Daily Calendar for Friday, January 16, 2026

Daily Calendar

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Friday, January 16, 2026

Born

  • Robert Service (poet)
  • Ethel Merman (singer & actress)
  • William Kennedy (American writer)
  • Marilyn Horne (opera singer)
  • Ronnie Milsap (singer)
  • Debbie Allen (actress, dancer, & choreographer)
  • Sade (singer)
  • Kate Moss (supermodel)
  • Aaliyah (singer)

Died

  • Carole Lombard (actress)
  • Ted Cassidy (actor)
  • Leland Stowe (journalist)
  • Andrew Wyeth (American artist Andrew Wyeth, 91, died in his sleep in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.)
  • Carl Milton Smith (American country music singer)
  • Pauline Friedman Phillips, pen name Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby advice columnist)
  • Russell Johnson (actor)
  • Bob Uecker (baseball player & broadcaster)

Events

  • Ivan the Terrible crowned as first Russian czar
  • Prohibition went into effect in the U.S.
  • US Department of State issues a ban on travel to Cuba
  • Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians became the first tribe in the U.S. to issue tribal license plates
  • 47.5” of snow fell in Valdez, Alaska, within the span of 24 hours
  • Operation Desert Storm launched
  • 121.5-pound blue catfish caught, Lake Texoma, Texas
  • From the International Space Station, Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly shows photographs of a blooming zinnia, the first flower to be grown in space

Weather

  • Last day of “The Great Snowstorm” raged from Georgia to Maine: 30+ inches in New York, New Jersey, and New England, with unusually high tides
  • Avalanche in northern Idaho
  • An arctic blast dropped temperatures across the Midwest and Northeast: -50 degrees F at Big Black River, Maine; -46 degrees F at Embarrass, Minnesota; -39 F at Berlin, New Hampshire; and -38 F at Monticello, Iowa
  • -40 degrees F in Coggon, Iowa