TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 16
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
1547 Ivan IV crowns himself the new Czar of Russia in Assumption Cathedral in Moscow.
1786 The Council of Virginia guarantees religious freedom.
1793 French King Louis XVI sentenced to death by the National Convention during the French Revolution
1847 John C. Fremont, the famed “Pathfinder” of Western exploration, is appointed governor of California.
1868 Refrigerator car patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit
1883 The U.S. Civil Service Commission established.
1909 One of Ernest Shackleton’s polar exploration teams reaches the Magnetic South Pole.
1920 The League of Nations holds its first meeting in Paris.
1920 18th Amendment, prohibition, becomes the law of the land – one year after ratification; it is repealed in 1933
1938 Benny Goodman refuses to play Carnegie Hall when black members of his band were barred from performing
1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt asks for an extension of the Social Security Act to include more women and children.
1944 Eisenhower assumes supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.
1963 Khrushchev claims to have a 100-megaton nuclear bomb
1965 Eighteen are arrested in Mississippi for the murder of three civil rights workers.
1979 Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi of Iran flees Iran for Egypt
1985 “Playboy” announces end of stapling centerfolds
1991 The Persian Gulf War begins. The massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq — Operation Desert Storm — ends on February 28, 1991, when President George Bush declares a cease-fire, and Iraq pledges to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms.
2001 Laurent Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was assassinated.
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.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
