Today is Tuesday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2018. There are 349 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Author William Kennedy is 90. Author-editor Norman Podhoretz is 88. Opera singer Marilyn Horne is 84. Hall of Fame auto racer A.J. Foyt is 83. Country singer Ronnie Milsap is 75. Country singer Jim Stafford is 74. Talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger is 71. Director John Carpenter is 70. Actress-dancer Debbie Allen is 68. Singer Sade is 59. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta is 49. Model Kate Moss is 44. Actor-playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda is 38. The Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi is 37. NFL quarterback Joe Flacco is 33.
In 27 B.C., Caesar Augustus was declared the first emperor of the Roman Empire by the Senate.
In 1547, Ivan IV of Russia (known as ‘‘Ivan the Terrible”) was crowned czar.
In 1865, Union General William Sherman decreed 400,000 acres of land in the South would be divided into 40-acre lots and given to former slaves. (The order, revoked by President Andrew Johnson, is believed to have inspired the saying, ‘‘Forty acres and a mule.”)
In 1920, Prohibition began as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution took effect. (It was repealed by the 21st Amendment.)
In 1935, fugitive gangster Fred Barker and his mother, Kate ‘‘Ma’’ Barker, were killed in a shootout with the FBI at Lake Weir, Fla.
In 1942, actress Carole Lombard, 33, her mother, Elizabeth, and 20 other people were killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas while on a war-bond promotion tour.
In 1978, NASA named 35 candidates to fly on the space shuttle, including Sally Ride, who became America’s first woman in space, and Guion Bluford Jr., who became first black astronaut in space.
In 1991, the White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. (Allied forces prevailed on Feb. 28.)
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In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off for what turned out to be its last flight. (The mission ended in tragedy on Feb. 1, when the shuttle broke up during its return descent, killing all seven crew members.)
In 2013, President Obama unveiled sweeping proposals for curbing gun violence, pressing a reluctant Congress to pass universal background checks and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the Newtown, Conn., school shooting. (Neither proposal was passed.)