Holidays Calendar for January 16, 2027
Heroes’ Day is an annual public holiday celebrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is a two-day celebration that takes place on January 16 and 17. The first day is dedicated to Laurent-Désiré Kabila and the second day honors Patrice Lumumba.
Thai Pongal is a Tamil harvest festival dedicated to Surya, the solar deity in Hinduism. It begins on the 1st day of the 10th month in the Tamil calendar, which corresponds to January 14 in the Gregorian calendar, and lasts for four days.
If you’re one of those people who like it hot (as far as food is concerned), you absolutely should celebrate International Hot and Spicy Food Day. This amazing holiday is observed annually on January 16.
Many countries have a special day for the appreciation of teachers, and Thailand is no exception. Teachers' Day in Thailand has been celebrated annually on January 16 since 1957.
Book Publishers Day is celebrated annually on January 16. This holiday was created to recognize book publishers worldwide and highlight the importance of the global publishing industry.
The President of the United States annually declares January 16 to be National Religious Freedom Day. The goal of this observance is to protect and promote religious expression rights.
National Fig Newton Day is a food holiday celebrated on January 16. It is dedicated to Fig Newtons – cookies filled with fig paste that are a trademarked version of the fig roll manufactured by Nabisco.
National Nothing Day is an “un-event” observed on January 16. It was conceived by San Francisco Examiner columnist Harold Pullman Coffin and has been celebrated since 1973.
National Quinoa Day is observed annually on January 16. It celebrates a superfood that is very popular among people who stick to a gluten-free diet, as well as all those who just want to eat healthier.
If you haven’t used the gift cards that you got for Christmas and New Year’s yet, the third Saturday of January is the perfect day to finally do it because it is National Use Your Gift Card Day. It was created to ensure that people make the most out of their gift cards.
National Without a Scalpel Day is observed annually on January 16. It was created to recognize the medical specialty of interventional radiology and raise awareness of minimally invasive, image-guided procedures (MIIPs) that reduce pain, recovery time, and risk of infection compared to traditional surgery.
This Day in History
- 2021 Died: Phil Spector, American record producer, musician, and songwriter known for his innovative recording practices and entrepreneurship in the 1960s, followed decades later by his trial and conviction for murder in the 2000s.
- 2020 Died: Christopher Tolkien, English and naturalized French academic editor. The son of author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, he edited much of his father's posthumously published work.
- 2009 Died: Andrew Wyeth, American realist painter. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century.
- 2006 Died: Stanley Biber, American physician who was a pioneer in sex reassignment surgery. He performed his first sex reassignment surgery in 1969.
- 2005 Adriana Iliescu, Romanian university lecturer and novelist, gave birth at 66 to her daughter Eliza. This made Iliescu the oldest birth mother in the world.
- 2003 The Space Shuttle Columbia took off for mission STS-107, which would be its final one.
- 2002 Died: Robert Hanbury Brown, British astronomer and physicist. He made considerable contributions to the development of radar and conducted pioneering work in the field of radio astronomy.
- 1991 The Coalition Forces went to war with Iraq, which marked the beginning of the Gulf War.
- 1988 Born: FKA Twigs (Tahliah Debrett Barnett), British singer, songwriter, and dancer. Her work has garnered acclaim and has been described as "genre-bending".
- 1980 Born: Lin-Manuel Miranda, American songwriter, actor, singer, filmmaker, rapper, librettist, and producer. He is best known for creating the cult Broadway musical Hamilton, as well as originating the role of the title character, Alexander Hamilton.
- 1974 Born: Kate Moss, English model and fashion designer. She became famous in the early 1990s and was one of the icons of the heroine chic trend.
- 1972 Died: Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., American actor, singer, pianist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
- 1967 Died: Robert Jemison Van de Graaff, American physicist best known for his design and construction of high voltage generators (Van de Graaff generator).
- 1964 Hello, Dolly!, a musical starring Carol Channing, opened on Broadway. The musical ran for 2,844 performances and won 10 Tony Awards.
- 1958 Born: Anatoli Boukreev, Soviet and Russian mountaineer who made successful ascents of seven eight-thousander peaks without supplemental oxygen.
- 1957 Died: Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor, one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th centuries. He was the director of many famous orchestras.
- 1950 Born: Debbie Allen, American actress, dancer, choreographer, film and television director, and television producer. Her best known role is Lydia Grant in the television series Fame.
- 1948 Born: John Carpenter, American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, and composer. His best known film is Halloween that has become the first installment in a horror franchise.
- 1942 TWA Flight 3 crashed. 22 people aboard were killed, including film star Carole Lombard.
- 1939 Born: Ralph Gibson, American art photographer best known for his photographic books. His work is included in many important collections.
- 1936 Died: Albert Fish, also known as the Boogey Man, the Moon Maniac, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Werewolf of Wysteria, and the Gray Man, American serial killer.
- 1933 Born: Susan Sontag, American novelist, essayist, filmmaker, educator, and political activist. Her best known works include but are not limited to On Photography, Against Interpretation, In America.
- 1932 Born: Dian Fossey, American zoologist, primatologist, and anthropologist. She had been studying gorillas in Rwanda for more than 18 year and wrote the book Gorillas in the Mist.
- 1920 The League of Nations held its first council meeting in Paris.
- 1919 Died: Francisco de Paula Rodrigues Alves, Brazilian politician, 5th President of Brazil (from 1902 to 1906).
- 1909 The magnetic South Pole was found by Ernest Shackleton's expedition.
- 1862 204 men and boys were killed in a mining disaster in Hartley pit. This incident prompted a change in UK law, which henceforth required at least two independent means of escape from pits.
- 1838 Born: Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist whose views strongly influenced Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski, and other luminaries.
- 1794 Died: Edward Gibbon, English historian whose most important work is The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire known for the quality of its prose.
- 1749 Born: Vittorio Alfieri, Italian dramatist and poet recognized as the founder of Italian tragedy. His most famous tragedies include Saul, Filippo, Polinice, Antigone.
- 1605 The first edition of Book One of Don Quixote (original name El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha) by Miguel de Cervantes was published in Madrid, Spain.
- 1581 Roman Catholicism was outlawed by the English Parliament.
- 1545 Died: George Spalatin (the pseudonym of Georg Burkhardt), German reformer who left behind him a large number of literary remains.