Five Things That Happened On December 16 In Soap History

In 1996 on General Hospital, in a daytime-airing episode that re-aired portions of a rare prime-time episode of the show, titled "Twist of Fate," which had aired on December 14, Katherine Bell (Mary Beth Evans) went to Wyndemere to find Nikolas Cassadine and found herself wandering in the woods of Spoon Island. Stefan Cassadine was also in the woods and fired a gun — which struck Katherine! He summoned Bobbie and as the two tended to Katherine, a horrified Nikolas stumbled upon the scene. Stefan claimed that he had found Katherine in that state and had no idea who shot her. Katherine was rushed to the hospital. This event marked the first time that Katherine's portrayer, Evans, and Stefan's portrayer, Stephen Nichols, had shared scenes together on GH, but the two had already achieved supercouple status on Days of Our Lives, where they portrayed Kayla and Steve.

In 1998, Days of Our Lives joined Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) and Vivian Alamain (Louise Sorel) in holy matrimony. The ceremony took place in a unique setting: a hot air balloon! Wilma was the officiant, and Celeste and Ivan were in attendance after scrambling up the ladder to the balloon, as the soon-to-be newlyweds were trying to abscond from John as quickly as possible! Vivian was unaware that Stefano had ulterior motives for marrying her, which was to get his hands on his own fortune, which he had transferred to Vivian's late husband, Jonesy.

In 2002, Justin Hartley made his soap debut as Fox Crane on Passions. In 2015, after assuming the role of Adam Newman on Young and Restless, he said of his days in the wild fictional world of Harmony, "That was awesome! I remember reading those scripts and being like, 'What in the hell? Okay! All right!' But they did a good job with it. I was there for a blink of the eye, but it was a lot of fun.” He exited the show in 2006. During his stint, he married leading lady Lindsay Korman, who played Theresa, and the two welcomed a daughter, Isabella.

In 2003, General Hospital's Jason Morgan (Steve Burton) wrestled with whether to get out of the mob for the sake of a future with Courtney Matthews (Alicia Leigh Willis). His involvement with the organization he had been pulled into by Sonny Corinthos, Courtney's half brother, years ago was putting an increasing strain on his marriage. Ultimately, Courtney and Jason ended their union.

In 2021, General Hospital's Sasha Gilmore Corbin (Sofia Mattsson) and Brando Corbin (Johnny Wactor) were faced with the agonizing decision over whether to take their brain-dead son, Liam, off his respirator. A distraught Sasha resisted the prospect of saying good-bye to her child, but Brando gently reminded her that they needed to think of what was best for their son. Sasha ran off upset, to the NICU, and Sonny followed her. Sasha broke down in tears to Sonny, who described how he had to accept that no miracle was going to save his own loved one (his father, Mike, who had died the previous year from Alzheimer's). Their conversation had a great impact on Sasha, who in the next episode agreed with Brando that it was time to take Liam off his respirator. Little Liam then passed away and was ushered to heaven by Mike's spirit.