This Day in History

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Originally Posted by Undertoad

Jill Sobule is not actually Katy Perry but the singer/songwriter who wrote the same titled song ten years before Katy Perry.

Thanks for correcting me on that lyric. I confused the two. My head transposes my facts (and lyrics) sometimes.

[Gravdigr]

I still bet she liked it.

[Gravdigr]

January 17

1773 – Captain James Cook commands the first expedition to sail south of the Antarctic Circle.

1811 – Mexican War of Independence: In the Battle of Calderón Bridge, a heavily outnumbered Spanish force of 6,000 troops defeats nearly 100,000 Mexican revolutionaries.

1893 – Lorrin A. Thurston, along with the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety, led the Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani.

1899 – The United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.

1904 – Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard receives its premiere performance at the Moscow Art Theatre.

1912 – Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition reached the South Pole, only to find Roald Amundsen's team, who had beaten them by 33 days.

1917 – The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.

1929 – Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, first appears in the Thimble Theatre comic strip.

1944 – World War II: Allied forces launch the first of four assaults on Monte Cassino with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome, an effort that would ultimately take four months, and cost 105,000 Allied casualties.

1945 – The SS-Totenkopfverbände begin the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces close in.

1945 – World War II: The Vistula–Oder Offensive forces German troops out of Warsaw.

1945 – Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg [posthumously, one of only eight Honarary Citizens of The United States] is taken into Soviet custody while in Hungary; he is never publicly seen again.

1950 – The Great Brink's Robbery: Eleven thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car company's offices in Boston. Only $58,000 of the $2.7 million was recovered.

1961 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against the accumulation of power by the "military–industrial complex" as well as the dangers of massive spending, especially deficit spending.

1966 – Palomares incident: A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, killing seven airmen, and dropping three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town of Palomares, and another one into the sea.

1981 – President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos lifts martial law eight years and five months after declaring it.

1991 – Operation Desert Storm begins early in the morning. Iraq fires eight Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.

1994 – The Northridge earthquake shakes the Greater Los Angeles Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving 57 people dead and more than 8,700 injured.

1995 – The Great Hanshin earthquake shakes the southern Hyōgo Prefecture with a maximum Shindo of VII, leaving 5,502–6,434 people dead, and 251,301–310,000 displaced.

1997 – Cape Canaveral Air Force Station: A Delta II carrying a GPS2R satellite explodes 13 seconds after launch, dropping 250 tons of burning rocket remains around the launch pad.

1998 – Lewinsky scandal: Matt Drudge breaks the story of the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair on his Drudge Report website.

2002 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, displacing an estimated 400,000 people.

2007 – The Doomsday Clock is set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea's nuclear testing.

Births

1706 – Benjamin Franklin; 1820 – Anne Brontë; 1880 – Mack Sennett; 1882 – Noah Beery, Sr. (The Mark Of Zorro); 1886 – Glenn L. Martin (of Martin Marietta, & Lockheed Martin); 1899 – Al Capone; 1908 – Cus D'Amato(manager); 1911 – John S. McCain Jr.; 1922 – Betty White; 1926 – Moira Shearer; 1927 – Eartha Kitt♪ ♫('Catwoman' on Batman TOS); 1928 – Vidal Sassoon; 1931 – James Earl Jones; 1932 – Sheree North; 1933 – Dalida♪ ♫; 1933 – Shari Lewis (put her hand up Lambchop); 1939 – Maury Povich; 1942 – Muhammad Ali; 1949 – Anita Borg; 1949 – Andy Kaufman; 1949 – Mick Taylor(John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, The Rolling Stones); 1954 – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; 1955 – Steve Earle♪ ♫; 1956 – Paul Young♪ ♫; 1957 – Steve Harvey; 1959 – Susanna Hoffs♪ ♫(The Bangles); 1960 – John Crawford♪ ♫(Berlin); 1961 – Brian Helgeland (wrote screenplays for L.A. Confidential, Mystic River, 42); 1962 – Jim Carrey (moron); 1964 – Michelle Obama (46th FLOTUS); 1966 – Joshua Malina (West Wing, Sports Night); 1967 – Richard Hawley♪ ♫; 1969 – Naveen Andrews (Lost); 1971 – Lil Jon (Waht? Okaay. Get Crunk!); 1971 – Kid Rock(Twisted Brown Trucker Band); 1980 – Maksim Chmerkovskiy (DWTS); 1980 – Zooey Deschanel♪ ♫; 1984 – Calvin Harris♪ ♫

