TODAY IN HISTORY ― JANUARY 16

January 16 is the 16th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 349 days remaining until the end of the year (350 in leap years). This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Thursday or Friday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Sunday (56). 

NATIONAL NOTHING DAY  

27 BC – The title Augustus is bestowed upon Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian by the Roman Senate.

1412 – The Medici family is appointed official banker of the Papacy.

1780 – British Admiral Sir George Rodney, with 18 ships-of-the-line, engages an inferior Spanish squadron of 11 battleships commanded by Don Juan de Langara off the southwestern coast of Portugal at Cape St. Vincent, in what comes to be known as The Moonlight Battle. (Ships-of-the-line is the 18th century term for ships substantial enough to be used in a battle line, a tactic of war in which two lines of ships faced off against each other.)

1847 – A leader in the successful fight to wrest California away from Mexico, the explorer and mapmaker John C. Fremont briefly becomes governor of the newly won American territory.

1861 – On this day in 1861, the Crittenden Compromise, the last chance to keep North and South united, dies in the U.S. Senate.


1919 – The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes," is ratified on this day in 1919 and becomes the law of the land.

1936 – Albert Fish is executed at Sing Sing prison in New York. The "Moon Maniac" was one of America's most notorious and disturbed killers. Authorities believe that Fish killed as many as 10 children and then ate their remains. Fish went to the electric chair with great anticipation, telling guards, "It will be the supreme thrill, the only one I haven't tried."

1938 – Jazz has been called "America's classical music," a label that does more than just recognize its American origins. The label also makes the case that jazz is worthy of aesthetic consideration alongside music usually thought of as "classical." In the current era, when programs of Duke Ellington and J.S. Bach often draw the same highbrow crowds, that argument hardly seems controversial. In the 1930s, however, the notion was almost laughable, which is what made Benny Goodman's January 16, 1938, concert at New York City's famed Carnegie Hall so revolutionary. Goodman and his supporting cast claimed a new place for jazz on the American cultural scene that night, in what has come to be seen as the most important jazz concert in history.

1942 – On this day in 1942, the actress Carole Lombard (Jane Alice Peters), wife of actor Clark Gable and famous for her roles in such screwball comedies as My Man Godfrey and To Be or Not to Be, is killed when the TWA DC-3 plane she is traveling in crashes en route from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on a war bond tour. She was 33.

1945 – On this day, Adolf Hitler takes to his underground bunker, where he remains for 105 days until he commits suicide at the end of WWII.

1964 – President Lyndon Johnson approves Oplan 34A, operations to be conducted by South Vietnamese forces supported by the United States to gather intelligence and conduct sabotage to destabilize the North Vietnamese regime.

1970 – On January 16, 1970, the seven-time Golden Glove-winning center fielder Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals, files suit in a New York federal court against Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, the presidents of the American and National Leagues and all 24 teams in the Major League Baseball (MLB) organization.

1979 – Faced with an army mutiny and violent demonstrations against his rule, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the leader of Iran since 1941, is forced to flee the country. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran.

1990 – In the wake of vicious fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Azerbaijan, the Soviet government sends in 11,000 troops to quell the conflict.

1991 – At midnight in Iraq, the United Nations deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait expires, and the Pentagon prepares to commence offensive operations to forcibly eject Iraq from its five-month occupation of its oil-rich neighbor. At 4:30 p.m. EST, the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf on bombing missions over Iraq. All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire in television footage transmitted live via satellite from Baghdad and elsewhere. At 7:00 p.m., Operation Desert Storm, the code-name for the massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq, was formally announced at the White House.

2001 – US President Bill Clinton awards former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish-American War.

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.


TODAY'S BIRTHS

1728 – Niccolò Piccinni, Italian composer and educator (d. 1800) 

1815 – Henry Halleck, American lawyer, general, and scholar (d. 1872)

1853 – André Michelin, French businessman, co-founded the Michelin Tyre Company (d. 1931)

1901 – Frank Zamboni, American businessman, founded the Zamboni Company (d. 1988)

1930 – Mary Ann McMorrow, American lawyer and judge (d. 2013)

1932 – Dian Fossey, American zoologist and anthropologist (d. 1985)

1952 – Julie Anne Peters, American engineer and author

Wikipedia and Google, ex as noted.