January 16Birthdays & History

On this day: January 16 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 1458 BCHatshepsut dies at the age of 50 and is buried in the Valley of the Kings.Middle East
2. 27 BCGaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire.Europe
3. 378General Siyaj K'ak' conquers Tikal, enlarging the domain of King Spearthrower Owl of Teotihuacán.Latin America
4. 550The Ostrogoths, under King Totila, conquer Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison.Europe
5. 929Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III establishes the Caliphate of Córdoba.Middle East
6. 1120Crusades: The Council of Nablus is held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.Middle East
7. 1275Edward I permits his mother Eleanor of Provence to expel the Jews from the towns Worcester, Marlborough, Cambridge and Gloucester.Europe
8. 1349Basel Massacre: Dozens to hundreds of Jews were burned to death by Christians after being accused of causing the Black Death.Europe
9. 1362Saint Marcellus's flood kills at least 25,000 people on the shores of the North Sea.Europe
10. 1537Bigod's Rebellion, an armed insurrection attempting to resist the English Reformation, begins.Europe
11. 1547Grand Prince Ivan IV is crowned as Tsar of all Russia.Europe
12. 1556Philip II becomes King of Spain.Europe
13. 1572Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried and found guilty of treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.Europe
14. 1605The 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.Europe
15. 1641Reapers' War: The Junta de Braços (parliamentary assembly) of the Principality of Catalonia accepts the proposal of establishment of the Catalan Republic, under French protection.Europe
16. 1707The Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain.Europe
17. 1716King Philip V of Spain promulgates the Nueva Planta decree of the Principality of Catalonia, abolishing the Catalan institutions and its legal system, being replaced by those of Castile, thus putting an end to Catalonia as separate state and becoming a province of the new French-style Kingdom of Spain.Europe
18. 1757Forces of the Maratha Empire are defeated by the Durrani Empire in the Battle of Narela.Asia
19. 1780American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cape St. Vincent.North America
20. 1786Virginia enacts the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson.North America
21. 1809Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña.Europe
22. 1847Westward expansion of the United States: John C. Frémont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory.North America
23. 1862Hartley Colliery disaster: Two hundred and four men and boys killed in a mining disaster, prompting a change in UK law which henceforth required all collieries to have at least two independent means of escape.Europe
24. 1878Russo-Turkish War (1877–78): Battle of Philippopolis: Captain Aleksandr Burago with a squadron of Russian Imperial army dragoons liberates Plovdiv from Ottoman rule.Middle EastEurope
25. 1883The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, is enacted by Congress.North America
26. 1900The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounces its claims to the Samoan islands.North AmericaEuropeOceania
27. 1909Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.World
28. 1913Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan writes his first letter to G. H. Hardy at Cambridge, stating without proof various formulae involving integrals, infinite series, and continued fractions, beginning a long correspondence between the two as well as widespread recognition of Ramanujan's results.Asia
29. 1919Nebraska becomes the 36th state to approve the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. With the necessary three-quarters of the states approving the amendment, Prohibition is constitutionally mandated in the United States one year later.North America
30. 1920The League of Nations holds its first council meeting in Paris, France.Europe
31. 1921The Marxist Left in Slovakia and the Transcarpathian Ukraine holds its founding congress in Ľubochňa.Europe
32. 1942Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard.North America
33. 1942The Holocaust: Nazi Germany begins deporting Jews from the Łódź Ghetto to Chełmno extermination camp.Europe
34. 1945World War II: Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.Europe
35. 1959Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean near Astor Piazzolla International Airport in Mar del Plata, Argentina, killing 51.Latin America
36. 1969Czech student Jan Palach commits suicide by self-immolation in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.Europe
37. 1969Space Race: Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the first-ever docking of crewed 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.Europe
38. 1979Iranian Revolution: The last Iranian Shah flees Iran with his family for good and relocates to Egypt.Middle East
39. 1983Turkish Airlines Flight 158 crashes at Ankara Esenboğa Airport in Ankara, Turkey, killing 47 and injuring 20.Middle East
40. 1984A radiation detector at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, United States, detects radioactivity after a truck carrying rebar accidentally passed through the laboratory's area, revealing a contamination incident that occurred in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, the previous month.North AmericaLatin America
41. 1991Coalition Forces go to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War.Middle East
42. 1992El 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.Latin America
43. 1995An avalanche hits the Icelandic village Súðavík, destroying 25 homes and burying 26 people, 14 of whom died.Europe
44. 1998In Santa Lucía Cotzumalguapa, Guatemala, thirteen American students on a school trip are attacked and robbed at gunpoint; five were raped.Latin AmericaNorth America
45. 2001Second Congo War: Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards in Kinshasa.Africa
46. 2001US President Bill Clinton awards former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish–American War.North AmericaEurope
47. 2002War in Afghanistan: 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.Asia
48. 2003The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.North America
49. 2006Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia's new president. She becomes Africa's first female elected head of state.Africa
50. 2011Syrian civil war: The Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) is established with the stated goal of re-organizing Syria along the lines of democratic confederalism.Middle East
51. 2012The Mali War begins when Tuareg militias start fighting the Malian government for independence.Africa
52. 2016Thirty-three out of 126 freed hostages are injured and 23 killed in terrorist attacks in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on a hotel and a nearby restaurant.Africa
53. 2017Turkish Airlines Flight 6491 crashes into a residential area near Manas International Airport in Kyrgyzstan, killing 39 people.Middle EastAsia
54. 2018Myanmar police open fire on a group of ethnic Rakhine protesters, killing seven and wounding twelve.Asia
55. 2020The United States Senate ratifies the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement as a replacement for NAFTA.North AmericaLatin America
56. 2020The first impeachment of Donald Trump formally moves into its trial phase in the United States Senate.North America

Source: Wikipedia "January 16" / CC BY-SA 4.0