Today is Saturday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2016. There are 350 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1547 – Ivan the Terrible is crowned Russia’s first czar.
1666 – France, allied with Holland, declares war on England.
1761 – British take Pondicherry after siege, marking end of French dominion in India.
1778 – France recognizes U.S. independence.
1816 – Portugal’s South American colony, Brazil, becomes a kingdom.
1883 – The U.S. Civil Service Commission is established.
1917 – Germans propose in a telegram that Mexico become Germany’s ally with a view to recovering Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The telegram is intercepted, hastening the U.S. entry into World War I.
1920 – Prohibition, the legal prevention of the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic drinks, begins as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution takes effect. It is later repealed.
1925 – Leon Trotsky is dismissed from chairmanship of Russia’s Revolutionary Council.
1966 – Major General Aguiyi Ironsi takes over power in Nigeria after announcing that an attempted coup has been smashed.
1969 – Soviet cosmonauts achieve first linkup of two manned spaceships while in orbit around earth.
1973 – United States and South Vietnam declare cease-fire in Vietnam War in hopes of full peace pact.
1979 – In the face of growing unrest, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi flees Iran, never to return.
1987 – Hu Yaobang resigns as head of China’s Communist Party, accepting blame for policy mistakes stemming from student turmoil.
1990 – Bulgarian government grants opposition right to publish newspapers, but continues to deny their access to radio and television.
1991 – U.S. and allied fighters and heavy bombers start pounding targets in Iraq and Kuwait after Iraq fails to meet a deadline on withdrawal from Kuwait.
1992 – Officials of the government of El Salvador and rebel leaders sign a pact in Mexico City ending 12 years of civil war that left at least 75,000 people dead.
1997 – In West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinians dance and sing outside Israeli army headquarters as troops begin departing after 30 years of military rule.
1998 – Turkey’s high court outlaws the Islamic-oriented Welfare Party.
2000 – Ricardo Lagos is elected Chile’s first socialist president since Salvador Allende, whose government was toppled in a bloody 1973 military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
2001 – Laurent Kabila, president of Congo, is killed in a shooting at his home.
2007 – Pakistani helicopter gunships attack a suspected al-Qaida hide-out in forest near the Afghan border, killing up to 10 people and sparking anger among tribesmen who say the dead are woodcutters, not terrorists.
2008 – Sri Lanka’s cease-fire deal ends in a spasm of violence, as suspected Tamil Tiger rebels bomb a bus, shoot the fleeing passengers and attack farmers as they retreat into the bush, killing 27 people.
2009 – A wealthy U.S. businessman with a passion for books about the Middle East is sentenced to two years in jail for stealing pages from rare texts at two of Britain’s most venerable libraries.
2011 – An Egyptian court convicts and sentences to death a Muslim man for killing six Christians and a Muslim guard last year — the latest in a series of moves by authorities seeking to calm religious tensions after a massive suicide bombing outside a church two weeks ago.
2013 – French soldiers press into northern Mali territory occupied by radical Islamists, launching a land assault that was to put them in direct contact with al-Qaida-linked fighters.
2014 — A suicide bomber kills 4 people and injures 26 in the Lebanese town of Hermel, a Hezbollah stronghold near the Syrian border.
2015 — U.S. government scientists say for the third time in a decade the globe sizzled to the hottest year on record.
Today’s Birthdays:
Richard Savage, English author (1697-1743); Niccolo Piccinni, Italian musician (1728-1800); John Carpenter, U.S. film director (1948–); Debbie Allen, U.S. actress/dancer/choreographer (1950–); Sade, U.S. singer (1959–); Maxine Jones, U.S. R & B singer (1966–); Kate Moss, English model (1974–).
Thought For Today:
I am a believer in punctuality, though it makes me very lonely — E.V. Lucas, English writer and publisher (1868-1938).
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