Five Things That Happened On January 16 In Soap History

In 1984, Bo Brady (Peter Reckell) and Hope Williams (Kristian Alfonso) broke up (not permanently, of course, as they tied the knot the following year). In the episode, Bo had been arrested, but Larry Welch got the charges dropped as a favor to Hope. Bo and Hope subsequently met up on the docks, and she told him that she couldn't see him anymore, citing her desire to stop hurting her dad (Doug). Bo agreed that going their separate ways was the right thing to do, noting that the closer they got, the more trouble he seemed to cause her. After returning her book of poetry, Bo walked away, but turned back and shared a passionate good-bye kiss with an emotional Hope, who told him she would always love him.

In 1996, Jake McKinnon (Tom Eplin) and Paulina Cory McKinnon's (Judi Evans) divorce was finalized on Another World. The pair had remarried in 1994, but after Jake was presumed dead in a car accident, Paulina developed feelings for Joe Carlino. When Jake returned, Paulina was torn between the two men, but Jake's ill-advised attempt to make her jealous by flirting with another woman solidified for Paulina that she could not trust Jake, and she officially threw in the towel on their tempestuous relationship.

In 2003, Michael B. Jordan made his All My Children debut as Reggie Porter. He assumed the role from the late Chadwick Boseman and remained with the show until 2006. Reggie was integrated into the Kane/Montgomery clan when Jackson Montgomery adopted him, and Jordan's celebrity grew post-daytime in both prime-time (Friday Night Lights) and blockbusters like the Creed franchise and Black Panther.

In 2007, General Hospital's Carly (Laura Wright) reluctantly remarried Sonny (Maurice Benard) to avoid testifying against him; she had witnessed him killing Lorenzo Alcazar in self-defense and had received a subpoena to appear at his murder trial. On the big day, the groom, who hoped for a real marriage with his reluctant bride, neglected to tell her that he was no longer facing charges, and also arranged for their families to attend, causing Carly to briefly flee the premises. In the end, they completed the ceremony, but the union ended in divorce within months.

In 2012, surveillance footage proved that Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott) had acted in self-defense when she killed Diane Jenkins the year before. Of course, when Diane resurfaced alive and well in 2022, her "death" was revealed to have been a hoax, and that Deacon Sharpe had nursed Diane back to health after her seemingly fatal confrontation with Nikki.