Historical Events on January 16.

1.   1556, 16th January: Philip II became the Emperor of Spain.

2.  1681, 16th January: Chhatrapati Sambhaji Raje crowned Chhatrapati.

3.  1760, 16th January: The British capture Pondicherry from the French.

4.  1769, 16th January: Planned horse racing organized for the first time in Accra, Calcutta (now Kolkata).

5.  1919, 16th January: The 18th Amendment to the US Constitution had enacted, and a nationwide embargo imposed.

6.  1920, 16th January: League of Nations held its first council meeting in Paris.

7.  1941, 16th January: Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose left the country.

8.  1979, 16th January: The Shah of Iran fled to Egypt with his family.

9.  1992, 16th January: Extradition treaty between India and Britain.

10.  1995, 16th January: INS Vidyut, a home-made missile ship, launched at Goa.

11.  1996, 16th January: Hubble Space Telescope scientists claim to have discovered more than 100 new galaxies in space.

12. 1999, 16th January: Anil Sood of India became the Vice President of the World Bank.

13.  2000, 16th January: The Chinese government recognized the two-year-old Tibetan boy as the patron of Buddha.

14.  2003, 16th January: Kalpana Chawla of Indian origin embarked on a second space trip.

15.  2006, 16th January: Socialist leader Michelle Bachelet became the first female President of Chile.

16.  2008, 16th January: Tata Motors unveiled the Nano, a Rs. 1 lakh People’s Car.

Famous Birthdays & Birth Anniversaries on January 16.

1.   1605: Shahryar Mirza, the fifth and youngest son of the Mughal emperor Jahangir.

2.  1853: André Michelin, a French industrialist.

3.  1920: Nanabhoy Palkhivala, an Indian jurist and liberal economist.

4.  1926: O. P. Nayyar, an Indian film music composer, singer-songwriter, music producer, and musician.

5.  1931: Subhash Mukhopadhyay, an Indian scientist, physician from Hazaribagh, Bihar, and Orissa Province, British India.

6.  1978: Vijay Sethupathi, an Indian actor, producer, lyricist, and dialogue writer.

Death Anniversaries of famous people on January 16.

1.   1901: Mahadev Govind Ranade, an Indian scholar, social reformer, judge, and author.

2.  1938: Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, a Bengali novelist and short story writer of the early 20th century.

3.  1966: Sadhu Vaswani, an Indian educationist who started the Mira Movement. 

4.  1967: Robert Jemison Van de Graaff, an American physicist, noted for his design and construction of high-voltage Van de Graaff generators.

5.  1989: Prem Nazir, an Indian film actor known as one of Malayalam cinema’s definitive leading men of his generation.

6.  2000: Triloki Nath Kaul, one of India’s foremost diplomats in the 20th century.