On this Day - January 16th

On this day in the year 27 before the common era (BCE), Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian is granted the title Augustus by the Senate and the people of Rome; five hundred and seventy-seven years, in the year 550 of the common era (CE), king Totila of the Ostrogoths conquers Rome after a long and deadly siege. Bribery was the means he used to achieve his end.

In the year 1412 CE the Medici family is appointed the official banker of the Papacy.

In 1547 CE, Ivan the Terrible, at the age seventeen, crowns himself the first Tsar (Caeser) of Russia.

In 1572 CE, Thomas Howard, the fourth Duke of Norfolk is tried and convicted of high treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England; nine years later the English Parliament passes laws restricting Catholicism.

In 1605 CE the first edition of El Ingenioso Hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (Part One of Don Quixote), by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid, Spain.

In 1865 CE, General William T. Sherman issues Field Order #15, redistributing confiscated Southern land to newly freed Black families in forty-acre plots. This commitment to redistribution of Southern wealth to the families that generated it was only partially fulfilled before being mostly rescinded. The unfilled promise sometimes referred to as Forty Acres and a Mule, plank in the valid legal argument for restitution to be paid to the families of formerly enslaved people.

In 1919 CE the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution is ratified, authorizing the prohibition of alcohol.

In 1940 CE my mother was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In 1944 CE, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, future president of the United States, takes command of Allied Invasion Force in London; one year later Adolf Hitler moves into the Fuhrer-Bunker, his underground headquarters in Berlin where he lives until his suicide seventy-five day later, cowardly denying the world justice even while ridding it of a great evil...himself.

In 1962 CE shooting begins on Dr. No, the first film in the James Bond franchise based on books written by Ian Fleming, with Sean Connery in the starring role as Agent 007; three years later the Outer Limits airs its last episode on ABC.

In 2016 CE a zinnia is grown in space aboard the International Space Station, the first flower.