THURSDAY, Jan.16, 2025

1412-The Medici family is appointed official banker of the Papacy

1547-Ivan the Terrible, aged 17, crowns himself the first tsar of Moscow

1605-The first edition of "El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha" (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid

1868-Refrigerator car patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit

1941-U.S. vice admiral Bellinger warns of an assault on Pearl Harbor

1944-General Eisenhower takes command of Allied Invasion Force in London

1981-Pope John Paul II receives Lech Wał?sa and Solidarity delegation at the Vatican

1983-Dutch political party DS'70 disbands

1989-USSR announces plan for 2-year manned mission to Mars

2001-Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated in his office by one of his own bodyguards

2002-U.N. Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and freezes assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the members of the Taliban