Deaths

1468 – Skanderbeg; 1874 – Chang and Eng Bunker (Thai conjoined twins); 1893 – Rutherford B. Hayes (19th POTUS); 1927 – Juliette Gordon Low (founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA); 1933 – Louis Comfort Tiffany; 1952 – Walter Briggs, Sr. (co-owner/sole owner Detroit Tigers, co-founded Detroit Zoo); 1997 – Clyde Tombaugh (discovered planet Pluto); 2003 – Richard Crenna (The Sand Pebbles, 3 Rambo movies, The Real McCoys, Our Miss Brooks); 2004 – Noble Willingham (City Slickers, The Last Boy Scout, Walker Texas Ranger); 2005 – Virginia Mayo; 2007 – Art Buchwald; 2008 – Bobby Fischer; 2010 – Erich Segal (author Love Story); 2011 – Don Kirshner (Don Kirshner's Rock Concert); Don Harron (KORN radio announcer 'Charlie Farquharson' on Hee Haw)

[Gravdigr]

January 18

1486 – King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV.

1535 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founds Lima, the capital of Peru.

1670 – Henry Morgan captures Panama.

1778 – James Cook is the first known European to visit the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands".

1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.

1884 – Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the United Kingdom.

1886 – Modern hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.

1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.

1919 – World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France.

1960 – Capital Airlines Flight 20 crashes into a farm in Charles City County, Virginia, [Charles City County, VA is not a misprint] killing all 50 aboard, the third fatal Capital Airlines crash in as many years.

1967 – Albert DeSalvo, "The Boston Strangler", is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.

1974 – A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War.

1974 - Former members from Free, (Paul Rodgers & Simon Kirke), Mott The Hoople (Mick Ralphs), and King Crimson, (Boz Burrell), formed Bad Company. The band went on to score a US No.1 album with their debut release.

1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium, Legionella, as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.

1981 – Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs).

1983 – The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals to his family.

1989 - At just 38 years old, Stevie Wonder became the youngest living person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1990 – Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession (crack cocaine) in an FBI sting.

1993 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is officially observed for the first time in all 50 states.

2000 - Spencer Goodman was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. Goodman was convicted of kidnapping and murdering the wife of ZZ Top manager Bill Ham in 1991. Ham was present for the execution.

2003 – A bushfire kills four people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia.

2007 – The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people and Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Hurricane Kyrill causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe. [Peak wind gust of 155 mph.]

2016 - The Eagles guitarist Glenn Frey died at the age of 67 in New York City from complications arising from rheumatoid arthritis, colitis and pneumonia.

Births

1782 – Daniel Webster; 1854 – Thomas A. Watson (assistant to Alexander Graham Bell); 1882 – A. A. Milne (author Winnie-The-Pooh); 1888 – Thomas Sopwith (Sopwith Camel); 1892 – Oliver Hardy (Laurel & Hardy); 1904 – Cary Grant; 1911 – Danny Kaye; 1933 – John Boorman; 1933 – Ray Dolby (founded Dolby Laboratories); 1938 – Curt Flood; 1941 – Bobby Goldsboro♪ ♫; 1941 – David Ruffin♪ ♫(The Temptations); 1943 – Paul Freeman ('Belloq' in Raiders of the Lost Ark); 1944 – Paul Keating; 1950 – Gilles Villeneuve; 1954 – Tom Bailey♪ ♫(The Thompson Twins); 1954 – Ted DiBiase; 1955 – Kevin Costner; 1961 – Mark Messier; 1969 – Dave Bautista; 1969 – Jesse L. Martin (Law & Order, Rent); 1971 – Jonathan Davis♪ ♫(Korn); 1971 – Christian Fittipaldi(Emerson Fittipaldi's nephew); 1973 – Luther Dickinson(North Mississippi All Stars); 1980 – Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother, Despicable Me, Forgetting Sarah Marshall)

Deaths

1862 – John Tyler (10th POTUS); 1936 – Rudyard Kipling; 1952 – Curly Howard (The Three Stooges); 1954 – Sydney Greenstreet (The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca); 1966 – Kathleen Norris; 2005 – Lamont Bentley (Moesha, The Parkers); 2010 – Kate McGarrigle♪ ♫; 2011 – Sargent Shriver; 2015 – Dallas Taylor(Crosby, Stills, & Nash); 2016 – Glenn Frey(The Eagles)

[Gravdigr]

January 19

Today Texas celebrates Confederate Heroes Day, while much of the southern U.S. (including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi) celebrates today as Robert E. Lee Day.


