NOW & THEN
16 JANUARY
1547: Ivan the Terrible, first Russian to assume title of Tsar, was crowned.
1581: Penalties of high treason imposed by law in England on converts to Roman Catholicism.
1707: The Act of Union of the parliaments of England and Scotland was ratified.
1778: France recognised United States independence.
1909: Scottish doctor Alistair Mackay, along with fellow British explorers Edgeworth David and Douglas Mawson, became the first humans to reach the South Magnetic Pole as part of the Nimrod Expedition.
1920: Prohibition started in United States with the banning of the manufacture, sale or involvement with alcohol.
1920: The League of Nations held its first council meeting in Paris.
1925: Leon Trotsky was dismissed from chairmanship of Russia’s Revolutionary Council.
1928: Thomas Hardy was buried beside Charles Dickens in Westminster Abbey. His heart was buried in the grave of his first wife, Emma, in the churchyard at Stinsford in his beloved Wessex.
1938: Benny Goodman gave the first jazz concert in Carnegie Hall, New York.
1950: Listen With Mother started on BBC radio with Ann Driver setting nursery rhymes to music. The catchphrase, “Are you sitting comfortably?” originated in this series.
1957: The Cavern Club, venue of the Beatles’ first appearance, opened in Matthew Street, Liverpool.
1962: Shooting began for the first James Bond movie, Dr No.
1964: Thirteen Arab nations, meeting in Cairo, agreed to set up military command to strengthen Arab position on problems related to Israel.
1967: Closure announced of Boys’ Own Paper after 88 years of supplying adventure stories and “things for idle hands to do”.
1970: Muammar Gaddafi became ruler of Libya, four months after leading a coup against the monarchy.
1973: The United States and North Vietnam declared a ceasefire in the Vietnam War in hopes of full peace pact.
1974: Jaws, by Peter Benchley, was published.
1980: Paul Mccartney was jailed in Tokyo for possession of marijuana.
1985: Dorchester Hotel in London bought by Sultan of Brunei.
1989: The home secretary, Douglas Hurd, ordered Court of Appeal to re-examine convictions of Guildford Four, for pub bombings in 1974.
1991: United States planes bombed Baghdad as Operation Desert Storm began the liberation of Kuwait at midnight.
1996: Gunmen seized a ferry bound for Russia with 255 people on board in the Turkish port of Trabzon and threatened to blow it up unless Russia let Chechen rebels go free.
2003: The Space Shuttle Columbia took off for its final mission. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.
2009: Singer Boy George, convicted of falsely imprisoning a male escort in his flat in London, was jailed for 15 months.