YEARS AGO FOR JAN. 16

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2019. There are 349 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

27 B.C.: Caesar Augustus is declared the first Emperor of the Roman Empire by the Senate.

1547: Ivan IV of Russia (popularly known as “Ivan the Terrible”) is crowned Czar.

1865: Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman decrees that 400,000 acres of land in the South will be divided into 40-acre lots and given to former slaves. (The order, later revoked by President Andrew Johnson, is believed to have inspired the expression, “Forty acres and a mule.”)

1920: Prohibition begins in the U.S. as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution takes effect, one year to the day after its ratification. (It is later repealed by the 21st Amendment.)

1935: Fugitive gangster Fred Barker and his mother, Kate “Ma” Barker, are killed in a shootout with the FBI at Lake Weir, Fla.

1942: Actress Carole Lombard, 33, her mother, Elizabeth, and 20 other people are killed when their plane crashes near Las Vegas while en route to California from a war-bond promotion tour.

1991: The White House announces the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. (Allied forces prevail Feb. 28, 1991.)

2007: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., launches his successful bid for the White House.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: The Youngstown-Warren Chamber of Commerce says problems with labor, government, attitudes and education share the blame for deterring economic growth in the Mahoning Valley.

Hundreds of counter-protesters turn out in zero-degree weather in Columbus where about 30 Ku Klux Klansmen protest at the Statehouse against the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The planned two-hour protest ends after about 40 minutes because of the cold.

Tom Ridge, Republican congressman from Erie, Pa., is the frontrunner for the Republican State Committee’s endorsement for governor.

1979: U.S. Rep. Lyle Williams, former Republican Trumbull County commissioner who represents the 19th Congressional District, is sworn in by House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill. For the first time in history, members of Congress were permitted to bring their families on the House floor.

Members of the Fraternal Order of Police in Austintown end their three-day strike and accept a new 28-month contract that calls for 7.5 percent across-the-board raises.

Col. Harlan Sanders, 88, dressed in his trademark white suit, visits Youngstown-area Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, starting at Morgan’s Family Restaurant, 7240 Market St. Farrell artist Dan DeBonis presents Sanders with a pencil portrait.

1969: Michael Bannon, 22, of Youngstown suffers minor burns in a $12,000 fire in a student dormitory at Ohio University in Athens, where he is a senior.

Damage may run into the thousands of dollars in vandalism to seven homes, five on the South Side and two in Boardman – all in good neighborhoods.

The Boardman Board of Education approves the highest school operating budget in the district’s history: $4,090,515. The budget was made possible by voters’ approval of a 5.4-mill levy.

1944: About 300 people brave a biting cold wind to see Mosquito Creek Dam and Reservoir dedicated. Six-year-old Jean Ann Lloyd smashes a red, white and blue decorated bottle to dedicate the dam.

Staff Sgt. Robert A. McFadden, 21, a graduate of The Rayen School and an air corps gunner, is reported killed in action over Germany.

A soul-stirring motion-picture record of the high-powered death and destruction of World War II will be shown at Stambaugh Auditorium by The Vindicator.