Events

1419 – Hundred Years' War: Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England, completing his reconquest of Normandy.

1661 – Thomas Venner is hanged, drawn and quartered in London.

1817 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, crosses the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru.

1829 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy receives its premiere performance.

1853 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il trovatore receives its premiere performance in Rome.

1861 – American Civil War: Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in seceding from the United States.

1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Mill Springs: The Confederacy suffers its first significant defeat in the conflict.

1915 – Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.

1915 – World War I: German zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom killing at least 20 people, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target.

1917 – Seventy-three people are killed and 400 injured in an explosion in a munitions plant in London.

1920 – The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.

1937 – Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in seven hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds.

1945 – World War II: Soviet forces liberate the Łódź Ghetto. Of more than 200,000 inhabitants in 1940, less than 900 had survived the Nazi occupation.

1953 – Almost 72% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.

1971 - Tracks from The Beatles' The White Album (including 'Helter Skelter'), were played in the courtroom at the Sharon Tate murder trial to find out if any songs could have influenced Charles Manson and his followers to commit murder. Actress Sharon Tate who was married to film director Roman Polanski, was eight and a half months pregnant when she was murdered in her home, along with four others, by followers of Charles Manson.

1977 – President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino (a.k.a. "Tokyo Rose").

1978 – The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW's plant in Emden. Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003.

1981 – Iran hostage crisis: United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity.

1983 – Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia.

1983 – The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced.

1986 – The first IBM PC computer virus is released into the wild. A boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain, it was created by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter unauthorized copying of the software they had written.

1988 - Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe manager Doc McGhee pleaded guilty to importing more than 40,000lb of marijuana into the US from Colombia via a shrimp boat. McGhee received a five-year suspended prison sentence, a fine of $15,000, and was ordered to set up an anti-drugs foundation.

1999 – British Aerospace agrees to acquire the defence subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc, forming BAE Systems in November 1999.

2012 – The Hong Kong-based file-sharing website Megaupload is shut down by the FBI.

2017 – Plasco Building in Tehran, Iran burns and collapses.

Births

1736 – James Watt (Watt steam engine); 1807 – Robert E. Lee; 1809 – Edgar Allan Poe; 1813 – Henry Bessemer (Bessemer steel process); 1839 – Paul Cézanne; 1887 – Alexander Woollcott; 1914 – Lester Flatt(Flatt & Scruggs); 1923 – Jean Stapleton ('Edith' on All In The Family); 1924 – Nicholas Colasanto ('Coach' on Cheers); 1926 – Fritz Weaver (that guy who was in that thing); 1930 – Tippi Hedren (The Birds, Marnie, I Heart Huckabees); 1931 – Robert MacNeil (The MacNeil/Lehrer Report); 1932 – Richard Lester (director Superman movies); 1935 – Johnny O'Keefe♪ ♫; 1936 – Willie "Big Eyes" Smith♪ ♫; 1936 – Fred J. Lincoln; 1939 – Phil Everly♪ ♫(The Everly Bros); 1940 – Mike Reid (EastEnders); 1942 – Michael Crawford♪ ♫; 1943 – Janis Joplin♪ ♫(Big Brother & The Holding Company); 1944 – Shelley Fabares; 1944 – Dan Reeves; 1946 – Dolly Parton♪ ♫; 1947 – Paula Deen; 1947 – Rod Evans♪ ♫(Deep Purple, Captain Beyond); 1949 – Robert Palmer♪ ♫(Power Station); 1951 – Martha Davis♪ ♫(The Motels); 1952 – Dewey Bunnell(America); 1953 – Desi Arnaz, Jr.♪ ♫; 1954 – Katey Sagal (Married...With Children, Futurama, Sons Of Anarchy); 1955 – Paul Rodriguez; 1957 – Roger Ashton-Griffiths ('Mace Terrell' on Game of Thrones); 1958 – Thomas Kinkade; 1959 – Jeff Pilson(Dokken, Dio, Foreigner); 1961 – William Ragsdale ('Herman' on Herman's Head); 1966 – Stefan Edberg; 1968 – Whitfield Crane♪ ♫(Ugly Kid Joe); 1969 – Junior Seau; 1971 – Shawn Wayans; 1974 – Frank Caliendo

