- 1920 – Prohibition, later called the “noble experiment” by President Herbert Hoover, became the law of the land on 16 January 1920, one year after the 36th state ratified the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Enforcement of the law fell to the Department of the Treasury and the Coast Guard was charged with interdicting the flow of “Demon Rum” at sea before it reached American shores.
- 1944 – LT Stewart R. Graham became the first person to make a helicopter take-off and landing aboard a ship underway at sea when he piloted a Sikorsky HNS-1 off of and back on the SS Daghestan in the North Atlantic.
- 1948 – The list of nominations for appointments and promotions of Coast Guard officers transmitted to Congress by the President on this date represented the first permanent advancements of U .S. Coast Guard regular officers since the summer of 1942.
- 1988 – Coast Guard units responded to a report of a murder on board the container vessel Boxer Captain Cook. The ship’s first officer reportedly murdered the captain and threw his body overboard. A boarding party from the cutter Northland, offloaded onto the cutter Cape York, boarded the vessel while it was underway on the high seas and captured the suspected murderer and collected evidence of the crime.
- 1990 – The CGC Mellon fired a Harpoon missile in a test, becoming the first cutter to do so.
Today in Coast Guard History – January 16th
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