Today in History: January 16, Bush announces Operation Desert Storm

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Today is Friday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2026. 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, a combat operation that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

Also on this date:

In 1865, Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman decreed that 400,000 acres of confiscated land in the South would be divided into 40-acre lots and given to former enslaved people. (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 1989, three days of rioting began in Miami when a police officer fatally shot a Black motorcyclist, causing a crash that also claimed the life of his passenger. (The officer was convicted of manslaughter, but later 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: Opera singer Marilyn Horne is 92. Hall of Fame auto racer A.J. Foyt is 91. Country musician Ronnie Milsap is 83. Filmmaker John Carpenter is 78. Actor-dancer-choreographer Debbie Allen is 76. Singer Sade (shah-DAY’) is 67. Boxing Hall of Famer Roy Jones Jr. is 57. Model Kate Moss is 52. Actor-producer-songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda is 46. Baseball great Albert Pujols is 46. Singer-Songwriter Yebba is 31.