms embargo and freezing of assets of Islamic Militant and Terrorist Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the remaining members of the Taliban.
82. 16th Jan 2003: On this day Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Sixteen days later the Space Shuttle disintegrated on re-entry.
83. 16th Jan 2005: George W Bush was inaugurated on this day for a second term in office as President of the United States of America.
84. 16th Jan 2005: Adriana Illiescu, a lecturer at a Romanian university became the oldest birth mother at the age of 66.
85. 16th Jan 2006: On this day Africa gets its first female elected head of state when Ellen Johson-Sirleaf was sworn in as Liberia’s new President.
86. 16th Jan 2006: More and more number of people are reported dying from the H5N1 strain of Bird Flu. Deaths have been reported in Indonesia and Turkey. It is reported to be spreading to Africa and Europe. Governments are culling millions of chickens in the hope of containing Bird Flu.
87. 16th Jan 2009: Bank of America the largest bank in America received a bailout. It received $ 20 billion in fresh US government aid and $118 billion worth of guarantees against bad assets in addition to $ 25 billion in cash injection.
88. 16th Jan 2011: In France Marine Le Pen a politician became the President of the National Front Party.
89. 16th Jan 2012: In protest against anti-piracy legislation proposed by the US Congress the English Wikipedia shuts down its website.
90. 16th Jan 2012: Republican Presidential nominee Jon Huntsman announced that he was ending his race for the White House after coming in third in the New Hampshire primary. He endorsed Mitt Romney as his choice for candidate.
91. 16th Jan 2012: Customers of online shoe retailer Zappos had to change their passwords after Zappos reported that hackers accessed 24 million customer accounts.
92. 16th Jan 2013: An apartment block collapsed in Alexandria Egypt killing 25 people.
93. 16th Jan 2013: Three car bomb explosions in Idlib Governorate in Syria kill 24 people.
94. 16th Jan 2013: At least ten people were killed and ninety people were injured outside an office of the Kurdish Democratic Party in a suicide attack in northern Iraq.
95. 16th Jan 2013: Surging costs force Canada’s Cirque du Soleil to cut 400 jobs.
96. 16th Jan 2014: A report from the U.S. Senate determines that the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others could likely have been prevented.
97. 16th Jan 2014: J.C.Penney a retailer announces plans to restore profits by cutting 2,000 jobs and close 33 of its mid-market department stores. It has 1,100 department stores.
98. 16th Jan 2015: This day the new US rules loosening trade restrictions with Cuba became effective, this includes permission to sell instruments, tools, equipment, and supplies to private businesses. More freedom was also given to US banks to transact with Cuban banks.
99. 16th Jan 2016: Nearly nine years after the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister the first session of the Special Tribunal began the trial. This is the first time in the legal history of an international court tried a case based on terrorism charges.
100. 16th Jan 2016: Aboard the International Space Station every flower was grown in space using NASA’s veggie system
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