16 January
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
NEAHR, ZACHARIAH C. Rank and organization: Private, Company K, 142d New York Infantry. Place and date: At Fort Fisher, N.C., 16 January 1865. Entered service at: ------. Birth: Canajoharie, N.Y. Date of issue: 11 September 1890. Citation: Voluntarily advanced with the head of the column and cut down the palisading.
CALUGAS, JOSE Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Battery B, 88th Field Artillery, Philippine Scouts. Place and date: At Culis, Bataan Province, Philippine Islands, 16 January 1942. Entered service at: Fort Stotsenburg, Philippine Islands. Born: 29 December 1907, Barrio Tagsing, Leon, Ploilo, Philippine Islands. G.O. No.: 10, 24 February 1942. Citation: The action for which the award was made took place near Culis, Bataan Province, Philippine Islands, on 16 January 1942. A battery gun position was bombed and shelled by the enemy until 1 gun was put out of commission and all the cannoneers were killed or wounded. Sgt. Calugas, a mess sergeant of another battery, voluntarily and without orders ran 1,000 yards across the shell-swept area to the gun position. There he organized a volunteer squad which placed the gun back in commission and fired effectively against the enemy, although the position remained under constant and heavy Japanese artillery fire.
16 January 27 BCE
Today, on January 16 of the year 27 BCE, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius, better known as Augustus (or Octavius) became Rome's first Emperor. He ruled from 27 BCE until his death in 14 AD. Many consider Augustus to be Rome's greatest emperor. His reign initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana (The Roman Peace).While his paternal family was from Velletri, Augustus was born in Rome on 23 September 63 BCE. He was Julius Caesar's great nephew and became his only heir and son, as he was adopted posthumously by Julius Caesar following Caesar's assassination.
16 January 1991
OPERATION DESERT STORM (AIR CAMPAIGN BEGINS):
At midnight in Iraq, the United Nations deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait expires, and the Pentagon prepares to commence offensive operations to forcibly eject Iraq from its five-month occupation of its oil-rich neighbor. At 4:30 p.m. EST, the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf on bombing missions over Iraq.
All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire in television footage transmitted live via satellite from Baghdad and elsewhere. At 7:00 p.m., Operation Desert Storm, the code-name for the massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq, was formally announced at the White House. The operation was conducted by an international coalition under the command of U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf and featured forces from 32 nations, including Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
During the next six weeks, the allied force engaged in a massive air war against Iraq's military and civil infrastructure, and encountered little effective resistance from the Iraqi air force or air defenses. Iraqi ground forces were helpless during this stage of the war, and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's only significant retaliatory measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would provoke Israel to enter the conflict, thus dissolving Arab support of the war. At the request of the United States, however, Israel remained out of the war.
On February 24, a massive coalition ground offensive began, and Iraq's outdated and poorly supplied armed forces were rapidly overwhelmed. Kuwait was liberated in less than four days, and a majority of Iraq's armed forces surrendered, retreated into Iraq, or were destroyed. On February 28, President George Bush declared a cease-fire, and Iraq pledged to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms. One hundred and twenty-five American soldiers were killed in the Persian Gulf War, with another 21 regarded as missing in action.
16 January 1847
A leader in the successful fight to wrest California away from Mexico, the explorer and mapmaker John C. Fremont briefly becomes governor of the newly won American territory. Still only in his early mid-30s at the time, Fremont had already won national acclaim for his leadership of two important explorations of the West with the military's Corps of Topographical Engineers. Shortly after the government published Fremont's meticulously accurate maps of the Far West, they became indispensable guides for the growing numbers of overland emigrants heading for California and Oregon.
In 1845, though, the lines between military exploration and military conquest began to blur when President James Polk sent Captain Fremont and his men on a third "scientific" mission to explore the Rockies and Sierra Nevada-with 60 armed men accompanying them. Polk's ambition to take California from Mexico was no secret, and Fremont's expedition was clearly designed to place a military force near the region in case of war.
