TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

Jan. 16, 1920

Prohibition began in the United States as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect, one year to the day after its ratification.

ALSO ON THIS DATE

1547 Ivan IV of Russia was crowned Czar.

1865

Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman decreed that 400,000acres of land in the South would be divided into 40-acre lots and given to former slaves.

1912

A day before reaching the South Pole, British explorer Robert Scott and his expedition found evidence that Roald Amundsen of Norway and his team had gotten there ahead of them.

1935

Fugitive gangster Fred Barker and his mother, Kate “Ma” Barker, were killed in a shootout with the FBI at Lake Weir, Florida.

1942

Actress Carole Lombard, 33, her mother, Elizabeth, and 20other people were killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas, Nevada, while en route to California from a war-bond promotion tour.

1978

NASA named 35candidates to fly on the space shuttle, including Sally K. Ride, who became America’s first woman in space, and Guion S. Bluford Jr., who became America’s first black astronaut in space.

1989

Three days of rioting began in Miami when a police officer fatally shot Clement Lloyd, a black motorcyclist, causing a crash that also claimed the life of Lloyd’s passenger, Allan Blanchard.

1991

The White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

1992

Officials of the government of El Salvador and rebel leaders signed a pact in Mexico City ending 12years of civil war that had left at least 75,000people dead.