The Negro Motorist Green Book was an annual guidebook for African-American travelers in the United States. It was originated and published by New York City mail carrier Victor H. Green from 1936 to 1966, during the Jim Crow era, when racial discrimination was widespread. Although discrimination and poverty limited African-American car ownership, many middle-class blacks took to driving to avoid segregation on public transportation. They faced inconveniences such as businesses refusing to serve them or repair their vehicles and hotels refusing them accommodation or food. They even faced threats of physical violence and forcible expulsion from whites-only sundown towns. Green intended the book "to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties". It became the definitive Jim Crow travel guide for blacks, but was little known outside the African-American community. Its publication ceased shortly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Interest in it has revived in the early 21st century in connection with studies of black travel during the Jim Crow era. ( Full article...)

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N&W LC-1 No. 2501 on the Elkhorn Grade in 1915

• ... that at the time of its introduction on the Elkhorn Grade, the N&W LC-1 (pictured) was the largest and heaviest electric locomotive in the United States?
• ... that Wided Bouchamaoui, the leader of UTICA, was one of those accepting the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet?
• ... that in 1573, Emperor Akbar had set up his military base camp near Gopi Talav during the siege of Surat?
• ... that residents in the English village of Clovelly operated their own rescue services from 1988 to 1998, because Clovelly Lifeboat Station was closed by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution?
• ... that in Christ, the Messenger, Swami Vivekananda attempted to analyze the life and messages of Jesus through Vedanta?
• ... that as many as 3.3 million newborns die each year, of which 23.4% succumb to neonatal infection?
• ... that many guerrilla leaders in the Guatemalan Civil War had been members of the Patriotic Labour Youth during high school?
• ... that a museum collection of Irish film costumes compiled by Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh included a set of underwear worn by Daniel Day-Lewis in In the Name of the Father?

Tsai Ing-wen

• The International Atomic Energy Agency affirms Iran has met its obligations under the JCPOA, triggering the removal of some sanctions.
• Tsai Ing-wen (pictured) is elected the first female President of Taiwan, and her Democratic Progressive Party wins a majority in the Legislative Yuan.
• AQIM militants kill at least twenty-eight people in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
• Scientists describe ASASSN-15lh, the brightest known superluminous supernova ever detected, shining up to fifty times brighter than the entire Milky Way.
• Hurricane Alex becomes the first recorded Atlantic hurricane to form in the month of January since 1938.

• Ongoing events:
  • European migrant crisis
• Recent deaths:
  • Alan Rickman
  • J. F. R. Jacob

January 18: World Religion Day; the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States (2016)

Satellite view of the Hawaiian Islands

• 1778 – English explorer James Cook became the first known European to reach the Sandwich Islands, now known as the Hawaiian Islands (pictured).
• 1866 – Wesley College, the largest school in Australia by enrolment, was established in Melbourne.
• 1919 – World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opened in Versailles, France, to set the peace terms for the Central Powers.
• 1943 – World War II: As part of Operation Iskra, the Soviet Red Army broke the Siege of Leningrad, opening a narrow land corridor to the city.
• 1990 – In a sting operation conducted by the FBI, Mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry was arrested for possession of crack cocaine.

• More anniversaries:
  • January 17
  • January 18
  • January 19

Don Bradman has won the award the most times.

The Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World is an annual cricket award selected by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. It was established in 2004, to select the best cricketer based upon their performances anywhere in the world in the previous calendar year. Since 1889, Wisden has published a list of Cricketers of the Year, typically selecting five cricketers that had the greatest impact during the previous English cricket season. Between 2000 and 2003, the scope was widened to include performances anywhere in the world, but in 2004 it reverted to being based on the English season, and a Leading Cricketer in the World was also selected. An Australian, Ricky Ponting was chosen as the first winner of the award. In the 2007 edition of Wisden, a notional list of previous winners, spanning from 1900 to 2002, was published. A sixteen-person panel helped to select the winners, which the editor Matthew Engel described as the cricketer that "would have been the first name down in the World XI to play Mars". ( Full list...)

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