Volume 14 , Issue 3

On This Day In History (16 January)

On Jan. 16, 1991, the White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Go To Article.

On 16 january 1908, Ethel Merman, the musical comedy star whose belting voice and brassy style entertained Broadway and movie audiences fro 50 years, was born. Following her death on 15 February 1984, her obituary appeared in The Times. Go to Obituary

• 1547 - Ivan the Terrible was crowned Czar of Russia.
• 1920 - Prohibition began as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect.
• 1942 - Actress Carole Lombard, 33, died in a plane crash near Las Vegas.
• 1944 - Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower took command of the Allied invasion force in London.
• 1964 - The musical "Hello, Dolly!" starring Carol Channing opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,844 performances.
• 1969 - Two manned Soviet Soyuz spaceships became the first vehicles to dock in space and transfer personnel.
• 1973 - The final first-run episode of the long-running western "Bonanza" aired on NBC.
• 1989 - Three days of rioting erupted in Miami when a police officer fatally shot a black motorcyclist, causing a crash that also claimed the life of a passenger.
• 1992 - The government of El Salvador and rebel leaders signed a pact in Mexico City ending 12 years of civil war that had killed at least 75,000 people.
• 2003 - The space shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven blasted off from Cape Canaveral. (The shuttle broke up during its return descent on Feb. 1, killing everyone on board.)

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