January 16th in History
Today in History
- Octavian is granted the title of Augustus (27 BCE)
- Ivan the Terrible becomes Czar (1547 CE)
- Ernest Shackleton’s expedition reaches the magnetic South Pole (1909)
- The 18th Amendment, allowing Prohibition, is ratified (1919)
- Benny Goodman’s band plays Carnegie Hall (1938)
- Hello, Dolly! opens on Broadway (1964)
- Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the first-ever docking of manned spacecraft in orbit (1969)
Birthdays
- André Michelin, tire maker (1853)
- Fulgencio Batista, Cuban leader (1901)
- Frank Zamboni, inventor of the Zamboni (1901)
- Ethel Merman, actress and singer (1908)
- Dizzy Dean, baseball player and sportscaster (1910)
- Dian Fossey, anthropologist (1932)
- Susan Sontag, essayist (1933)
- John Carpenter, filmmaker (1948)
- Debbie Allen, actress, dancer, and choreographer (1950)
- Sade, singer-songwriter (1959)
- Kate Moss, supermodel (1974)
- Aaliyah, singer (1979)
Deaths
- Edward Gibbon, historian (1794)
- Marshall Field, department store owner (1906)
- George Dewey, American admiral (1917)
- Ma Barker, criminal (1935)
- Carole Lombard (1942)
- Arturo Toscanini, conductor (1957)
- Ted Cassidy, actor (1979)
- Bernard Lee, actor (1981)
- Andrew Wyeth, painter (2009)
- Glen Bell, founder of Taco Bell (2010)
Holidays and Celebrations
- Juuruku Nichi (Ryukyuan religion)
- National Religious Freedom Day (US)
- Teacher’s Day (Thailand, Myanmar)
- Thiruvalluvar Day (Tamil)
Informal and made-up holidays include Appreciate a Dragon Day, Civil Service Day, Fig Newton Day, National Nothing Day, Soup Swap Day, and Without a Scalpel Day.