On This Day:
Friday January 16, 2015 This is the 16th day of the year, with 349 days remaining in 2015. Fact of the Day: perching Birds have a nifty tendon arrangement in their legs. The flexor tendon from the muscle in the thigh reaches down over the knee, continues down the leg, around the ankle and then under the toes. This arrangement means that, at rest, the bird's body weight causes the bird to bend its knee and pull the tendon tight, so closing the claws. Apparently this mechanism is so effective that dead birds have been found grasping their perches long after they have died.
Holidays Feast day of St. Henry of Cocket, St. Marcellus, pope, St. Berard and Others, St. Fursey, St. Priscilla, and St. Honoratus of Arles.
El Salvador: National Day of Peace.
Japan: Haru-n-Yabuiri.
Malawai: John Chilembwe Day.
Events 1547 - Ivan the Terrible was crowned Czar of Russia.
1786 - The legislature of Virginia adopted a religious freedom statute, drafted by Thomas Jefferson and introduced by James Madison. It was the model for the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.
1847 - John C. Fremont, the famed "Pathfinder" of Western exploration, was appointed governor of California.
1883 - U.S. Civil Service Commission was established when the Pendleton Act went into effect.
1920 - Prohibition began in the United States as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America took effect; it was later repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933.
1920 - The League of Nations held its first meeting, in Paris.
1944 - General Dwight D. Eisenhower took command of the Allied Invasion Force in London.
1964 - The musical "Hello, Dolly!" opened on Broadway.
1978 - NASA named 35 candidates 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 in space.
1979 - Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the leader of Iran since 1941, was forced to flee the country. Two weeks later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran.
1991 - The Persian Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm) began, with the first fighter aircraft launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers on bombing missions over Iraq. The goal was to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
1992 - El Salvador and rebel leaders signed a pact in Mexico City ending 12 years of civil war.
Births 1853 - André Michelin, French tire maker.
1909 - Ethel Merman (Zimmerman), American singer, Tony Award-winning actress.
1911 - Dizzy Dean, American baseball Hall of Famer.
Deaths 1942 - Actress Carole Lombard (Jane Alice Peters), her mother, and about 20 other people, killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas, returning from a war-bond promotion tour.
1997 - Ennis Cosby, the only son of American television comedian Bill Cosby, shot to death on a freeway ramp in Los Angeles while changing a flat tire.
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