In the present day is Sunday, Jan. 18, the 18th day of 2026. There are 347 days left within the 12 months.
In the present day in historical past:
On Jan. 18, 2019, Jason Van Dyke, the white Chicago police officer who gunned down Black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014, was sentenced to almost seven years in jail.
Additionally on this date:
In 1778, English navigator Captain James Prepare dinner reached the present-day Hawaiian Islands, which he dubbed the “Sandwich Islands.”
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson requested Congress in a confidential message for $2,500 in funding for exploration of Western lands all the best way to the Pacific, an early step within the eventual formation of the Lewis and Clark expedition that will finally speed up American growth westward past the Mississippi River.
In 1911, the primary touchdown of an plane on a ship occurred as pilot Eugene B. Ely introduced his Curtiss biplane in for a protected touchdown on the deck of the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Harbor.
In 1958, Canadian Willie O’Ree turned the primary Black participant within the Nationwide Hockey League as he made his debut with the Boston Bruins.
In 1977, scientists recognized the micro organism answerable for the lethal type of atypical pneumonia referred to as Legionnaires’ illness.
In 1990, Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was arrested after FBI brokers caught him smoking crack cocaine in a resort room in a videotaped sting. (Convicted of drug possession, Barry spent a number of months in jail, returning to win a D.C. Council seat in 1992 and his fourth and ultimate mayoral victory in 1994. He died in 2014.)
In 1993, the Martin Luther King Jr. vacation was noticed in all 50 states for the primary time.
In 1996, Lisa Marie Presley filed for divorce from Michael Jackson, citing “irreconcilable variations” after lower than two years of marriage.
In 2013, former Democratic New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was indicted on fees that he’d used his workplace for private acquire, accepting payoffs, free journeys and gratuities from contractors whereas the devastated metropolis was struggling to get better from Hurricane Katrina. (Nagin was later convicted, served time, and was launched from jail in 2020.)
In 2025, a gasoline tanker exploded in Nigeria, killing no less than 70 individuals as people sought to switch gasoline from one tanker into one other truck as quite a few bystanders seemed on.
In the present day’s birthdays:
- Actor-filmmaker Kevin Costner is 71.
- Actor Mark Rylance is 66.
- Hockey Corridor of Famer Mark Messier is 65.
- Actor Dave Bautista is 57.
- Actor Jesse L. Martin is 57.
- Rock singer Jonathan Davis (Korn) is 55.
- Soccer Corridor of Famer Julius Peppers is 46.
- Actor Jason Segel is 46.
- Actor Carlacia Grant is 35.
- Singer and activist Montana Tucker is 33.
- Spanish soccer star Aitana Bonmati is 28.
- Actor Karan Brar is 27.