Deaths

1661 – Thomas Venner; 1853 – Karl Faber; 1968 – Ray Harroun(won 1st Indy 500); 1975 – Thomas Hart Benton; 1996 – Don Simpson (co-produced Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, The Rock); 1998 – Carl Perkins♪ ♫(wrote "Blue Suede Shoes"); 2000 – Hedy Lamarr; 2006 – Anthony Franciosa; 2006 – Wilson Pickett♪ ♫; 2007 – Denny Doherty♪ ♫(The Mamas & The Papas); 2008 – Suzanne Pleshette(The Bob Newhart Show); 2008 – John Stewart♪ ♫("Gold", wrote "Daydream Believer"); 2013 – Stan 'The Man' Musial; 2014 – Ben Starr

[Gravdigr]

January 20

Today is International Fetish Day, so, get your freak on!

Today is Inauguration Day in the United States. We swore in a brand new President today! And there was much rejoicing...by some. Others, not so much.


Events

1265 – The first English parliament to include not only Lords but also representatives of the major towns holds its first meeting in the Palace of Westminster, now commonly known as the "Houses of Parliament".

1356 – Edward Balliol surrenders his claim to the Scottish throne to Edward III in exchange for an English pension.

1649 – Charles I of England goes on trial for treason and other "high crimes".

1783 – The Kingdom of Great Britain signs a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the American Revolutionary War.

1841 – Hong Kong Island is occupied by the British.

1887 – The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.

1920 – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is founded.

1929 – In Old Arizona, the first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, is released.

1936 – Edward VIII becomes King of the United Kingdom.

1937 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Nance Garner are sworn in for their second terms as U.S. President and U.S. Vice President, the first occasion a Presidential Inauguration to take place on 20 January following the ratification of the 20th Amendment.

1942 – World War II: At the Wannsee Conference held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, senior Nazi German officials discuss the implementation of the "Final Solution to the Jewish question".

1945 – World War II: Germany begins the evacuation of 1.8 million people from East Prussia, a task which will take nearly two months.

1949 – Point Four Program a program for economic aid to poor countries announced by United States President Harry S Truman in his inaugural address for a full term as President.

1981 – Twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, Iran releases 52 American hostages.

1986 – In the United States, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time.

2009 – A protest movement in Iceland culminates as the 2009 Icelandic financial crisis protests start.

2009 – Barack Obama (remember him?) is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America, becoming the first African-American United States President.

2017 – Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America, becoming the first United States President to have never held political office.

Births

1798 – Anson Jones; 1894 – Harold Gray (created Little Orphan Annie); 1896 – George Burns; 1906 – Aristotle Onassis; 1920 – Federico Fellini; 1920 – DeForest Kelley (Star Trek TOS); 1923 – Slim Whitman♪ ♫; 1926 – Patricia Neal; 1929 – Arte Johnson; 1929 – Fireball Roberts; 1930 – Buzz Aldrin; 1934 – Tom Baker (4th Doctor Who); 1946 – David Lynch; 1952 – Paul Stanley(KISS); 1956 – Bill Maher (American asshat); 1958 – Lorenzo Lamas; 1959 – R. A. Salvatore; 1959 – Tami Hoag; 1960 – Scott Thunes; 1963 – James Denton (Desperate Housewives); 1964 – Jack Lewis; 1965 – John Michael Montgomery♪ ♫; 1966 – Rainn Wilson; 1967 – Stacey Dash; 1970 – Skeet Ulrich; 1971 – Questlove♪ ♫

Deaths

1965 – Alan Freed; 1984 – Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan movies); 1990 – Barbara Stanwyck (The Big Valley); 1993 – Audrey Hepburn; 2003 – Al Hirschfeld; 2012 – Etta James♪ ♫

[Gravdigr]

January 21

Today is Nat'l Hugging Day in the U.S., so hug somebody, dammit!


Events

1535 – Following the Affair of the Placards, French Protestants are burned at the stake in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris.

1789 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston.

1793 – After being found guilty of treason by the French National Convention, Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine.

1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate.

1911 – The first Monte Carlo Rally takes place.

1915 – Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit.

1950 – American lawyer and government official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury.

1961 – Four hundred thirty-five workers are buried alive when a mine in Coalbrook, Free State, South Africa collapses.

