On this day in History - Jan. 16

• 27 BC - Octavian Caesar given the title Augustus by the Roman Senate.
• 1547 -Ivan the Terrible was crowned the first czar of Russia.
• 1556 - Philip II becomes King of Spain.
• 1572 - The Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.
• 1605 - The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes was published in Madrid.
• 1730 - Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard Bochart de Saron, was born [d. 20 Apr 1794]; French lawyer and natural scientist who became especially known for his advances in astronomy.
• 1767 -Anders Gustav Ekeberg, was born [d. died 11 Feb 1813] . Swedish chemist who in 1802 discovered the element tantalum.
• 1777 - Vermont declares its independence from New York.
• 1780 - American Revolution: Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
• 1794 - Edward Gibbon, dies historiador (b. 1737).
• 1795 - French occupy Utrecht, Netherlands.
• 1806 -Nicolas Leblanc, dies ; French surgeon and chemist who in 1790 developed the process for making soda ash (sodium carbonate) from common salt (sodium chloride).
• 1807- Charles Henry Davis, was born [d. 18 Feb 1877]; U.S. naval officer and scientist. One of the founders of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863 .
• 1809 - Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña. O exército britânico, comandado pelo general Moore, venceu o exército francês, comandado pelo marechal Soult, na batalha de Corunha. A vitória permitiu que a força britânica embarcasse com toda a segurança nos navios que a esperavam, para levarem as tropas de regresso à Grã-Bretanha.
• 1837 - Ellen Russell Emerson was born [died 12 Jun 1907]. American ethnologist, noted for her extensive examinations of Native American cultures, especially in comparison with other world cultures.
• 1838 - Franz Brentano, was born, German philosopher and psychologist (d. 1917) .
• 1853 - Nascimento do industrial francês e Andrè Michelin (1853-1931), em Paris. Criou a Companhia de Pneus Michelin em 1888, promovendo a utilização de pneumáticos nas rodas dos automóveis.
• 1862 - Publicado o livro A Vida de Jesus, de Ernesto Renan.
• 1868, a patent for a refrigerator car, "ice box on wheels," was granted to William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit, Mich. (who also designed the first railroad refrigerated car).
• 1874 - Max (Johann Sigismund) Schultze dies, [b. 25 Mar 1825]; German zoologist and cytologist, known especially for his researches in microscopic anatomy.
• 1874 - Robert W. Service was born, poet [d. 1958].
• 1881 - Sir Arthur Percy Morris Fleming, radio pioneer .
• 1883-The U.S. Civil Service Commission established.
• 1898 - Margaret Booth, was born, film editor (d. 2002).
• 1900 - The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounced its claims to the Samoan islands.
• 1901 -Fulgencio Batista, was born [d. 1973]; Cuban President.
• 1904 - Manuel Lora Tamayo, nacimiento de, presidente de Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales (España).
• 1906 - Marruecos: comienza la Conferencia de Algeciras con la finalidad de decidir el destino de este país africano. Participan: España, Francia, Alemania y Reino Unido.
• 1909 - Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.
• 1909 - Ethel Merman was born, entertainer.
• 1911 - Eduardo Frei Montalva, nacimiento de, presidente de Chile.
• 1911 - Dizzy Dean was born, baseball player .
• 1914 - El poeta ruso Máximo Gorki, es autorizado a regresar a su país tras ocho años de exilio.
• 1915 - Revolución mexicana: el general Álvaro Obregón, al frente de sus fuerzas, entra en la capital.
• 1917- German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the United States .
• 1919 - Temperance movement: The 18th Amendment, authorizing Prohibition, was passed by the Congress of the United States. It went into effect one year later, on January 16th, 1920.
• 1919 - A Assembléia Constituinte da Polônia confirma Ignacy Jan Paderewsky como Chefe do Governo.
• 1920-A year after it was ratified, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages, went into effect.
• 1931 - Johannes Rau, was born, President of Germany.
• 1932 - Dian Fossey was born [died 26 Dec 1985]. American zoologist who for years made a daily study of the mountain forest gorillas of Rwanda, central Africa .
• 1933 -Susan Santag was born, writer and critic .
• 1934 - Marilyn Horne was born, mezzo-soprano .
• 1935 - A.J. Foyt was born, auto racer .
• 1935 - Udo Lattek, was born football (soccer) coach .
• 1936 -Oskar Barnack, dies [born 1 Nov 1879]; German engineer who designed the first miniature camera (1913), the Leica I.
• 1938 - Benny Goodman plays Carnegie Hall.
• 1941 - Chile y Bolivia firman un pacto de no agresión.
• 1942 -Actress Carole Lombard, the wife of actor Clark Gable, died in a plane crash.
• 1945 - Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
• 1947 - Vincent Auriol é eleito presidente da França, o quinto presidente da Quarta República.
• 1948 - John Carpenter, was born, film director.
• 1950 - Morre Gustav Krupp, industrial e financeiro alemão.
