This Day in History

[Gravdigr]

January 8

387 – Siyaj K'ak' conquers Waka, Fozzie Bear's homeland.

1297 – François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, leads his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco.

1697 – Thomas Aikenhead, a student at Edinburgh, becomes the last person executed for blasphemy in Britain.

1746 – Second Jacobite rising: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.

1790 – George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in New York City.

1815 – War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.

1835 – The United States national debt is zero for the only time.

1867 – African American men are granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.

1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.

1940 – World War II: Britain introduces food rationing.

1963 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

1972 - The New Seekers were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, (in Perfect Harmony'). The song started as a Coca Cola TV ad. It originally included the line, 'I'd like to buy the world a Coke.'

1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.

1981 – A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".

1989 – Kegworth air disaster: British Midland Flight 92, a Boeing 737-400, crashes into the M1 motorway, killing 47 of the 126 people on board.

1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov leaves for the Mir space station on Soyuz TM-18. He would stay on the station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.

2002 – President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.

2004 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

2005 – The nuclear sub USS San Francisco collides at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man is killed, but the sub surfaces and is repaired.

2011 – The attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in which five people were shot dead.

2016 - David Bowie released his twenty-fifth and final studio album Blackstar, on his 69th birthday and two days before his death. It became his first and only album to reach No.1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in the US.

Births

1821 – James Longstreet; 1862 – Frank Nelson Doubleday (founded the Doubleday Publishing Company); 1904 – Karl Brandt; 1908 – William Hartnell (the 1st Dr. Who); 1911 – Gypsy Rose Lee; 1912 – José Ferrer; 1923 – Larry Storch (F Troop); 1926 – Soupy Sales; 1931 – Bill Graham♪ ♫(concert promoter); 1933 – Charles Osgood (CBS News Sunday Morning); ♪ ♫1935 – Elvis Presley♪ ♫; 1937 – Shirley Bassey♪ ♫; 1938 – Bob Eubanks (The Newlywed Game); 1941 – Graham Chapman ("You vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous pervert!"); 1942 – Stephen Hawking; 1942 – Yvette Mimieux; 1946 – Robby Krieger(The Doors); 1947 – David Bowie♪ ♫; 1947 – Terry Sylvester♪ ♫(The Hollies); 1951 – John McTiernan; 1955 – Mike Reno♪ ♫(Loverboy); 1959 – Kim Duk-koo(died after a match against Ray 'BoomBoom' Mancini); 1959 – Paul Hester(Crowded House); 1966 – Andrew Wood♪ ♫(Mother Love Bone); 1967 – R. Kelly; 1979 – Sarah Polley; 1984 – Kim Jong-un (Dear Leader)

Deaths

1825 – Eli Whitney; 1880 – Emperor Norton; 1896 – Paul Verlaine; 1914 – Simon Bolivar Buckner; 1916 – Ada Rehan; 1979 – Sara Carter♪ ♫(The Carter Family); 1981 – Matthew Beard ('Stymie' on Our Gang); 1990 – Terry-Thomas; 1991 – Steve Clark(Def Leppard, died the rock star's death, alcohol poisoning); 1994 – Pat Buttram ('Mr. Haney' on Green Acres); 1996 – François Mitterrand; 2002 – Dave Thomas (founder Wendy's); 2007 – Yvonne De Carlo('Lily Munster' on The Munsters); 2015 – Andraé Crouch♪ ♫; 2015 – Patsy Garrett (Benji movie series)