When Mexico and the U.S. declared war in May 1846, Fremont and his men were in Oregon. Upon hearing the news, Fremont immediately headed south, calling his return "the first step in the conquest of California." When the Anglo-American population of California learned of Fremont's arrival, many of them began to rebel against their Mexican leaders. In June, a small band of American settlers seized Sonoma and raised a flag with a bear facing a five-pointed star-with this act, the revolutionaries declared the independent Republic of California.
The Bear Flag Republic was short-lived. In August, Fremont and General Robert Stockton occupied Los Angeles. By January 1847, they had put down the small number of Californians determined to maintain a nation independent of the United States. With California now clearly in the U.S. hands, Stockton agreed to appoint Fremont as the territorial governor. However, a dispute broke out within the army over the legitimacy of Fremont's appointment, and the young captain's detractors accused him of mutiny, disobedience, and conduct prejudicial to military discipline. Recalled to Washington for a court martial, Fremont was found guilty of all three charges, and his appointment to take the position of governor was revoked.
Though President Polk pardoned him and ordered him back to active duty in the army, Fremont was deeply embittered, and he resigned from the military and returned to California a private citizen. Although he never regained the governorship of California, the turmoil of Fremont's early political career did not harm his future prospects. In 1851, citizens of California elected him a senator, and became the territorial governor of Arizona in 1878. Today, however, Fremont's youthful accomplishments as an explorer and mapmaker are more celebrated than his subsequent political career.
TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
16 January
◆550 King Totila of the Ostrogoths captures Rome from the East Romans, by bribing the garrison.
◆1777 Vermont declares independence from NY.
◆1780 First Battle of Cape St Vincent: Rodney defeats the Spanish fleet.
◆1797 Battle of La Favorita: Bonaparte defeats the Austrians, who lose 5,000 prisoners.
◆1809 Battle of La Coruna: The English defeat the French.
◆1847 A leader in the successful fight to wrest California away from Mexico, the explorer and mapmaker John C. Fremont briefly becomes governor of the newly won American territory.★
◆1865 General William T. Sherman begins a march through the Carolinas.
◆1928 Allies lifted the blockade on trade with Russia.
◆1940 Hitler cancels an attack in the West due to bad weather and the capture of German attack plans in Belgium.
◆1942 Japan's advance into Burma begins.
◆1943 On Guadalcanal, American forces advance west and southwest of their perimeter. Japanese positions overlooking the upper part of the Matanikau River are captured.
◆1943 In converging attacks near Sanananda, New Guinea, the US 163rd Infantry Regiment and the Australian 18th Brigade are making progress.
◆1944 Eisenhower assumes supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.
◆1944 The U.S. First and Third armies link up at Houffalize, effectively ending the Battle of the Bulge.
◆1945 Adolf Hitler takes to his underground bunker, where he remains for 105 days until he commits suicide.
◆1945 In the Ardennes the US 1st and 3rd Armies link up at Houffalize. An Allied offensive aimed at eliminating the German bridgehead across the Rhine River, 8 miles north of Strasbourg, begins about 0200 hrs.
◆1964 President Johnson approves Oplan 34A, operations to be conducted by South Vietnamese forces supported by the United States to gather intelligence and conduct sabotage to destabilize the North Vietnamese regime.
◆1969 President Johnson established the Meritorious Service Medal per Executive Order No. 11448. The Executive Order was amended by President Reagan per Executive Order 12312, dated 2 July 1981, to authorize award to members of the armed forces of friendly foreign nations. Awarded to members of the Armed Forces of the United States who distinguished themselves by outstanding non-combat meritorious achievement or service to the United States subsequent to 16 January 1969, normally, the acts or services rendered must be comparable to that required for the Legion of Merit but in a duty of lesser though considerable responsibility.
◆1990 In the wake of vicious fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Azerbaijan, the Soviet government sends in 11,000 troops to quell the conflict.
◆1991 Operation DESERT STORM: At midnight in Iraq, the United Nations deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait expires, and the Pentagon prepares to commence offensive operations to forcibly eject Iraq from its five-month occupation of its oil-rich neighbor.★
◆1993 Operation Restore Hope in Somalia reaches peak US troop strength: 25,800.