1968 – Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh: One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins.

1976 – Commercial service of Concorde begins with the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.

1981 – Production of the iconic DeLorean DMC-12 sports car begins in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland.

1999 – War on Drugs: In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 4,300 kilograms (9,500 lb) of cocaine on board.

2004 – NASA's MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The problem lies in the management of its flash memory and is fixed remotely from Earth on February 6.

Births

1738 – Ethan Allen; 1813 – John C. Frémont; 1824 – Stonewall Jackson; 1905 – Christian Dior; 1905 – Karl Wallenda (of The Flying Wallendas); 1922 – Telly Savalas; 1924 – Benny Hill; 1938 – Wolfman Jack; 1940 – Jack Nicklaus; 1941 – Plácido Domingo♪ ♫; 1941 – Richie Havens♪ ♫; 1942 – Mac Davis♪ ♫; 1942 – Edwin Starr♪ ♫(sang "War"); 1947 – Jill Eikenberry; 1950 – Billy Ocean♪ ♫(sang "Caribbean Queen"); 1951 – Eric Holder; 1953 – Paul Allen (co-founded Microsoft); 1956 – Robby Benson; 1956 – Geena Davis; 1960 – Toxey Haas (Mossy Oak camo); 1965 – Jam Master Jay♪ ♫; 1970 – Ken Leung (lost); 1985 – Salvatore Giunta (genuine American bad-ass)

Deaths

1793 – Louis XVI of France; 1901 – Elisha Gray (co-founded Western Electric); 1924 – Vladimir Lenin; 1959 – Cecil B. DeMille ("I must've killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille."; 1967 – Ann Sheridan; 1983 – Lamar Williams(The Allman Bros); 1998 – Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-O); 1999 – Susan Strasberg; 2002 – Peggy Lee♪ ♫

[DanaC]

I've been catching up :P

1776 – Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense.

Love that man's writing. His work is eminently quotable.


My favourite two passages from Common Sense:

O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

As a mission statement for the early United States it's pretty awesome.

And this one, on the origin of the British crown:

A French bastard, landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it.

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[Gravdigr]

January

Today is the day after yesterday.

Today is also the day before tomorrow.


Events

613 – Eight-month-old Constantine is crowned as co-emperor (Caesar) by his father Heraclius at Constantinople.

1506 – The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrives at the Vatican.

1889 – Columbia Phonograph is formed in Washington, D.C. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business.

1901 – Edward VII is proclaimed King upon the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, on this date.

1905 – Bloody Sunday in Saint Petersburg, beginning of the 1905 revolution.

1915 – Over 600 people are killed in Guadalajara, Mexico, when a train plunges off the tracks into a deep canyon.

1924 – Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1941 – World War II: British, Australian and Indian forces capture Tobruk from Italian forces during Operation Compass.

1944 – World War II: The Allies commence Operation Shingle, an assault on Anzio and Nettuno, Italy.

1946 – Creation of the Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

1947 – KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, begins operation in Hollywood.

1957 – Israel withdraws from the Sinai Peninsula.

1957 – The New York City "Mad Bomber", George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut and charged with planting more than 30 bombs.

1968 – Apollo 5 lifts off carrying the first Lunar Module into space.

1970 – The Boeing 747, the world's first "jumbo jet", enters commercial service.

1973 – The Supreme Court of the United States delivers its decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, legalizing elective abortion in all fifty states.

1983 - The new 24-hour music video network MTV [Remember when MTV used to show music videos?] started broadcasting to the West Coast of America after being picked up by Group W Cable in Los Angeles.

1984 – The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, is introduced during a Super Bowl XVIII television commercial.

1994 - American actor and singer Telly Savalas died of prostate cancer aged 72. ["Telly Savalas can make bad slang sound like good slang, and good slang sound like lyric poetry." --Clive James]

1999 – Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons are burned alive by radical Hindus while sleeping in their car in Eastern India.