• 1953 - a sample amounting to about 200 atoms of fermium (Fm, atomic number 100) was first by ion-exchange chromatography and identified at the University of California, Berkeley,
• 1956 - Islam is now the official Egyptian state religion, by order of Egyptian government.
• 1956 - President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt vows to reconquer Palestine.
• 1957 - Arturo Toscanini, dies, Italian conductor (b. 1867) .
• 1957 - Inaugurada a casa noturna The Cavern Club, em Liverpool, na Inglaterra. Foi no local que os Beatles iniciaram sua carreira artística.
• 1959 - Sade, was born, singer .
• 1962 - Un golpe de Estado en la República Dominicana depone al presidente, Joaquín Balaguer, e instaura una Junta de Gobierno por 48 horas.
• 1963 - Morre Gilardo Gilardi, compositor argentino.
• 1966 - The Metropolitan Opera House opens at Lincoln Center in New York City.
• 1966 - Nigerian Army chief, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, briefly takes power in a military coup. Over 50 government officials are killed, including the existing prime minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Although it is was claimed to be an attempt to rid the government of corruption, most of those killed were Hausa Moslems from the north of Nigeria, whereas the new "government" is mostly Ibo from Eastern Nigeria.
• 1967 -Robert Jemison Van de Graaff, dies [b. 20 Dec 1901]; American physicist and inventor of the Van de Graaff generator, a type of high-voltage electrostatic generator that can be used as a particle accelerator in atomic research.
• 1969 - two manned Soviet "Soyuz" spaceships (Soviet Soyuz 4 & Soyuz 5) became the first vehicles to dock in space and transfer personnel.
• 1969- Czech student Jan Palach commits suicide by self-immolation in Prague, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.
• 1970 -Private Muammar Kadhaffi, promoted to Colonel, becomes premier of Libya.
• 1970- Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.
• 1970 - Curt Flood files suit, stating that major league baseball had violated the American anti-trust laws.
• 1971 - Sergi Brugera, nacimiento de tenista español.
• 1973 - USSR's Lunakhod 2 begins radio-controlled exploration of the Moon.
• 1974 - Kate Moss, was born, supermodel .
• 1977 - The Marx Brothers were inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame.
• 1978 - NASA named 35 candidates to fly on the space shuttle, including Sally K. Ride, who became America's first woman in space, and Guion S. Bluford Jr., who became America's first black astronaut in space.
• 1979 - The Shah of Iran flees Iran with his family and relocates to Egypt. O Xá do Irão abandonou o país no meio de manifestações contra o seu governo e a revolta de fundamentalistas islâmicos dirigidos pelo Ayatollah Khomeini. O Xá governava desde 1941 e tinha tentado ocidentalizar o país sem sucesso.
• 1979 - Aaliyah, singer (d. 2001) .
• 1979 - Um terremoto medindo 7,0 graus na escala Richter, atinge o Irã, resultando em centenas de mortos.
• 1980 - scientists in Boston produce interferon, a natural virus-fighting substance through genetic engineering.
• 1980 - O governo da Grã-Bretanha anuncia o estabelecimento de relações diplomáticas com o Chile, rompido em 1976.
• 1984 - Por seu disco Thriller, o cantor Michael Jackson recebe sete prêmios na American Music Awards.
• 1986 - Herbert W. Armstrong, the founder of the Worldwide Church of God (the Church of God in Philadelphia Era) died.
• 1988 - Sports commentator Jimmy 'the Greek' Snyder is fired by CBS a day after publicly stating that African Americans had been bred to produce stronger offspring during slavery.
• 1989 - O Conselho de Segurança da ONU aprova por unanimidade o plano para a independência da Namíbia, pedindo ao Governo da África do Sul que reduza sua presença militar nesse território.
• 1991- Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begins.
• 1991 - US serial killer Aileen Wuornos confesses to the murders of six men.
• 1991, astronomers report the discovery of two extremely large and hot stars by the Hubble Space Telescope.
• 1991-Operation Desert Storm was announced by the White House.
• 1992-The El Salvador government signed a peace treaty with guerrilla forces, formally ending 12 years of civil war.
• 1992 - El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City that ends a 12-year civil war that claimed at least 75,000.
• 1997 - Ennis Cosby, the only son of actor Bill Cosby, is killed by a gunman while changing a flat tire in Los Angeles, California.
• 1998 - NASA announces that John Glenn will return to space when Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off in October 1998.
• 2000 - In Sacramento, California a commercial truck carrying evaporated milk is driven into the state capitol building killing the driver.
• 2001 - Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards.
• 2001-Laurent Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was assassinated.
• 2002 - A student shoots 6 people at the Appalachian School of Law. Three of those shot die.
• 2002 - John Ashcroft announces that so-called "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh would be tried in the United States.
• 2002 - The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the remaining members of the Taliban.
• 2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which will be its final one. Columbia disintegrates 16 days later on re-entry.
• 2003 -Space shuttle Columbia blasted off on what would be its final mission. The craft broke up on its descent on Feb. 1, killing all on board.
• 2004 - Goatse.cx is shut down by the Christmas Island Registry.