January 16
Events
Pre-1600
- 1458 BC - Hatshepsut dies at the age of 50 and is buried in the Valley of the Kings.
- 27 BC - Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire.
- 378 - General Siyaj K'ak' conquers Tikal, enlarging the domain of King Spearthrower Owl of Teotihuacán.
- 550 - Gothic War: The Ostrogoths, under King Totila, conquer Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison.
- 929 - Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III establishes the Caliphate of Córdoba.
- 1120 - Crusades: The Council of Nablus is held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
- 1275 – Edward I permits his mother Eleanor of Provence to expel the Jews from the towns Worcester, Marlborough, Cambridge and Gloucester.
- 1349 – Basel Massacre: Dozens to hundreds of Jews were burned to death by Christians after being accused of causing the Black Death.
- 1362 - Saint Marcellus's flood kills at least 25,000 people on the shores of the North Sea.
- 1537 - Bigod's Rebellion, an armed insurrection attempting to resist the English Reformation, begins.
- 1547 - Grand Duke Ivan IV of Muscovy becomes the first Tsar of Russia, replacing the 264-year-old Grand Duchy of Moscow with the Tsardom of Russia.
- 1556 - Philip II becomes King of Spain.
- 1572 - Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried and found guilty of treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.
1601–1900
- 1605 - The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid, Spain.
- 1641 - Reapers' War: The Junta de Braços of the Principality of Catalonia accepts the proposal of establishment of the Catalan Republic, under French protection.
- 1707 - The Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain.
- 1716 - King 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.
- 1757 - Forces of the Maratha Empire are defeated by the Durrani Empire in the Battle of Narela.
- 1780 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
- 1786 - Virginia enacts the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson.
- 1809 - Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña.
- 1847 - Westward expansion of the United States: John C. Frémont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory.
- 1862 - Hartley 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.
- 1878 - Russo-Turkish War : Battle of Philippopolis: Captain Aleksandr Burago with a squadron of Russian Imperial army dragoons liberates Plovdiv from Ottoman rule.
- 1883 - The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, is enacted by Congress.
- 1900 - The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounces its claims to the Samoan islands.
1901–present
- 1909 - Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.
- 1913 - Indian 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.
- 1919 - Nebraska 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.
- 1920 - The League of Nations holds its first council meeting in Paris, France.
- 1921 - The Marxist Left in Slovakia and the Transcarpathian Ukraine holds its founding congress in Ľubochňa.
- 1942 - The Holocaust: Nazi Germany begins deporting Jews from the Łódź Ghetto to Chełmno extermination camp.
- 1942 - Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard.
- 1945 - World War II: Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
- 1959 - Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean near Astor Piazzolla International Airport in Mar del Plata, Argentina, killing 51.
- 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.
- 1969 - Space 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.
- 1979 - Iranian Revolution: The last Iranian Shah flees Iran with his family for good and relocates to Egypt.
- 1983 - Turkish Airlines Flight 158 crashes at Ankara Esenboğa Airport in Ankara, Turkey, killing 47 and injuring 20.
- 1991 - Coalition Forces go to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War.
- 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.
- 1995 - An avalanche hits the Icelandic village Súðavík, destroying 25 homes and burying 26 people, 14 of whom died.
- 2001 - Second Congo War: Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards in Kinshasa.
- 2001 - US President Bill Clinton awards former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish–American War.
- 2002 - War 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.
- 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.
- 2006 - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia's new president. She becomes Africa's first female elected head of state.
- 2011 - Syrian civil war: The Movement for a Democratic Society is established with the stated goal of re-organizing Syria along the lines of democratic confederalism.
- 2012 - The Mali War begins when Tuareg militias start fighting the Malian government for independence.
- 2016 - Thirty-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.
- 2017 - Turkish Airlines Flight 6491 crashes into a residential area near Manas International Airport in Kyrgyzstan, killing 39 people.
- 2018 - Myanmar police open fire on a group of ethnic Rakhine protesters, killing seven and wounding twelve.
- 2020 - The first impeachment of Donald Trump formally moves into its trial phase in the United States Senate.
- 2020 - The United States Senate ratifies the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement as a replacement for NAFTA.
Births
Pre-1600
- 972 - Sheng Zong, emperor of the Liao Dynasty
- 1093 - Isaac Komnenos, son of Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos
- 1245 - Edmund Crouchback, English politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports
- 1362 - Robert de Vere, duke of Ireland
- 1409 - René of Anjou, king of Naples
- 1477 - Johannes Schöner, German astronomer and cartographer
- 1501 - Anthony Denny, confidant of Henry VIII of England
- 1516 - Bayinnaung, king of Burma
- 1558 - Jakobea of Baden, Margravine of Baden by birth, Duchess of Jülich-Cleves-Berg by marriage
1601–1900
- 1616 - François de Vendôme, duke of Beaufort
- 1626 - Lucas Achtschellinck, Belgian painter and educator
- 1630 - Guru Har Rai, Sikh Guru
- 1634 - Dorothe Engelbretsdatter, Norwegian author and poet
- 1653 - Johann Conrad Brunner, Swiss anatomist
- 1675 - Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, French soldier and diplomat
- 1691 - Peter Scheemakers, Belgian sculptor and educator
- 1728 - Niccolò Piccinni, Italian composer and educator
- 1749 - Vittorio Alfieri, Italian poet and playwright
- 1757 - Richard Goodwin Keats, English admiral and politician, third Commodore-Governor of Newfoundland
- 1807 - Charles Henry Davis, American admiral
- 1815 - Henry Halleck, American lawyer, general, and scholar
- 1821 - John C. Breckinridge, American general and politician, 14th Vice President of the United States
- 1834 - Robert R. Hitt, American lawyer and politician, 13th United States Assistant Secretary of State
- 1836 - Francis II of the Two Sicilies
- 1838 - Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist
- 1844 - Ismail Kemal, Albanian politician and statesman, first prime minister of Albania
- 1851 - William Hall-Jones, English-New Zealand politician, 16th Prime Minister of New Zealand
- 1853 - Johnston Forbes-Robertson, English actor and manager
- 1853 - Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, Greek-English general
- 1853 - André Michelin, French businessman, co-founded the Michelin Tyre Company
- 1870 - Jüri Jaakson, Estonian businessman and politician, State Elder of Estonia
- 1872 - Henri Büsser, French organist, composer, and conductor
- 1874 - Robert W. Service, English-Canadian poet and author
- 1875 - Leonor Michaelis, German biochemist and physician
- 1876 - Claude Buckenham, English cricketer and footballer
- 1878 - Harry Carey, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1880 - Samuel Jones, American high jumper
- 1882 - Margaret Wilson, American author
- 1885 - Zhou Zuoren, Chinese author and translator
- 1888 - Osip Brik, Russian avant garde writer and literary critic
- 1892 - Homer Burton Adkins, American chemist
- 1893 - Daisy Kennedy, Australian-English violinist
- 1894 - Irving Mills, American publisher
- 1895 - Evripidis Bakirtzis, Greek soldier and politician
- 1895 - T. M. Sabaratnam, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician
- 1895 - Nat Schachner, American lawyer, chemist, and author
- 1897 - Carlos Pellicer, Mexican poet and academic
- 1898 - Margaret Booth, American producer and editor
- 1898 - Irving Rapper, American film director and producer
- 1900 - Kiku Amino, Japanese author and translator
- 1900 - Edith Frank, German-Dutch mother of Anne Frank