Today is Thursday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2025. There are 349 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On Jan. 16, 1991, in a televised address to the nation, U.S. President George H.W. Bush announced the start of Operation Desert Storm, an Allied combat operation to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
Also on this date:
In 1865, Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman decreed that 400,000 acres of land in the South would be divided into 40-acre lots and given to former slaves. (The order, later revoked by President Andrew Johnson, inspired the expression, “40 acres and a mule.”)
In 1942, actor Carole Lombard, 33, her mother, Elizabeth Peters, and 20 other people were killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas, Nevada, while returning to California from a war-bond promotion tour.
In 1970, St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Curt Flood filed a $1 million antitrust lawsuit against Major League Baseball and MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, arguing for the right to free agency.
In 1989, three days of rioting began in Miami when a police officer fatally shot Clement Lloyd, a Black motorcyclist, causing a crash that also claimed the life of Lloyd’s passenger, Allan Blanchard. (The officer, William Lozano, was convicted of manslaughter, but was acquitted in a retrial.)
In 1996, Wayne Newton performed his 25,000th Las Vegas show. Newton had performed more shows as a headliner in Las Vegas than any other entertainer.
In 2001, Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was fatally shot by one of his own bodyguards.
In 2006, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the first elected female head of state in Africa when she was sworn in as president of Liberia.
In 2018, authorities in Denmark charged inventor Peter Madsen with killing Swedish journalist Kim Wall onboard his private submarine. (Madsen would be convicted and sentenced to life in prison.)
Today’s birthdays: Author William Kennedy is 97. Opera singer Marilyn Horne is 91. Hall of Fame auto racer A.J. Foyt is 90. Country musician Ronnie Milsap is 82. Filmmaker John Carpenter is 77. Actor-dancer-choreographer Debbie Allen is 75. Singer Sade is 66. Boxing Hall of Famer Roy Jones Jr. is 56. Model Kate Moss is 51. Actor-producer-songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda is 45. Baseball great Albert Pujols is 45.