Births

1440 – Ivan III (Ivan The Great) of Russia; 1552 – Walter Raleigh; 1561 – Francis Bacon; 1645 – William Kidd; 1654 – Richard Blackmore (no, not Ritchie); 1788 – Lord Byron; 1875 – D. W. Griffith; 1877 – Tom Jones (No that one, and not that one, either, this one was a baseball player); 1892 – Marcel Dassault (founded Dassault Aviation); 1897 – Rosa Ponselle♪ ♫; 1904 – George Balanchine (co-founded the New York City Ballet); 1907 – Douglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan; 1909 – Ann Sothern; 1931 – Sam Cooke♪ ♫; 1932 – Piper Laurie; 1934 – Bill Bixby; 1934 – Graham Kerr; 1937 – Joseph Wambaugh; 1940 – John Hurt; 1946 – Malcolm McLaren♪ ♫(manager); 1949 – J.P. Pennington♪ ♫; 1949 – Steve Perry♪ ♫(Journey); 1953 – Jim Jarmusch; 1960 – Michael Hutchence♪ ♫(INXS); 1962 – Jimmy Herring♪ ♫(Widespread Panic, Allman Bros, Phil Lesh & Friends, The Dead); 1965 – Steven Adler(Guns 'N' Roses); 1965 – DJ Jazzy Jeff♪ ♫; 1965 – Diane Lane; 1968 – Guy Fieri; 1969 – Olivia d'Abo♪ ♫; 1973 – Larry Birkhead; 1975 – Balthazar Getty; 1981 – Ben Moody♪ ♫(Evanescence)

Deaths

1901 – Queen Victoria; 1925 – Fanny Bullock Workman; 1950 – Alan Hale, Sr.; 1971 – Harry Frank Guggenheim (co-founded Newsday); 1973 – Lyndon B. Johnson (36th POTUS); 1994 – Telly Savalas; 2004 – Ann Miller♪ ♫; 2008 – Heath Ledger; 2010 – Jean Simmons; 2012 – Joe Paterno; 2015 – Wendell H. Ford

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

January

Today is the day after yesterday.

Today is also the day before tomorrow.

Really? Fer sure? thank you, I didn't know that.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

The things ya learn in This Day In History.

[Gravdigr]

January 23

Today is Nat'l Pie Day in the U.S.


Events

971 – Using crossbows, Song dynasty troops soundly defeat a war elephant corps of the Southern Han at Shao.

1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000.

1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, is assassinated by firearm, the first recorded instance of such.

1656 – Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales.

1795 – After an extraordinary charge across the frozen Zuiderzee, the French cavalry captured 14 Dutch ships and 850 guns, in a rare occurrence of a battle between ships and cavalry.

1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female doctor.

1870 – In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in what becomes known as the Marias Massacre.

1909 – RMS Republic, a passenger ship of the White Star Line, becomes the first ship to use the CQD distress signal after colliding with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that kills six people. The Republic sinks the next day.

1920 – The Netherlands refuses to surrender the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.

1957 – American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the "Frisbee".

1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean.

1967 – Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people.

1973 – United States President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.

1986 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.

1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.

1998 – Netscape announced Mozilla, with the intention to release Communicator code as open source.

2002 – U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered.

2003 – A very weak signal from Pioneer 10 (launched Mar 3, 1972) is detected for the last time, but no usable data can be extracted.

Births

1737 – John Hancock; 1832 – Édouard Manet; 1855 – John Browning; 1898 – Randolph Scott; 1907 – Dan Duryea; 1910 – Django Reinhardt; 1913 – Wally Parks; 1919 – Ernie Kovacs; 1920 – Walter Frederick Morrison; 1933 – Chita Rivera; 1943 – Gil Gerard; 1944 – Rutger Hauer; 1950 – Richard Dean Anderson; 1951 – Chesley Sullenberger; 1953 – Robin Zander; 1964 – Mariska Hargitay; 1974 – Tiffani Thiessen

Deaths

1622 – William Baffin; 1803 – Arthur Guinness; 1883 – Gustave Doré; 1944 – Edvard Munch; 1973 – Kid Ory; 1976 – Paul Robeson; 1977 – Toots Shor; 1978 – Jack Oakie; 1989 – Salvador Dalí; 2003 – Nell Carter; 2004 – Bob Keeshan; 2005 – Johnny Carson; 2011 – Jack LaLanne; 2015 – Ernie Banks

[Gravdigr]

January 24

Today is Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day.


Events

1848 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento.

1908 – The first Boy Scout troop is organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell.

1916 – In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., the Supreme Court of the United States declares the federal income tax constitutional.

1943 – World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conclude a conference in Casablanca.

1961 – Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost.

1968 – Vietnam War: The 1st Australian Task Force launches Operation Coburg against the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong during wider fighting around Long Bình and Biên Hòa.

1972 – Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.

1978 – Soviet satellite Kosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered.

2003 – The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation.

2005 - Country singer Lynn Anderson was arrested for shoplifting after being caught stealing a Harry Potter DVD from a New Mexico supermarket and punching a police officer during her arrest.

Births

76 – Hadrian; 1862 – Edith Wharton; 1905 – J. Howard Marshall; 1917 – Ernest Borgnine; 1918 – Oral Roberts; 1919 – Coleman Francis; 1939 – Ray Stevens♪ ♫; 1941 – Neil Diamond♪ ♫; 1941 – Aaron Neville♪ ♫; 1943 – Sharon Tate; 1946 – Michael Ontkean; 1947 – Warren Zevon♪ ♫; 1949 – John Belushi; 1951 – Yakov Smirnoff; 1958 – Jools Holland♪ ♫; 1961 – Nastassja Kinski; 1967 – Phil LaMarr; 1968 – Mary Lou Retton; 1970 – Matthew Lillard; 1974 – Ed Helms; 1979 – Nik Wallenda; 1983 – Scott Speed; 1986 – Mischa Barton

Deaths

41 – Caligula; 1920 – Amedeo Modigliani; 1965 – Winston Churchill; 1971 – Bill W.; 1975 – Larry Fine; 1983 – George Cukor; 1986 – L. Ron Hubbard; 1986 – Gordon MacRae; 1993 – Thurgood Marshall; 2010 – Pernell Roberts; 2015 – Joe Franklin

[Gravdigr]

January 25

Tonight Scots, and fans of Robert Burns, celebrate Burns Night.


Events

41 – After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate.

1533 – Henry VIII of England secretly marries his already-pregnant second wife Anne Boleyn.

1787 – Shays's Rebellion: The rebellion's largest confrontation, outside the Springfield Armory, results in the killing of four rebels and the wounding of twenty.

1858 – The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is played at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia, and becomes a popular wedding processional.

1890 – Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.

1909 – Richard Strauss's opera Elektra receives its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera.

1915 – Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates U.S. transcontinental telephone service, speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco.

1924 – The 1924 Winter Olympics opens in Chamonix, in the French Alps, the first Winter Olympic Games.

1937 – The Guiding Light debuts on NBC radio from Chicago. In 1952 it moves to CBS television, where it remains until September 18, 2009.

1945 – World War II: The Battle of the Bulge ends.

1947 – Thomas Goldsmith Jr. files a patent for a "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device", the first ever electronic game.

1949 – The first Emmy Awards are presented; at the Hollywood Athletic Club.

1960 – The National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the "payola" scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accept money for playing particular records.

1961 – In Washington, D.C., President John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference.

1964 – Blue Ribbon Sports is founded by University of Oregon track and field athletes, which would later become Nike.

1971 – Charles Manson and three female "Family" members are found guilty of the 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders.

1971 – Idi Amin leads a coup deposing Milton Obote and becomes Uganda's president.

1975 - The last Sunbury Rock Festival in Victoria, Australia was held. The promoters, who had taken heavy losses only paid Deep Purple. AC/DC were scheduled to play after Deep Purple but a fight started on stage between road crews after Deep Purple's set, when they began packing up the lights and PA, and denied AC/DC use of them, who then left the festival site without playing at all.

1993 – Five people are shot outside the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Two are killed and three wounded.

1995 – The Norwegian rocket incident: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.

1996 – Billy Bailey becomes the last person to be hanged in the USA.

2011 – The first wave of the Egyptian revolution begins in Egypt, with a series of street demonstrations, marches, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, riots, labour strikes, and violent clashes in Cairo, Alexandria, and throughout other cities in Egypt.

Births

1640 – William Cavendish; 1736 – Joseph-Louis Lagrange (Lagrangian points); 1759 – Robert Burns; 1860 – Charles Curtis (31st VPOTUS); 1874 – W. Somerset Maugham; 1882 – Virginia Woolf; 1919 – Edwin Newman; 1928 – Eduard Shevardnadze; 1931 – Dean Jones; 1938 – Etta James♪ ♫; 1941 – Buddy Baker; 1943 – Tobe Hooper; 1945 – Leigh Taylor-Young; 1951 – Steve Prefontaine; 1981 – Alicia Keys♪ ♫

Deaths

1947 – Al Capone; 1981 – Adele Astaire; 1990 – Ava Gardner