January 16

What happened that day?

• 2016: 33 out of 126 freed hostages are injured and 23 killed in terrorist attacks in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on a hotel and a nearby restaurant.
• 2006: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia's new president. She becomes Africa's first female elected head of state.
• 2003: The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.
• 2002: The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the remaining members of the Taliban.
• 2001: US President Bill Clinton awards former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish-American War.
• 2001: Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards.
• 1992: El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City, Mexico ending the 12-year Salvadoran Civil War that claimed at least 75,000 lives.
• 1991: Coalition Forces go to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War.
• 1979: The last Iranian Shah flees Iran with his family for good and relocates to Egypt.
• 1970: Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.
• 1969: Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the first-ever docking of manned spacecraft in orbit, the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another, and the only time such a transfer was accomplished with a space walk.
• 1969: Czech student Jan Palach commits suicide by self-immolation in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.
• 1964: Hello, Dolly! opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,844 performances.
• 1945: Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
• 1942: Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard.
• 1938: Benny Goodman and his band performed in concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City
• 1924: Eleftherios Venizelos becomes Prime Minister of Greece for the fourth time.
• 1921: The Marxist Left in Slovakia and the Transcarpathian Ukraine holds its founding congress in Ľubochňa.
• 1920: The League of Nations holds its first council meeting in Paris, France.
• 1920: Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated was founded on the campus of Howard University.
• 1919: Temperance movement: The United States ratifies the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, requiring Prohibition in the United States one year after ratification.
• 1909: Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.
• 1900: The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounces its claims to the Samoan islands.
• 1883: The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, is passed.
• 1878: Russo-Turkish War (1877-78)): Battle of Philippopolis: Captain Aleksandr Burago with a squadron of Russian Imperial army dragoons liberates Plovdiv from Ottoman rule.
• 1862: Hartley Colliery disaster: Two hundred and four men and boys killed in a mining disaster, prompted a change in UK law which henceforth required all collieries to have at least two independent means of escape.
• 1847: John C. Frémont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory.
• 1809: Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña.
• 1786: Virginia enacts the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson.
• 1780: American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
• 1707: The Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain.
• 1605: The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid, Spain.
• 1572: Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.
• 1556: Philip II becomes King of Spain.
• 1547: Ivan the Terrible becomes Czar of Russia.
• 1492: The first grammar of the Spanish language (Gramática de la lengua castellana) is presented to Queen Isabella I.
• 1412: The Medici family is appointed official banker of the Papacy.
• 1362: A storm tide in the North Sea ravages the East coast of England and destroys the German city of Rungholt on the island of Strand.
• 1120: The Council of Nablus is held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
• 929: Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III established the Caliphate of Córdoba.
• 550: Gothic War: The Ostrogoths, under King Totila, conquer Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison.
• 378: General Siyaj K'ak' conquers Tikal, enlarging the domain of King Spearthrower Owl of Teotihuacán.
• 27 BC: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire.