Today In History
- Thread starter The Captain
- Start date
1642 - Astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.
1675 - The first corporation was charted in the United States. The company was the New York Fishing Company.
1790 - In the United States, George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address.
1815 - The Battle of New Orleans began. The War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814, with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The news of the signing had not reached British troops in time to prevent their attack on New Orleans.
1838 - Alfred Vail demonstrated a telegraph code he had devised using dots and dashes as letters. The code was the predecessor to Samuel Morse's code.
1853 - A bronze statue of Andrew Jackson on a horse was unveiled in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. The statue was the work of Clark Mills.
1856 - Borax (hydrated sodium borate) was discovered by Dr. John Veatch.
1877 - Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitco) and his warriors fought their final battle against the U.S. Cavalry in Montana.
1886 - The Severn Railway Tunnel, Britain's longest, was opened.
1889 - The tabulating machine was patented by Dr. Herman Hollerith. His firm, Tabulating Machine Company, later became International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
1894 - Fire caused serious damage at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, IL.
1900 - U.S. President McKinley placed Alaska under military rule.
1900 - In South Africa, General White turned back the Boers attack of Ladysmith.
1901 - The first tournament sanctioned by the American Bowling Congress was held in Chicago, IL.
1908 - A catastrophic train collision occurred in the smoke-filled Park Avenue Tunnel in New York City. Seventeen were killed and thirty-eight were injured. The accident caused a public outcry and increased demand for electric trains.
1916 - During World War I, the final withdrawal of Allied troops from Gallipoli took place.
1918 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points as the basis for peace upon the end of World War I.
1921 - David Lloyd George became the first prime minister tenant at Chequers Court, Buckinghamshire.
1929 - William S. Paley appeared on CBS Radio for the first time to announce that CBS had become the largest regular chain of broadcasting chains in radio history.
1935 - The spectrophotometer was patented by A.C. Hardy.
1952 - Marie Wilson came to TV as "My Friend Irma".
1955 - After 130 home basketball wins, Georgia Tech defeated Kentucky 59-58. It was the first Kentucky loss at home since January 2, 1943.
1957 - Jackie Robinson announced his retirement from major league baseball in an article that appeared in "LOOK" magazine.
1958 - Bobby Fisher, at the age of 14, won the United States Chess Championship for the first time.
1959 - Charles De Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France's Fifth Republic.
1960 - The NCAA met in New York and voted against reviving the unlimited substitution rule for college football.
1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson declared a "War on Poverty."
1961 - Robert Goulet made his national TV debut this night on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on CBS.
1962 - Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was exhibited in America for the first time at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The next day the exhibit opened to the public.
1973 - Secret peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resumed near Paris, France.
1973 - The trial opened in Washington, of seven men accused of bugging Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, DC.
1975 - Ella Grasso became the governor of Connecticut. She was the first woman to become a governor of a state without a husband preceding her in the governor’s chair.
1982 - American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) settled the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.
1987 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed over the 2000 mark for the first time at 2,002.25.
1992 - U.S. President George Bush collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo. White House officials said Bush was suffering from stomach flu.
1993 - Bosnian President Izetbegovic visited the U.S. to plead his government's case for Western military aid and intervention to halt Serbian aggression.
1994 - Tonya Harding won the ladies' U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit, MI, a day after Nancy Kerrigan dropped out because of a clubbing attack that injured her right knee. The U.S. Figure Skating Association later took the title from Harding because of her involvement in the attack.
1997 - Mister Rogers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1998 - Ramzi Yousef was sentenced to life in prison for his role of mastermind behind the World Trade Center bombing in New York.
1998 - Scientists announced that they had discovered that galaxies were accelerating and moving apart and at faster speeds.
1999 - The top two executives of Salt Lake City's Olympic Organizing Committee resigned amid disclosures that civic boosters had given cash to members of the International Olympic Committee.
1999 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair concluded a three-day visit to South Africa.
2005 - The rate for U.S. First Class mail was raised to 39¢.
Current Birthdays
Stephen Hawking turns 67 years old today
86 Larry Storch
Actor ("F Troop")
85 Ron Moody
Actor
83 Soupy Sales
Comedian
81 Sander Vanocur
Broadcast journalist
76 Charles Osgood
Broadcast journalist
72 Shirley Bassey
Singer
71 Bob Eubanks
Game show host ("The Newlywed Game")
69 Cristy Lane
Country-gospel singer
68 Anthony Gourdine
R&B singer (Little Anthony and the Imperials)
67 Yvette Mimieux
Actress
67 Bob Taft
Former governor of Ohio
63 Robby Krieger
Rock musician (The Doors)
62 David Bowie
Rock singer
58 John McTiernan
Director ("Die Hard" movies)
56 Bruce Sutter
Baseball Hall of Famer
54 Harriet Sansom Harris
Actress
45 Ron Sexsmith
Rock singer, songwriter
44 Michelle Forbes
Actress
44 Maria Pitillo
Actress
42 R. Kelly
R&B singer
40 Jeff Abercrombie
Rock musician (Fuel)
40 Ami Dolenz
Actress
38 Jason Giambi
Baseball player
36 Sean Paul
Reggae singer
34 Tift Merritt
Country singer
33 Jenny Lewis
Actress, rock singer
32 Amber Benson
Actress ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer")
31 Scott Whyte
Actor
30 Sarah Polley
Actress, director
29 Rachel Nichols
Actress
27 Gaby Hoffman
Actress
26 Disashi Lumumbo-Kasongo
Rock musician (Gym Class Heroes)
Historic Birthdays
Emily Greene Balch
1/8/1867 - 1/9/1961
American pacifist and Nobel Peace Prize winner
80 John Carroll
1/8/1735 - 12/3/1815
First Roman Catholic bishop in the United States
58 Nicholas Biddle
1/8/1786 - 2/27/1844
American financier
64 Hans von Bulow
1/8/1830 - 2/12/1894
German pianist and conductor
72 Frank Nelson Doubleday
1/8/1862 - 1/30/1934
American publisher
89 William T. Piper
1/8/1881 - 1/15/1970
American aircraft manufacturer
60 John Curtin
1/8/1885 - 7/5/1945
Australian prime minister
66 Walther Bothe
1/8/1891 - 2/8/1957
German atomic physicist
85 Carl R. Rogers
1/8/1902 - 2/4/1987
American psychologist
64 Peter Arno
1/8/1904 - 2/22/1968
American cartoonist
86 Evelyn Wood
1/8/1909 - 8/26/1995
American educator
80 Jose Ferrer
1/8/1912 - 1/26/1992
American actor and director
42 Elvis Presley
1/8/1935 - 8/16/1977
American singer
1675 - The first corporation was charted in the United States. The company was the New York Fishing Company.
1790 - In the United States, George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address.
1815 - The Battle of New Orleans began. The War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814, with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The news of the signing had not reached British troops in time to prevent their attack on New Orleans.
1838 - Alfred Vail demonstrated a telegraph code he had devised using dots and dashes as letters. The code was the predecessor to Samuel Morse's code.
1853 - A bronze statue of Andrew Jackson on a horse was unveiled in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. The statue was the work of Clark Mills.
1856 - Borax (hydrated sodium borate) was discovered by Dr. John Veatch.
1877 - Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitco) and his warriors fought their final battle against the U.S. Cavalry in Montana.
1886 - The Severn Railway Tunnel, Britain's longest, was opened.
1889 - The tabulating machine was patented by Dr. Herman Hollerith. His firm, Tabulating Machine Company, later became International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
1894 - Fire caused serious damage at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, IL.
1900 - U.S. President McKinley placed Alaska under military rule.
1900 - In South Africa, General White turned back the Boers attack of Ladysmith.
1901 - The first tournament sanctioned by the American Bowling Congress was held in Chicago, IL.
1908 - A catastrophic train collision occurred in the smoke-filled Park Avenue Tunnel in New York City. Seventeen were killed and thirty-eight were injured. The accident caused a public outcry and increased demand for electric trains.
1916 - During World War I, the final withdrawal of Allied troops from Gallipoli took place.
1918 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points as the basis for peace upon the end of World War I.
1921 - David Lloyd George became the first prime minister tenant at Chequers Court, Buckinghamshire.
1929 - William S. Paley appeared on CBS Radio for the first time to announce that CBS had become the largest regular chain of broadcasting chains in radio history.
1935 - The spectrophotometer was patented by A.C. Hardy.
1952 - Marie Wilson came to TV as "My Friend Irma".
1955 - After 130 home basketball wins, Georgia Tech defeated Kentucky 59-58. It was the first Kentucky loss at home since January 2, 1943.
1957 - Jackie Robinson announced his retirement from major league baseball in an article that appeared in "LOOK" magazine.
1958 - Bobby Fisher, at the age of 14, won the United States Chess Championship for the first time.
1959 - Charles De Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France's Fifth Republic.
1960 - The NCAA met in New York and voted against reviving the unlimited substitution rule for college football.
1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson declared a "War on Poverty."
1961 - Robert Goulet made his national TV debut this night on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on CBS.
1962 - Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was exhibited in America for the first time at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The next day the exhibit opened to the public.
1973 - Secret peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resumed near Paris, France.
1973 - The trial opened in Washington, of seven men accused of bugging Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, DC.
1975 - Ella Grasso became the governor of Connecticut. She was the first woman to become a governor of a state without a husband preceding her in the governor’s chair.
1982 - American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) settled the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.
1987 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed over the 2000 mark for the first time at 2,002.25.
1992 - U.S. President George Bush collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo. White House officials said Bush was suffering from stomach flu.
1993 - Bosnian President Izetbegovic visited the U.S. to plead his government's case for Western military aid and intervention to halt Serbian aggression.
1994 - Tonya Harding won the ladies' U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit, MI, a day after Nancy Kerrigan dropped out because of a clubbing attack that injured her right knee. The U.S. Figure Skating Association later took the title from Harding because of her involvement in the attack.
1997 - Mister Rogers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1998 - Ramzi Yousef was sentenced to life in prison for his role of mastermind behind the World Trade Center bombing in New York.
1998 - Scientists announced that they had discovered that galaxies were accelerating and moving apart and at faster speeds.
1999 - The top two executives of Salt Lake City's Olympic Organizing Committee resigned amid disclosures that civic boosters had given cash to members of the International Olympic Committee.
1999 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair concluded a three-day visit to South Africa.
2005 - The rate for U.S. First Class mail was raised to 39¢.
Current Birthdays
Stephen Hawking turns 67 years old today
86 Larry Storch
Actor ("F Troop")
85 Ron Moody
Actor
83 Soupy Sales
Comedian
81 Sander Vanocur
Broadcast journalist
76 Charles Osgood
Broadcast journalist
72 Shirley Bassey
Singer
71 Bob Eubanks
Game show host ("The Newlywed Game")
69 Cristy Lane
Country-gospel singer
68 Anthony Gourdine
R&B singer (Little Anthony and the Imperials)
67 Yvette Mimieux
Actress
67 Bob Taft
Former governor of Ohio
63 Robby Krieger
Rock musician (The Doors)
62 David Bowie
Rock singer
58 John McTiernan
Director ("Die Hard" movies)
56 Bruce Sutter
Baseball Hall of Famer
54 Harriet Sansom Harris
Actress
45 Ron Sexsmith
Rock singer, songwriter
44 Michelle Forbes
Actress
44 Maria Pitillo
Actress
42 R. Kelly
R&B singer
40 Jeff Abercrombie
Rock musician (Fuel)
40 Ami Dolenz
Actress
38 Jason Giambi
Baseball player
36 Sean Paul
Reggae singer
34 Tift Merritt
Country singer
33 Jenny Lewis
Actress, rock singer
32 Amber Benson
Actress ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer")
31 Scott Whyte
Actor
30 Sarah Polley
Actress, director
29 Rachel Nichols
Actress
27 Gaby Hoffman
Actress
26 Disashi Lumumbo-Kasongo
Rock musician (Gym Class Heroes)
Historic Birthdays
Emily Greene Balch
1/8/1867 - 1/9/1961
American pacifist and Nobel Peace Prize winner
80 John Carroll
1/8/1735 - 12/3/1815
First Roman Catholic bishop in the United States
58 Nicholas Biddle
1/8/1786 - 2/27/1844
American financier
64 Hans von Bulow
1/8/1830 - 2/12/1894
German pianist and conductor
72 Frank Nelson Doubleday
1/8/1862 - 1/30/1934
American publisher
89 William T. Piper
1/8/1881 - 1/15/1970
American aircraft manufacturer
60 John Curtin
1/8/1885 - 7/5/1945
Australian prime minister
66 Walther Bothe
1/8/1891 - 2/8/1957
German atomic physicist
85 Carl R. Rogers
1/8/1902 - 2/4/1987
American psychologist
64 Peter Arno
1/8/1904 - 2/22/1968
American cartoonist
86 Evelyn Wood
1/8/1909 - 8/26/1995
American educator
80 Jose Ferrer
1/8/1912 - 1/26/1992
American actor and director
42 Elvis Presley
1/8/1935 - 8/16/1977
American singer
January 8th
On this day...
0624 Moslem army occupies Kurashitische Caravan
0794 Church at Lindisfarne, England destroyed by Vikings
0871 Battle at Ashdown Ethelred of Wessex beats Danish invasion army
1198 Lotario di Segni elected Pope Innocentius III
1214 Earl Ferrand of Flanders drops ties with France
1499 Louis XII of France after papal divorce marries Anne, Duchess of Brittany to keep the duchy for the crown
1558 French troops under duke de Guise occupy Calais
1598 Jews are expelled from Genoa Italy
1598 Genoa Italy expels Jews
1656 Oldest surviving commercial newspaper begins (Haarlem, Netherlands)
1675 1st American commercial corporation chartered (New York Fishing Co)
1705 Georg F Händels 1st opera "Almira" premieres in Hamburg
1716 Dutch gang leader "Sjako" arrested
1745 England, Austria, Netherlands & Saxon sign anti-Prussian Quadruple Alliance
1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupy Stirling
1760 Comet C/1760 A1 (Great comet) approaches within 0.0682 astronomical units (AUs) of Earth
1790 George Washington delivers 1st "State of the Union" address
1798 11th Amendment ratified, judicial powers construed
1800 Austrians defeat French in 2nd battle of Novi
1800 Wild Boy of Aveyron discovered in southern France
1806 Cape colony becomes English colony
1806 Lewis & Clark find skeleton of 105' blue whale in Oregon
1811 Louisiana slave revolt by Charles Deslondes at German Coast
1815 Battle of New Orleans-War of 1812 ended 12/24/1814 but nobody knew
1830 Dutch King Willem I fires him displeasing parliament members
1833 Boston Academy of Music, 1st US music school, established
1838 1st telegraph message sent using dots & dashes, New Jersey
1838 Rebellion at Amherstburg, Ontario breaks out
1842 Dutch King Willem II charters Technical College Delft
1848 Austrian soldiers kill 10 students, Pavia
1853 1st US bronze equestrian statue (of Andrew Jackson) unveiled, Washington
1856 Dr John A Veatch discovers borax, Tuscan Springs CA
1857 Dion Boucicauly's "Poor of NY" premieres in New York City NY
1867 Legislation gives suffrage to DC blacks, despite President Johnson's veto
1870 US mint at Carson City NV begins issuing coins
1878 Secret meeting of King Leopold II's agent & Henry Morton Stanley
1884 Chrome tanning process for leather patented by Augustus Schultz
1889 Dr Herman Hollerith receives 1st US patent for a tabulating machine (1st Computer)
1894 Columbus World's fair in Chicago destroyed by fire
1897 Michael Eagan wins 1st US national amateur handball championship
1901 New South Wales score 918 all out vs South Australia in 560 minutes
1902 1st National Bowling Championship held (Chicago IL)
1904 Pope Pius X banned low cut dresses in the presence of churchmen
1913 Frank Chance becomes Yankee manager
1917 Austria-Hungarian troops conquer Forlani Italy
1918 Mississippi becomes 1st state to ratify 18th amendment (prohibition)
1918 President Wilson outlines his 14 points for peace after WWI
1923 Typography strike in Amsterdam
1925 1st all-female US state supreme court appointed, Texas
1926 Abdul-Aziz ibn Sa'ud becomes king of Hejaz; renames it Saudi Arabia
1929 1st telephone connection between Netherlands & West-Indies
1929 CBS radio network buys WABC in New York City NY
1930 Belgium Princess Marie-José marries Italian's crown prince Umberto
1931 Philadelphia Quakers set then NHL record of 15 straight loses
1932 Ratification of present San Francisco City Charter
1934 Jaap Speyers "Bluejackets" premieres in Amsterdam
1935 Spectrophotometer patented, AC Hardy
1937 -50ºF (-45.6ºC), San Jacinto NV (state record)
1938 Bradman scores 107 for South Australia vs Queensland (1st innings)
1940 Britain's 1st WWII rationing (bacon, butter & sugar)
1941 British Air Marshal Richard Peirse resigns
1945 "Youth for Christ" organizes
1947 Toronto Maple Leaf rookie Howie Meeker scores 5 goals in a game
1947 General George Marshall becomes Secretary of State
1948 Queen Wilhelmina signs death sentence against Ans van Dijk for treason
1949 "Make Mine Manhattan" closes at Broadhurst Theater New York City NY after 429 performances
1949 "My Romance" closes at Shubert Theater New York City NY after 95 performances
1949 "Small Wonder" closes at Coronet Theater New York City NY after 134 performances
1951 Thought extinct since 1615, a Cahow is rediscovered in Bermuda
1952 Jordan adopts constitution
1953 Indians bar night games with Browns (who refuse to share TV receipts)
1953 René Mayer forms French government
1954 Elvis Presley pays $4 to a Memphis studio & records his 1st two songs, "Casual Love" & "I'll Never Stand in Your Way"
1955 Furman sets NCAA basketball single-game scoring record with 154 points
1955 Georgia Tech ends Kentucky's 130-game home basketball win streak
1955 Louise Sugg wins LPGA Los Angeles Golf Open
1955 WUNC TV channel 4 in Chapel Hill NC (PBS) begins broadcasting
1956 Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel/Hound Dog" single goes to #1 & stays #1 for a record 11 weeks (for a single)
1956 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Conrad Aiken
1958 Cuban revolutionary forces capture Havana
1959 Charles de Gaulle inaugurated as President of France's 5th Republic
1961 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Yvor Winters
1962 Dutch express train crashes into slow commuter train, 91 die (Netherlands)
1962 Golfer Jack Nicklaus, 21, 1st pro appearance, he came in 50th
1963 "Mona Lisa", on loan, unveiled in America's National Gallery of Art
1963 Dmitri Shostakovich's Katharina Ismailova, premieres in Riga
1964 President Lyndon B Johnson declares "War on Poverty"
1964 European Parliament accept Mansholt Plan
1965 Senator Everett Dirksen introduces a bill to make marigold the national flower (didn't pass)
1965 Star of India returned to American Museum of Natural History
1966 Beatles' "Rubber Soul" album goes #1 & stays #1 for 6 weeks
1966 Beatles' "We Can Work It Out" single goes #1 & stays #1 for 3 weeks
1966 Georges Pompidou appointed French premier
1966 Who & the Kinks perform on the last "Shindig" TV show on ABC
1968 Jacques Cousteau's 1st undersea special on US network TV
1971 Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota established
1971 29 pilot whales beach themselves & die at San Clemente Island CA
1972 Dmitri Shostakovich's 15th Symphony, premieres in Moscow
1972 NCAA announces freshman can play on teams starting in fall
1973 Secret peace talks between US & North Vietnam resumed near Paris
1973 USSR launches Luna 21 for Moon landing
1973 "Tricks" opens at Alvin Theater New York City NY for 8 performances
1973 Greg Chappell's best Test bowling, 5-61 vs Pakistan at SCG
1974 Gold hits record $126.50 an ounce in London
1974 Silver hits record $3.40 an ounce in New York
1974 E Wilson Jr's musical "Let My People Come" premieres in New York City NY
1974 Loch Ness Monster photographed
1975 Judge Sirica orders release of Watergate's John W Dean III, Herbert W Kalmbach & Jeb Stuart Magruder from prison
1976 Franklin Mint strikes 1st gold coins for Netherlands Antilles
1978 Israel's Cabinet votes to `strengthen' settlements in occupied Sinai
1979 512 die as oil tanker Bantry Bay blows up
1979 Today Show gets a new theme song
1979 Argentina & Chile sign Beagle Canal accord
1979 Vietnamese troops overtook Khmer Rouge & occupy Phnom Penh
1980 Islander Glenn Resch's 20th shut-out opponent-Canucks 3-0
1980 NCAA decides to sponsor women's championships in 5 sports
1981 "Pirates of Penzance" opens at Uris Theater New York City NY for 772 performances
1981 India all out 63 in one-day international vs Australia
1981 Reds become last team to sign a free agent (Larry Biitner)
1982 Justice Department withdraws antitrust suit against IBM, pending since 1969
1982 Johnny Cash Parkway opens in Hendersonville Tennessee
1984 Washington Capitals Bengt Gustafsson scores 5 goals
1984 NCAA announces that basketball tournament will have 64 teams
1985 Japan launches Sakigake space probe to Halley's Comet
1986 President Reagan freezes Libyan assets in the US
1986 Willie McCovey is 16th elected to Hall of Fame in his 1st year
1987 Jack Sikma (Milwaukee) begins NBA free throw streak of 51 games
1987 Dow Jones closes above 2,000 for 1st time (2,002.25)
1988 9th largest NBA crowd 38,873-Chicago at Detroit
1988 Dow Jones down 140.58 points
1988 Hewlett-Packard introduces the HP-28S Advanced Scientific Calculator
1988 US female Figure Skating championship won by Debi Thomas
1989 Soviet Union promises to eliminate stockpiles of chemical weapons
1989 "42nd Street" closes at Winter Garden Theater New York City NY after 3,486 performances
1989 "Starlight Express" closes at Gershwin Theater New York City NY after 761 performances
1989 Boeing 737-400 crashes in England, 46 die
1991 Davis Rules with Jonathan Winters & Randy Quaid premieres on ABC-TV
1991 Gaylord Perry, Ferguson Jenkins & Rod Carew elected to Hall of Fame
1991 Rod Carew is 22nd player elected to Hall of Fame on 1st try
1991 Tamás Darnyi swims world record 400m medley (4 12.36)
1992 US President George Bush gets ill & vomits on Japanese prime minister's lap during Japanese tour
1993 Chicago Bull Michael Jordan scores his 20,000th career point
1993 Elvis Presley Commemorative Postage Stamp goes on sale
1993 NBC offers "Tonight Show" to David Letterman
1994 Rintje Ritsma skates world record 1500m (1 51.60)
1994 Russian manned space craft TM-18, launches into orbit
1994 US male Figure Skating championship won by Scott Davis
1995 "Guys & Dolls" closes at Martin Beck Theater New York City NY after 1143 performances
1995 15th United Negro College Fund raises $12,200,000
1995 Mike Schmidt is elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame
1996 Blizzard buries eastern US causing at least 50 deaths
1996 For 1st time in 25 years no one is elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
1998 New York Giant GM George Young resigns to accept NFL position
1998 Roseanne files for divorce from 3rd husband Ben Thomas
1998 Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski asks to act as his own lawyer
1998 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef sentenced to life
On this day...
0624 Moslem army occupies Kurashitische Caravan
0794 Church at Lindisfarne, England destroyed by Vikings
0871 Battle at Ashdown Ethelred of Wessex beats Danish invasion army
1198 Lotario di Segni elected Pope Innocentius III
1214 Earl Ferrand of Flanders drops ties with France
1499 Louis XII of France after papal divorce marries Anne, Duchess of Brittany to keep the duchy for the crown
1558 French troops under duke de Guise occupy Calais
1598 Jews are expelled from Genoa Italy
1598 Genoa Italy expels Jews
1656 Oldest surviving commercial newspaper begins (Haarlem, Netherlands)
1675 1st American commercial corporation chartered (New York Fishing Co)
1705 Georg F Händels 1st opera "Almira" premieres in Hamburg
1716 Dutch gang leader "Sjako" arrested
1745 England, Austria, Netherlands & Saxon sign anti-Prussian Quadruple Alliance
1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupy Stirling
1760 Comet C/1760 A1 (Great comet) approaches within 0.0682 astronomical units (AUs) of Earth
1790 George Washington delivers 1st "State of the Union" address
1798 11th Amendment ratified, judicial powers construed
1800 Austrians defeat French in 2nd battle of Novi
1800 Wild Boy of Aveyron discovered in southern France
1806 Cape colony becomes English colony
1806 Lewis & Clark find skeleton of 105' blue whale in Oregon
1811 Louisiana slave revolt by Charles Deslondes at German Coast
1815 Battle of New Orleans-War of 1812 ended 12/24/1814 but nobody knew
1830 Dutch King Willem I fires him displeasing parliament members
1833 Boston Academy of Music, 1st US music school, established
1838 1st telegraph message sent using dots & dashes, New Jersey
1838 Rebellion at Amherstburg, Ontario breaks out
1842 Dutch King Willem II charters Technical College Delft
1848 Austrian soldiers kill 10 students, Pavia
1853 1st US bronze equestrian statue (of Andrew Jackson) unveiled, Washington
1856 Dr John A Veatch discovers borax, Tuscan Springs CA
1857 Dion Boucicauly's "Poor of NY" premieres in New York City NY
1867 Legislation gives suffrage to DC blacks, despite President Johnson's veto
1870 US mint at Carson City NV begins issuing coins
1878 Secret meeting of King Leopold II's agent & Henry Morton Stanley
1884 Chrome tanning process for leather patented by Augustus Schultz
1889 Dr Herman Hollerith receives 1st US patent for a tabulating machine (1st Computer)
1894 Columbus World's fair in Chicago destroyed by fire
1897 Michael Eagan wins 1st US national amateur handball championship
1901 New South Wales score 918 all out vs South Australia in 560 minutes
1902 1st National Bowling Championship held (Chicago IL)
1904 Pope Pius X banned low cut dresses in the presence of churchmen
1913 Frank Chance becomes Yankee manager
1917 Austria-Hungarian troops conquer Forlani Italy
1918 Mississippi becomes 1st state to ratify 18th amendment (prohibition)
1918 President Wilson outlines his 14 points for peace after WWI
1923 Typography strike in Amsterdam
1925 1st all-female US state supreme court appointed, Texas
1926 Abdul-Aziz ibn Sa'ud becomes king of Hejaz; renames it Saudi Arabia
1929 1st telephone connection between Netherlands & West-Indies
1929 CBS radio network buys WABC in New York City NY
1930 Belgium Princess Marie-José marries Italian's crown prince Umberto
1931 Philadelphia Quakers set then NHL record of 15 straight loses
1932 Ratification of present San Francisco City Charter
1934 Jaap Speyers "Bluejackets" premieres in Amsterdam
1935 Spectrophotometer patented, AC Hardy
1937 -50ºF (-45.6ºC), San Jacinto NV (state record)
1938 Bradman scores 107 for South Australia vs Queensland (1st innings)
1940 Britain's 1st WWII rationing (bacon, butter & sugar)
1941 British Air Marshal Richard Peirse resigns
1945 "Youth for Christ" organizes
1947 Toronto Maple Leaf rookie Howie Meeker scores 5 goals in a game
1947 General George Marshall becomes Secretary of State
1948 Queen Wilhelmina signs death sentence against Ans van Dijk for treason
1949 "Make Mine Manhattan" closes at Broadhurst Theater New York City NY after 429 performances
1949 "My Romance" closes at Shubert Theater New York City NY after 95 performances
1949 "Small Wonder" closes at Coronet Theater New York City NY after 134 performances
1951 Thought extinct since 1615, a Cahow is rediscovered in Bermuda
1952 Jordan adopts constitution
1953 Indians bar night games with Browns (who refuse to share TV receipts)
1953 René Mayer forms French government
1954 Elvis Presley pays $4 to a Memphis studio & records his 1st two songs, "Casual Love" & "I'll Never Stand in Your Way"
1955 Furman sets NCAA basketball single-game scoring record with 154 points
1955 Georgia Tech ends Kentucky's 130-game home basketball win streak
1955 Louise Sugg wins LPGA Los Angeles Golf Open
1955 WUNC TV channel 4 in Chapel Hill NC (PBS) begins broadcasting
1956 Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel/Hound Dog" single goes to #1 & stays #1 for a record 11 weeks (for a single)
1956 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Conrad Aiken
1958 Cuban revolutionary forces capture Havana
1959 Charles de Gaulle inaugurated as President of France's 5th Republic
1961 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Yvor Winters
1962 Dutch express train crashes into slow commuter train, 91 die (Netherlands)
1962 Golfer Jack Nicklaus, 21, 1st pro appearance, he came in 50th
1963 "Mona Lisa", on loan, unveiled in America's National Gallery of Art
1963 Dmitri Shostakovich's Katharina Ismailova, premieres in Riga
1964 President Lyndon B Johnson declares "War on Poverty"
1964 European Parliament accept Mansholt Plan
1965 Senator Everett Dirksen introduces a bill to make marigold the national flower (didn't pass)
1965 Star of India returned to American Museum of Natural History
1966 Beatles' "Rubber Soul" album goes #1 & stays #1 for 6 weeks
1966 Beatles' "We Can Work It Out" single goes #1 & stays #1 for 3 weeks
1966 Georges Pompidou appointed French premier
1966 Who & the Kinks perform on the last "Shindig" TV show on ABC
1968 Jacques Cousteau's 1st undersea special on US network TV
1971 Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota established
1971 29 pilot whales beach themselves & die at San Clemente Island CA
1972 Dmitri Shostakovich's 15th Symphony, premieres in Moscow
1972 NCAA announces freshman can play on teams starting in fall
1973 Secret peace talks between US & North Vietnam resumed near Paris
1973 USSR launches Luna 21 for Moon landing
1973 "Tricks" opens at Alvin Theater New York City NY for 8 performances
1973 Greg Chappell's best Test bowling, 5-61 vs Pakistan at SCG
1974 Gold hits record $126.50 an ounce in London
1974 Silver hits record $3.40 an ounce in New York
1974 E Wilson Jr's musical "Let My People Come" premieres in New York City NY
1974 Loch Ness Monster photographed
1975 Judge Sirica orders release of Watergate's John W Dean III, Herbert W Kalmbach & Jeb Stuart Magruder from prison
1976 Franklin Mint strikes 1st gold coins for Netherlands Antilles
1978 Israel's Cabinet votes to `strengthen' settlements in occupied Sinai
1979 512 die as oil tanker Bantry Bay blows up
1979 Today Show gets a new theme song
1979 Argentina & Chile sign Beagle Canal accord
1979 Vietnamese troops overtook Khmer Rouge & occupy Phnom Penh
1980 Islander Glenn Resch's 20th shut-out opponent-Canucks 3-0
1980 NCAA decides to sponsor women's championships in 5 sports
1981 "Pirates of Penzance" opens at Uris Theater New York City NY for 772 performances
1981 India all out 63 in one-day international vs Australia
1981 Reds become last team to sign a free agent (Larry Biitner)
1982 Justice Department withdraws antitrust suit against IBM, pending since 1969
1982 Johnny Cash Parkway opens in Hendersonville Tennessee
1984 Washington Capitals Bengt Gustafsson scores 5 goals
1984 NCAA announces that basketball tournament will have 64 teams
1985 Japan launches Sakigake space probe to Halley's Comet
1986 President Reagan freezes Libyan assets in the US
1986 Willie McCovey is 16th elected to Hall of Fame in his 1st year
1987 Jack Sikma (Milwaukee) begins NBA free throw streak of 51 games
1987 Dow Jones closes above 2,000 for 1st time (2,002.25)
1988 9th largest NBA crowd 38,873-Chicago at Detroit
1988 Dow Jones down 140.58 points
1988 Hewlett-Packard introduces the HP-28S Advanced Scientific Calculator
1988 US female Figure Skating championship won by Debi Thomas
1989 Soviet Union promises to eliminate stockpiles of chemical weapons
1989 "42nd Street" closes at Winter Garden Theater New York City NY after 3,486 performances
1989 "Starlight Express" closes at Gershwin Theater New York City NY after 761 performances
1989 Boeing 737-400 crashes in England, 46 die
1991 Davis Rules with Jonathan Winters & Randy Quaid premieres on ABC-TV
1991 Gaylord Perry, Ferguson Jenkins & Rod Carew elected to Hall of Fame
1991 Rod Carew is 22nd player elected to Hall of Fame on 1st try
1991 Tamás Darnyi swims world record 400m medley (4 12.36)
1992 US President George Bush gets ill & vomits on Japanese prime minister's lap during Japanese tour
1993 Chicago Bull Michael Jordan scores his 20,000th career point
1993 Elvis Presley Commemorative Postage Stamp goes on sale
1993 NBC offers "Tonight Show" to David Letterman
1994 Rintje Ritsma skates world record 1500m (1 51.60)
1994 Russian manned space craft TM-18, launches into orbit
1994 US male Figure Skating championship won by Scott Davis
1995 "Guys & Dolls" closes at Martin Beck Theater New York City NY after 1143 performances
1995 15th United Negro College Fund raises $12,200,000
1995 Mike Schmidt is elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame
1996 Blizzard buries eastern US causing at least 50 deaths
1996 For 1st time in 25 years no one is elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
1998 New York Giant GM George Young resigns to accept NFL position
1998 Roseanne files for divorce from 3rd husband Ben Thomas
1998 Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski asks to act as his own lawyer
1998 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef sentenced to life
1793 - Jean-Pierre Blanchard made the first successful balloon flight in the U.S.
1799 - British prime minister William Pitt the Younger introduced income tax, at two shillings (10p) in the pound, to raise funds for the Napoleonic Wars.
1848 - The first commercial bank was established in San Francisco, CA.
1861 - The state of Mississippi seceded from the United States.
1894 - The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company put the first battery-operated switchboard into operation in Lexington, MA.
1902 - New York State introduced a bill to outlaw flirting in public.
1905 - In Russia, the civil disturbances known as the Revolution of 1905 forced Czar Nicholas II to grant some civil rights.
1929 - The Seeing Eye was incorporated in Nashville, TN. The company's purpose was to train dogs to guide the blind.
1936 - The United States Army adopted the semi-automatic rifle.
1937 - The first issue of "Look" went on sale. Within a month, "Look" became a biweekly magazine.
1940 - Television was used for the first time to present a sales meeting to convention delegates in New York City.
1951 - The United Nations headquarters officially opened in New York City.
1961 - The play, "Rhinoceros," opened on Broadway.
1969 - The supersonic aeroplane Concorde made its first trial flight, at Bristol.
1972 - The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth was destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbor.
1972 - British miners went on strike for the first time since 1926.
1981 - Hockey Hall of Famer, Phil Esposito, announced that he would retire as a hockey player after the New York Rangers-Buffalo Sabres hockey game. The game ended in a tie. (NHL)
1984 - Clara Peller was first seen by TV viewers in the "Where's the Beef?" commercial campaign for Wendy's.
1986 - Kodak got out of the instant camera business after 10 years due to a loss in a court battle that claimed that Kodak copied Polaroid patents.
1991 - U.S. secretary of state Baker and Iraqi foreign minister Aziz met for 61/2 hours in Geneva, but failed to reach any agreement that would forestall war in the Persian Gulf.
1995 - Russian cosmonaut Valeri Poliakov, 51, completed his 366th day in outer space aboard the Mir space station, breaking the record for the longest continuous time spent in outer space.
1997 - Tamil rebels attact a military base in Sri Lanka. 200 soldiers and 140 rebels were killed.
2000 - ABC-TV began airing "The Mole."
2002 - Yasmine Bleeth was sentenced to two years of probation, regular drug tests, 100 hours of community service and pay the court costs in connection to a cocaine-possession charge.
2002 - The U.S. Justice Department announced that it was pursuing a criminal investigation of Enron Corp. The company had filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001.
2003 - Archaeologists announced that they had found five more chambers in the tomb of Qin Shihuang, China's first emperor. The rooms were believed to cover about 750,000 square feet.
2005 - Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane received stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in a dual ceremony.
Current Birthdays
Dave Matthews turns 42 years old today.
81 Judith Krantz
Author
75 Bart Starr
Football Hall of Famer
74 Dick Enberg
Sportscaster
68 Joan Baez
Folk singer
68 Roy Head
Rockabilly singer
68 Susannah York
Actress
65 Jimmy Page
Rock musician (Led Zeppelin)
59 David Johansen
Rock singer (New York Dolls, "Buster Poindexter")
58 Crystal Gayle
Country singer
54 J.K. Simmons
Actor ("The Closer," "Law & Order")
46 Eric Erlandson
Rock musician
44 Joely Richardson
Actress
42 Carl Bell
Rock musician (Fuel)
42 Steve Harwell
Rock singer (Smash Mouth)
41 Joey Lauren Adams
Actress
31 Chad Johnson
Football player
31 A.J. Mclean
Singer (Backstreet Boys)
25 Drew Brown
Rock musician (OneRepublic)
22 Paolo Nutini
Rock, soul singer
Historic Birthdays
Richard M. Nixon
1/9/1913 - 4/22/1994
37th president of the United States (1969-74)
80 Lemuel Shaw
1/9/1781 - 3/30/1861
American jurist
88 Carrie Chapman Catt
1/9/1859 - 3/9/1947
American feminist leader
68 Joseph B Strauss
1/9/1870 - 5/16/1938
American civil engineer; designed the Golden Gate Bridge
67 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
1/9/1875 - 4/18/1942
American sculptor and arts patron
75 Giovanni Papini
1/9/1881 - 7/8/1956
Italian journalist and novelist
81 Dame Gracie Fields
1/9/1898 - 9/27/1979
English entertainer
39 Richard Halliburton
1/9/1900 - 3/23/1939
American travel writer
72 Chic Young
1/9/1901 - 3/14/1973
American cartoonist
78 Simone de Beauvoir
1/9/1908 - 4/14/1986
French feminist writer
71 Kenny Clarke
1/9/1914 - 1/25/1985
American drummer
56 Gypsy Rose Lee
1/9/1914 - 4/26/1970
American striptease artist
1799 - British prime minister William Pitt the Younger introduced income tax, at two shillings (10p) in the pound, to raise funds for the Napoleonic Wars.
1848 - The first commercial bank was established in San Francisco, CA.
1861 - The state of Mississippi seceded from the United States.
1894 - The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company put the first battery-operated switchboard into operation in Lexington, MA.
1902 - New York State introduced a bill to outlaw flirting in public.
1905 - In Russia, the civil disturbances known as the Revolution of 1905 forced Czar Nicholas II to grant some civil rights.
1929 - The Seeing Eye was incorporated in Nashville, TN. The company's purpose was to train dogs to guide the blind.
1936 - The United States Army adopted the semi-automatic rifle.
1937 - The first issue of "Look" went on sale. Within a month, "Look" became a biweekly magazine.
1940 - Television was used for the first time to present a sales meeting to convention delegates in New York City.
1951 - The United Nations headquarters officially opened in New York City.
1961 - The play, "Rhinoceros," opened on Broadway.
1969 - The supersonic aeroplane Concorde made its first trial flight, at Bristol.
1972 - The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth was destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbor.
1972 - British miners went on strike for the first time since 1926.
1981 - Hockey Hall of Famer, Phil Esposito, announced that he would retire as a hockey player after the New York Rangers-Buffalo Sabres hockey game. The game ended in a tie. (NHL)
1984 - Clara Peller was first seen by TV viewers in the "Where's the Beef?" commercial campaign for Wendy's.
1986 - Kodak got out of the instant camera business after 10 years due to a loss in a court battle that claimed that Kodak copied Polaroid patents.
1991 - U.S. secretary of state Baker and Iraqi foreign minister Aziz met for 61/2 hours in Geneva, but failed to reach any agreement that would forestall war in the Persian Gulf.
1995 - Russian cosmonaut Valeri Poliakov, 51, completed his 366th day in outer space aboard the Mir space station, breaking the record for the longest continuous time spent in outer space.
1997 - Tamil rebels attact a military base in Sri Lanka. 200 soldiers and 140 rebels were killed.
2000 - ABC-TV began airing "The Mole."
2002 - Yasmine Bleeth was sentenced to two years of probation, regular drug tests, 100 hours of community service and pay the court costs in connection to a cocaine-possession charge.
2002 - The U.S. Justice Department announced that it was pursuing a criminal investigation of Enron Corp. The company had filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001.
2003 - Archaeologists announced that they had found five more chambers in the tomb of Qin Shihuang, China's first emperor. The rooms were believed to cover about 750,000 square feet.
2005 - Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane received stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in a dual ceremony.
Current Birthdays
Dave Matthews turns 42 years old today.
81 Judith Krantz
Author
75 Bart Starr
Football Hall of Famer
74 Dick Enberg
Sportscaster
68 Joan Baez
Folk singer
68 Roy Head
Rockabilly singer
68 Susannah York
Actress
65 Jimmy Page
Rock musician (Led Zeppelin)
59 David Johansen
Rock singer (New York Dolls, "Buster Poindexter")
58 Crystal Gayle
Country singer
54 J.K. Simmons
Actor ("The Closer," "Law & Order")
46 Eric Erlandson
Rock musician
44 Joely Richardson
Actress
42 Carl Bell
Rock musician (Fuel)
42 Steve Harwell
Rock singer (Smash Mouth)
41 Joey Lauren Adams
Actress
31 Chad Johnson
Football player
31 A.J. Mclean
Singer (Backstreet Boys)
25 Drew Brown
Rock musician (OneRepublic)
22 Paolo Nutini
Rock, soul singer
Historic Birthdays
Richard M. Nixon
1/9/1913 - 4/22/1994
37th president of the United States (1969-74)
80 Lemuel Shaw
1/9/1781 - 3/30/1861
American jurist
88 Carrie Chapman Catt
1/9/1859 - 3/9/1947
American feminist leader
68 Joseph B Strauss
1/9/1870 - 5/16/1938
American civil engineer; designed the Golden Gate Bridge
67 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
1/9/1875 - 4/18/1942
American sculptor and arts patron
75 Giovanni Papini
1/9/1881 - 7/8/1956
Italian journalist and novelist
81 Dame Gracie Fields
1/9/1898 - 9/27/1979
English entertainer
39 Richard Halliburton
1/9/1900 - 3/23/1939
American travel writer
72 Chic Young
1/9/1901 - 3/14/1973
American cartoonist
78 Simone de Beauvoir
1/9/1908 - 4/14/1986
French feminist writer
71 Kenny Clarke
1/9/1914 - 1/25/1985
American drummer
56 Gypsy Rose Lee
1/9/1914 - 4/26/1970
American striptease artist
1776 - Thomas Paine published his pamphlet "Common Sense."
1840 - The penny post, whereby mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than paid for by the recipient, began in Britain.
1861 - Florida seceded from the United States.
1863 - Prime Minister Gladstone opened the first section of the London Underground Railway system, from Paddington to Farringdon Street.
1870 - John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.
1901 - Oil was discovered at the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont, TX.
1911 - Major Jimmie Erickson took the first photograph from an airplane while flying over San Diego, CA.
1920 - The League of Nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I with Germany.
1920 - The League of Nations held its first meeting in Geneva.
1927 - Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" was first shown, in Berlin.
1928 - The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky.
1943 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sailed from Miami, FL, to Trinidad thus becoming the first American President to visit a foreign country during wartime.
1943 - The quiz show, "The Better Half," was heard for the first time on Mutual Radio.
1946 - The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place with 51 nations represented.
1949 - Vinyl records were introduced by RCA (45 rpm) and Columbia (33.3 rpm).
1950 - Ben Hogan appeared for the first time in a golf tournament since an auto accident a year earlier. He tied ‘Slammin’ Sammy Snead in the Los Angeles Open, however, Hogan lost in a playoff.
1951 - Donald Howard Rogers piloted the first passenger jet on a trip from Chicago to New York City.
1957 - Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation Anthony Eden.
1963 - The Chicago Cubs became the first baseball club to hire an athletic director. He was Robert Whitlow. (MLB)
1969 - The final issue of "The Saturday Evening Post" appeared after 147 years of publication.
1971 - "Masterpiece Theatre" premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke. The introduction drama series was "The First Churchills."
1978 - The Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a redezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory.
1984 - The United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century.
1986 - The uncut version of Jerome Kern’s musical, "Showboat", opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
1990 - Chinese Premier Li Peng ended martial law in Beijing after seven months. He said that crushing pro-democracy protests had saved China from "the abyss of misery."
1990 - Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. completed a $14 billion merger. The new company, Time Warner, was the world's largest entertainment company.
1994 - In Manassas, VA, Lorena Bobbitt went on trial. She had been charged with maliciously wounding her husband John. She was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.
1997 - Shelby Lynne Barrackman was strangled to death by her grand-father when she licked the icing off of cupcakes. He was convicted of the crime on September 15, 1998.
2000 - It was announced that Time-Warner had agreed to buy America On-line (AOL). It was the largest-ever corporate merger priced at $162 billion. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the deal on December 14, 2000.
2001 - American Airlines agreed to acquire most of Trans World Airlines (TWA) assets for about $500 million. The deal brought an end to the financially troubled TWA.
2002 - In France, the "Official Journal" reported that all women could get the morning-after contraception pill for free in pharmacies.
2003 - North Korea announced that it was withdrawing from the global nuclear arms control treaty and that it had no plans to develop nuclear weapons.
Current Birthdays
Jake Delhomme turns 34 years old today
74 Eddy Clearwater
Blues musician
74 Ronnie Hawkins
Rock singer, musician
74 Sherrill Milnes
Opera singer
71 Willie McCovey
Baseball Hall of Famer
70 Scott McKenzie
Singer
69 Walter Hill
Writer-director
65 Frank Sinatra Jr.
Singer
64 Rod Stewart
Rock singer
61 Donald Fagen
Rock singer, musician (Steely Dan)
61 William Sanderson
Actor ("Deadwood," "Newhart")
60 George Foreman
Boxing Hall of Famer
59 Roy Blunt
House minority whip, R-Mo.
58 Alejandro Escovedo
Rock singer
57 Scott Thurston
Rock musician (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)
56 Pat Benatar
Rock singer
54 Michael Schenker
Rock musician (The Scorpions)
53 Shawn Colvin
Rock singer
50 Curt Kirkwood
Rock singer, musician (Meat Puppets)
48 Evan Handler
Actor
46 Mark Pryor
U.S. senator, D-Ark.
45 Brad Roberts
Rock singer (Crash Test Dummies)
42 Trini Alvarado
Actress
31 Matt Roberts
Rock musician (3 Doors Down)
31 Brent Smith
Rock singer (Shinedown)
30 Chris Smith
Rapper (Kris Kross)
29 DeShaun Foster
Football player
29 Sarah Shahi
Actress ("Life")
Historic Birthdays
Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova
1/10/1910 - 3/21/1998
Russian prima ballerina
48 Nicolaus Steno
1/10/1638 - 11/26/1686
Danish geologist and anatomist
68 John Emerich, Lord Acton
1/10/1834 - 6/19/1902
English historian
66 Yukichi Fukuzawa
1/10/1835 - 2/3/1901
Japanese educator and publisher
41 John Wellborn Root
1/10/1850 - 1/15/1891
American architect
71 Frederick Gardner Cottrell
1/10/1877 - 11/16/1948
American educator and scientist
83 Francis X. Bushman
1/10/1883 - 8/23/1966
American actor
94 Dumas Malone
1/10/1892 - 12/27/1986
American historian; wrote authoritative biography of Thomas Jefferson
87 Uri Zvi Greenberg
1/10/1894 - 5/8/1981
Hebrew and Yiddish poet
72 Dame Barbara Hepworth
1/10/1903 - 5/20/1975
English sculptor
83 Ray Bolger
1/10/1904 - 1/15/1987
American dancer and actor
84 Paul Henreid
1/10/1908 - 3/29/1992
Austrian-born American actor
1840 - The penny post, whereby mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than paid for by the recipient, began in Britain.
1861 - Florida seceded from the United States.
1863 - Prime Minister Gladstone opened the first section of the London Underground Railway system, from Paddington to Farringdon Street.
1870 - John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.
1901 - Oil was discovered at the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont, TX.
1911 - Major Jimmie Erickson took the first photograph from an airplane while flying over San Diego, CA.
1920 - The League of Nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I with Germany.
1920 - The League of Nations held its first meeting in Geneva.
1927 - Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" was first shown, in Berlin.
1928 - The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky.
1943 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sailed from Miami, FL, to Trinidad thus becoming the first American President to visit a foreign country during wartime.
1943 - The quiz show, "The Better Half," was heard for the first time on Mutual Radio.
1946 - The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place with 51 nations represented.
1949 - Vinyl records were introduced by RCA (45 rpm) and Columbia (33.3 rpm).
1950 - Ben Hogan appeared for the first time in a golf tournament since an auto accident a year earlier. He tied ‘Slammin’ Sammy Snead in the Los Angeles Open, however, Hogan lost in a playoff.
1951 - Donald Howard Rogers piloted the first passenger jet on a trip from Chicago to New York City.
1957 - Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation Anthony Eden.
1963 - The Chicago Cubs became the first baseball club to hire an athletic director. He was Robert Whitlow. (MLB)
1969 - The final issue of "The Saturday Evening Post" appeared after 147 years of publication.
1971 - "Masterpiece Theatre" premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke. The introduction drama series was "The First Churchills."
1978 - The Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a redezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory.
1984 - The United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century.
1986 - The uncut version of Jerome Kern’s musical, "Showboat", opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
1990 - Chinese Premier Li Peng ended martial law in Beijing after seven months. He said that crushing pro-democracy protests had saved China from "the abyss of misery."
1990 - Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. completed a $14 billion merger. The new company, Time Warner, was the world's largest entertainment company.
1994 - In Manassas, VA, Lorena Bobbitt went on trial. She had been charged with maliciously wounding her husband John. She was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.
1997 - Shelby Lynne Barrackman was strangled to death by her grand-father when she licked the icing off of cupcakes. He was convicted of the crime on September 15, 1998.
2000 - It was announced that Time-Warner had agreed to buy America On-line (AOL). It was the largest-ever corporate merger priced at $162 billion. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the deal on December 14, 2000.
2001 - American Airlines agreed to acquire most of Trans World Airlines (TWA) assets for about $500 million. The deal brought an end to the financially troubled TWA.
2002 - In France, the "Official Journal" reported that all women could get the morning-after contraception pill for free in pharmacies.
2003 - North Korea announced that it was withdrawing from the global nuclear arms control treaty and that it had no plans to develop nuclear weapons.
Current Birthdays
Jake Delhomme turns 34 years old today
74 Eddy Clearwater
Blues musician
74 Ronnie Hawkins
Rock singer, musician
74 Sherrill Milnes
Opera singer
71 Willie McCovey
Baseball Hall of Famer
70 Scott McKenzie
Singer
69 Walter Hill
Writer-director
65 Frank Sinatra Jr.
Singer
64 Rod Stewart
Rock singer
61 Donald Fagen
Rock singer, musician (Steely Dan)
61 William Sanderson
Actor ("Deadwood," "Newhart")
60 George Foreman
Boxing Hall of Famer
59 Roy Blunt
House minority whip, R-Mo.
58 Alejandro Escovedo
Rock singer
57 Scott Thurston
Rock musician (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)
56 Pat Benatar
Rock singer
54 Michael Schenker
Rock musician (The Scorpions)
53 Shawn Colvin
Rock singer
50 Curt Kirkwood
Rock singer, musician (Meat Puppets)
48 Evan Handler
Actor
46 Mark Pryor
U.S. senator, D-Ark.
45 Brad Roberts
Rock singer (Crash Test Dummies)
42 Trini Alvarado
Actress
31 Matt Roberts
Rock musician (3 Doors Down)
31 Brent Smith
Rock singer (Shinedown)
30 Chris Smith
Rapper (Kris Kross)
29 DeShaun Foster
Football player
29 Sarah Shahi
Actress ("Life")
Historic Birthdays
Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova
1/10/1910 - 3/21/1998
Russian prima ballerina
48 Nicolaus Steno
1/10/1638 - 11/26/1686
Danish geologist and anatomist
68 John Emerich, Lord Acton
1/10/1834 - 6/19/1902
English historian
66 Yukichi Fukuzawa
1/10/1835 - 2/3/1901
Japanese educator and publisher
41 John Wellborn Root
1/10/1850 - 1/15/1891
American architect
71 Frederick Gardner Cottrell
1/10/1877 - 11/16/1948
American educator and scientist
83 Francis X. Bushman
1/10/1883 - 8/23/1966
American actor
94 Dumas Malone
1/10/1892 - 12/27/1986
American historian; wrote authoritative biography of Thomas Jefferson
87 Uri Zvi Greenberg
1/10/1894 - 5/8/1981
Hebrew and Yiddish poet
72 Dame Barbara Hepworth
1/10/1903 - 5/20/1975
English sculptor
83 Ray Bolger
1/10/1904 - 1/15/1987
American dancer and actor
84 Paul Henreid
1/10/1908 - 3/29/1992
Austrian-born American actor
49 BC - Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River signaling a war between Rome and Gaul.
1519 - Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I died.
1773 - The first public museum in America was established in Charleston, SC.
1866 - The Royal Aeronautical Society was founded in London.
1875 - Kwang-su was made emperor of China.
1882 - Thomas Edison's central station on Holborn Viaduct in London began operation.
1895 - The first performance of King Arthur took place at the Lyceum Theatre.
1896 - At Davidson College, several students took x-ray photographs. They created the first X-ray photographs to be made in America.
1908 - A wireless message was sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
1915 - The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.
1915 - The U.S. Congress established the Rocky Mountain National Park.
1926 - "Sam ‘n’ Henry" debuted on WGN Radio in Chicago, IL.
1932 - Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
1938 - Austria recognized the Franco government in Spain.
1940 - Soviet bombers raided cities in Finland.
1942 - U.S. President Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board.
1943 - The Office of Price Administration announced that standard frankfurters/hot dogs/wieners would be replaced by 'Victory Sausages.'
1945 - During World War II, Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe.
1948 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not discriminate against law-school applicants because of race.
1949 - "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends" was debuted on CBS-TV. The show stayed on the network for seven years.
1949 - "Kukla, Fran and Ollie", the Chicago-based children’s show, made its national debut on NBC-TV.
1955 - Rod Serling’s stellar career began with the TV production of "Patterns."
1960 - Dolph Schayes of the Syracuse Nationals became the first pro basketball player in the NBA to score more than 15,000 points in his career.
1964 - Leftist rebels in Zanzibar began their successful revolt against the government and a republic was proclaimed.
1966 - U.S. President Johnson said in his State of the Union address that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there was ended.
1966 - "Batman" debuted on ABC-TV.
1967 - "Dragnet" returned to NBC-TV after being off the network schedule for eight years.
1970 - The breakaway state of Biafra capitulated and the Nigerian civil war came to an end.
1970 - Nigeria's civil war ended.
1971 - "All In the Family" debuted on CBS-TV.
1973 - Yassar Arafat was re-elected as head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
1986 - Space shuttle Columbia blasted off with a crew that included the first Hispanic-American in space, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz.
1991 - The U.S. Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to use military power to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
1995 - Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew announced that as of January 16 British troops would no longer carry out daylight street patrols in Belfast.
1998 - Tyson Foods Inc. plead guilty to giving $12,000 to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. Tyson was fined $6 million.
1998 - 19 European nations agreed to prohibit human cloning.
1998 - Linda Tripp provided Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's office with taped conversations between herself and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
1999 - Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball was sold at auction in New York for $3 million to an anonymous bidder.
2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, gave police broad authority to stop and question people who run at the sight of an officer.
2000 - Charlotte Hornets guard Bobby Phills was killed in a crash during a drag race.
2005 - NASA launched "Deep Impact". The spacecraft was planned to impact on Comet Tempel 1 after a six-month, 268 million-mile journey.
2006 - The U.S. Mint began shipping new 5-cent coins to the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks. The coin has an image of Thomas Jefferson taken from a 1800 Rembrandt Peale portrait in which the president is looking forward. Since 1909, when presidents were first depicted on circulating coins, all presidents had been shown in profile.
Current Birthdays
Jeff Bezos turns 45 years old today.
99 Luise Rainer
Actress
83 Ray Price
Country singer
79 Glenn Yarborough
Singer
74 The Amazing Kreskin
Magician
70 William Lee Golden
Country singer (The Oak Ridge Boys)
65 Joe Frazier
Boxing Hall of Famer
65 Cynthia Robinson
Rock musician (Sly and the Family Stone)
63 George Duke
Jazz singer-musician
61 Anthony Andrews
Actor
60 Wayne Wang
Director
58 Kirstie Alley
Actress ("Cheers")
58 Rush Limbaugh
Radio talk show host
57 Walter Mosley
Author
57 Ricky Van Shelton
Country singer
55 Howard Stern
Radio talk show host
52 Tom Ardolino
Rock musician (NRBQ)
52 John Lasseter
Writer, director (Pixar films)
51 Christiane Amanpour
Broadcast journalist
49 Charlie Gillingham
Rock musician (Counting Crows)
49 Oliver Platt
Actor
49 Dominique Wilkins
Basketball Hall of Famer
43 Olivier Martinez
Actor
43 Rob Zombie
Rock singer
42 TBird
Rapper (B-Rock and the Bizz)
42 Vendela
Model
41 Farrah Forke
Actress
41 Rachael Harris
Actress
39 Zack de la Rocha
Rock singer (Rage Against the Machine)
39 Raekwon
Rapper (Wu-Tang Clan)
36 Matt Wong
Rock musician (Reel Big Fish)
35 Melanie Chisholm
Singer (Spice Girls)
29 Amerie
R&B singer
27 Dontrelle Willis
Baseball player
22 Will Rothhaar
Actor
21 Andrew Lawrence
Actor
Historic Birthdays
Jack London
1/12/1876 - 11/22/1916
American novelist
61 John Winthrop
1/12/1588 (O.S.) - 3/26/1649 (O.S.)
Massachusetts Bay Colony founder
75 Charles Perrault
1/12/1628 - 5/16/1703
French poet
56 John Hancock
1/12/1737(O.S.)- 10/8/1793 (O.S.)
American revolutionary leader
41 Jakob Michael Lenz
1/12/1751 - 5/24/1792
Russian-born German poet
69 Francis Henry Underwood
1/12/1825 - 8/7/1894
American lawyer/author
69 John Singer Sargent
1/12/1856 - 4/15/1925
Italian-born American artist
86 Max Eastman
1/12/1883 - 3/25/1969
American poet/editor
80 Louis Horst
1/12/1884 - 1/23/1964
American pianist/composer
53 Hermann Goering
1/12/1893 - 10/15/1946
German Nazi commander
1519 - Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I died.
1773 - The first public museum in America was established in Charleston, SC.
1866 - The Royal Aeronautical Society was founded in London.
1875 - Kwang-su was made emperor of China.
1882 - Thomas Edison's central station on Holborn Viaduct in London began operation.
1895 - The first performance of King Arthur took place at the Lyceum Theatre.
1896 - At Davidson College, several students took x-ray photographs. They created the first X-ray photographs to be made in America.
1908 - A wireless message was sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
1915 - The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.
1915 - The U.S. Congress established the Rocky Mountain National Park.
1926 - "Sam ‘n’ Henry" debuted on WGN Radio in Chicago, IL.
1932 - Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
1938 - Austria recognized the Franco government in Spain.
1940 - Soviet bombers raided cities in Finland.
1942 - U.S. President Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board.
1943 - The Office of Price Administration announced that standard frankfurters/hot dogs/wieners would be replaced by 'Victory Sausages.'
1945 - During World War II, Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe.
1948 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not discriminate against law-school applicants because of race.
1949 - "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends" was debuted on CBS-TV. The show stayed on the network for seven years.
1949 - "Kukla, Fran and Ollie", the Chicago-based children’s show, made its national debut on NBC-TV.
1955 - Rod Serling’s stellar career began with the TV production of "Patterns."
1960 - Dolph Schayes of the Syracuse Nationals became the first pro basketball player in the NBA to score more than 15,000 points in his career.
1964 - Leftist rebels in Zanzibar began their successful revolt against the government and a republic was proclaimed.
1966 - U.S. President Johnson said in his State of the Union address that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there was ended.
1966 - "Batman" debuted on ABC-TV.
1967 - "Dragnet" returned to NBC-TV after being off the network schedule for eight years.
1970 - The breakaway state of Biafra capitulated and the Nigerian civil war came to an end.
1970 - Nigeria's civil war ended.
1971 - "All In the Family" debuted on CBS-TV.
1973 - Yassar Arafat was re-elected as head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
1986 - Space shuttle Columbia blasted off with a crew that included the first Hispanic-American in space, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz.
1991 - The U.S. Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to use military power to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
1995 - Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew announced that as of January 16 British troops would no longer carry out daylight street patrols in Belfast.
1998 - Tyson Foods Inc. plead guilty to giving $12,000 to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. Tyson was fined $6 million.
1998 - 19 European nations agreed to prohibit human cloning.
1998 - Linda Tripp provided Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's office with taped conversations between herself and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
1999 - Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball was sold at auction in New York for $3 million to an anonymous bidder.
2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, gave police broad authority to stop and question people who run at the sight of an officer.
2000 - Charlotte Hornets guard Bobby Phills was killed in a crash during a drag race.
2005 - NASA launched "Deep Impact". The spacecraft was planned to impact on Comet Tempel 1 after a six-month, 268 million-mile journey.
2006 - The U.S. Mint began shipping new 5-cent coins to the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks. The coin has an image of Thomas Jefferson taken from a 1800 Rembrandt Peale portrait in which the president is looking forward. Since 1909, when presidents were first depicted on circulating coins, all presidents had been shown in profile.
Current Birthdays
Jeff Bezos turns 45 years old today.
99 Luise Rainer
Actress
83 Ray Price
Country singer
79 Glenn Yarborough
Singer
74 The Amazing Kreskin
Magician
70 William Lee Golden
Country singer (The Oak Ridge Boys)
65 Joe Frazier
Boxing Hall of Famer
65 Cynthia Robinson
Rock musician (Sly and the Family Stone)
63 George Duke
Jazz singer-musician
61 Anthony Andrews
Actor
60 Wayne Wang
Director
58 Kirstie Alley
Actress ("Cheers")
58 Rush Limbaugh
Radio talk show host
57 Walter Mosley
Author
57 Ricky Van Shelton
Country singer
55 Howard Stern
Radio talk show host
52 Tom Ardolino
Rock musician (NRBQ)
52 John Lasseter
Writer, director (Pixar films)
51 Christiane Amanpour
Broadcast journalist
49 Charlie Gillingham
Rock musician (Counting Crows)
49 Oliver Platt
Actor
49 Dominique Wilkins
Basketball Hall of Famer
43 Olivier Martinez
Actor
43 Rob Zombie
Rock singer
42 TBird
Rapper (B-Rock and the Bizz)
42 Vendela
Model
41 Farrah Forke
Actress
41 Rachael Harris
Actress
39 Zack de la Rocha
Rock singer (Rage Against the Machine)
39 Raekwon
Rapper (Wu-Tang Clan)
36 Matt Wong
Rock musician (Reel Big Fish)
35 Melanie Chisholm
Singer (Spice Girls)
29 Amerie
R&B singer
27 Dontrelle Willis
Baseball player
22 Will Rothhaar
Actor
21 Andrew Lawrence
Actor
Historic Birthdays
Jack London
1/12/1876 - 11/22/1916
American novelist
61 John Winthrop
1/12/1588 (O.S.) - 3/26/1649 (O.S.)
Massachusetts Bay Colony founder
75 Charles Perrault
1/12/1628 - 5/16/1703
French poet
56 John Hancock
1/12/1737(O.S.)- 10/8/1793 (O.S.)
American revolutionary leader
41 Jakob Michael Lenz
1/12/1751 - 5/24/1792
Russian-born German poet
69 Francis Henry Underwood
1/12/1825 - 8/7/1894
American lawyer/author
69 John Singer Sargent
1/12/1856 - 4/15/1925
Italian-born American artist
86 Max Eastman
1/12/1883 - 3/25/1969
American poet/editor
80 Louis Horst
1/12/1884 - 1/23/1964
American pianist/composer
53 Hermann Goering
1/12/1893 - 10/15/1946
German Nazi commander
1794 - U.S. President Washington approved a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the union.
1854 - Anthony Faas of Philadelphia, PA, patented the accordion.
1893 - Britain's Independent Labor Party, a precursor to the current Labor Party, met for the first time.
1898 - Emile Zola's "J'accuse" was published in Paris.
1900 - In Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph decreed that German would be the language of the imperial army to combat Czech nationalism.
1906 - Hugh Gernsback, of the Electro Importing Company, advertised radio receivers for sale for the price of just $7.50 in "Scientific American" magazine.
1928 - Ernst F. W. Alexanderson gave the first public demonstration of television.
1942 - Henry Ford patented the plastic automobile, which allowed for a 30% decrease in car weight.
1957 - Wham-O began producing "Pluto Platters." This marked the true beginning of production of the flying disc.
1962 - Ernie Kovacs died in a car crash in west Los Angeles, CA.
1966 - Elizabeth Montgomery’s character, Samantha, on "Bewitched," had a baby. The baby's name was Tabitha.
1966 - Robert C. Weaver became the first black Cabinet member when he was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by U.S. President Johnson.
1982 - An Air Florida 737 crashed into the capital's 14th Street Bridge after takeoff and fell into the Potomac River. 78 people were killed.
1984 - Wayne Gretzky extended his NHL consecutive scoring streak to 45 games.
1986 - The NCAA adopted the controversial "Proposal 48," which set standards for Division 1 freshman eligibility.
1986 - "The Wall Street Journal" printed a real picture on its front page. The journal had not done this in nearly 10 years. The story was about artist, O. Winston Link and featured one of his works.
1989 - Bernhard H. Goetz was sentenced to one year in prison for possession of an unlicensed gun that he used to shoot four youths he claimed were about to rob him. He was freed the following September.
1990 - L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, the nation's first elected black governor, took the oath of office in Richmond.
1992 - Japan apologized for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II.
1997 - Debbie Reynolds received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1998 - NBC agreed to pay almost $13 million for each episode of the TV show E.R. It was the highest amount ever paid for a TV show.
1998 - ABC and ESPN negotiated to keep "Monday Night Football" for $1.15 billion a season.
1998 - One of the 110 missing episodes of the British TV show "Doctor Who" was found in New Zealand.
1999 - Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls) announced his retirement from the NBA.
2002 - The exhibit "In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." opened at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. More than 100 artists supplied the collection of 120 works of art.
2002 - Japan and Singapore signed a free trade pact that would remove tariffs on almost all goods traded between the two countries.
2002 - U.S. President George W. Bush fainted after choking on a pretzel.
Current Birthdays
Patrick Dempsey turns 43 years old today.
79 Liz Anderson
Country singer
79 Frances Sternhagen
Actress
75 Rip Taylor
Comedian
71 Billy Gray
Actor ("Father Knows Best")
66 Richard Moll
Actor ("Night Court")
55 Trevor Rabin
Rock musician (Yes)
54 Fred White
R&B musician (Earth, Wind and Fire)
49 Kevin Anderson
Actor
48 Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Actress
48 Graham "Suggs" McPherson
Rock singer (Madness)
47 Trace Adkins
Country singer
45 Penelope Ann Miller
Actress
41 Traci Bingham
Actress ("Baywatch")
39 Keith Coogan
Actor
37 Nicole Eggert
Actress
32 Orlando Bloom
Actor ("Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Lord of the Rings" movies)
Historic Birthdays
Ross Granville Harrison
1/13/1870 - 9/30/1959
American zoologist
60 Jan van Goyen
1/13/1596 - 4/27/1656
Dutch artist
77 Christoph Graupner
1/13/1683 - 5/10/1760
German composer
81 Sir Isaac Goldsmid
1/13/1778 - 4/27/1859
English financier
65 Salmon Chase
1/13/1808 - 5/7/1873
American politician/lawyer
67 Horatio Alger
1/13/1832 - 7/18/1899
American author
51 Felix Tisserand
1/13/1845 - 10/20/1896
French astronomer
82 Sophie Tucker
1/13/1884 - 2/9/1966
American entertainer
68 Elmer Davis
1/13/1890 - 5/18/1958
American broadcaster/writer
90 A.B. Jr. Guthrie
1/13/1901 - 4/26/1991
American novelist
1854 - Anthony Faas of Philadelphia, PA, patented the accordion.
1893 - Britain's Independent Labor Party, a precursor to the current Labor Party, met for the first time.
1898 - Emile Zola's "J'accuse" was published in Paris.
1900 - In Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph decreed that German would be the language of the imperial army to combat Czech nationalism.
1906 - Hugh Gernsback, of the Electro Importing Company, advertised radio receivers for sale for the price of just $7.50 in "Scientific American" magazine.
1928 - Ernst F. W. Alexanderson gave the first public demonstration of television.
1942 - Henry Ford patented the plastic automobile, which allowed for a 30% decrease in car weight.
1957 - Wham-O began producing "Pluto Platters." This marked the true beginning of production of the flying disc.
1962 - Ernie Kovacs died in a car crash in west Los Angeles, CA.
1966 - Elizabeth Montgomery’s character, Samantha, on "Bewitched," had a baby. The baby's name was Tabitha.
1966 - Robert C. Weaver became the first black Cabinet member when he was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by U.S. President Johnson.
1982 - An Air Florida 737 crashed into the capital's 14th Street Bridge after takeoff and fell into the Potomac River. 78 people were killed.
1984 - Wayne Gretzky extended his NHL consecutive scoring streak to 45 games.
1986 - The NCAA adopted the controversial "Proposal 48," which set standards for Division 1 freshman eligibility.
1986 - "The Wall Street Journal" printed a real picture on its front page. The journal had not done this in nearly 10 years. The story was about artist, O. Winston Link and featured one of his works.
1989 - Bernhard H. Goetz was sentenced to one year in prison for possession of an unlicensed gun that he used to shoot four youths he claimed were about to rob him. He was freed the following September.
1990 - L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, the nation's first elected black governor, took the oath of office in Richmond.
1992 - Japan apologized for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II.
1997 - Debbie Reynolds received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1998 - NBC agreed to pay almost $13 million for each episode of the TV show E.R. It was the highest amount ever paid for a TV show.
1998 - ABC and ESPN negotiated to keep "Monday Night Football" for $1.15 billion a season.
1998 - One of the 110 missing episodes of the British TV show "Doctor Who" was found in New Zealand.
1999 - Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls) announced his retirement from the NBA.
2002 - The exhibit "In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." opened at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. More than 100 artists supplied the collection of 120 works of art.
2002 - Japan and Singapore signed a free trade pact that would remove tariffs on almost all goods traded between the two countries.
2002 - U.S. President George W. Bush fainted after choking on a pretzel.
Current Birthdays
Patrick Dempsey turns 43 years old today.
79 Liz Anderson
Country singer
79 Frances Sternhagen
Actress
75 Rip Taylor
Comedian
71 Billy Gray
Actor ("Father Knows Best")
66 Richard Moll
Actor ("Night Court")
55 Trevor Rabin
Rock musician (Yes)
54 Fred White
R&B musician (Earth, Wind and Fire)
49 Kevin Anderson
Actor
48 Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Actress
48 Graham "Suggs" McPherson
Rock singer (Madness)
47 Trace Adkins
Country singer
45 Penelope Ann Miller
Actress
41 Traci Bingham
Actress ("Baywatch")
39 Keith Coogan
Actor
37 Nicole Eggert
Actress
32 Orlando Bloom
Actor ("Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Lord of the Rings" movies)
Historic Birthdays
Ross Granville Harrison
1/13/1870 - 9/30/1959
American zoologist
60 Jan van Goyen
1/13/1596 - 4/27/1656
Dutch artist
77 Christoph Graupner
1/13/1683 - 5/10/1760
German composer
81 Sir Isaac Goldsmid
1/13/1778 - 4/27/1859
English financier
65 Salmon Chase
1/13/1808 - 5/7/1873
American politician/lawyer
67 Horatio Alger
1/13/1832 - 7/18/1899
American author
51 Felix Tisserand
1/13/1845 - 10/20/1896
French astronomer
82 Sophie Tucker
1/13/1884 - 2/9/1966
American entertainer
68 Elmer Davis
1/13/1890 - 5/18/1958
American broadcaster/writer
90 A.B. Jr. Guthrie
1/13/1901 - 4/26/1991
American novelist
1639 - Connecticut's first constitution, the "Fundamental Orders," was adopted.
1784 - The United States ratified a peace treaty with England ending the Revolutionary War.
1858 - French emperor Napoleon III escaped an attempt on his life.
1873 - John Hyatt's 1869 invention ‘Celluloid’ was registered as a trademark.
1878 - Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone for Britain's Queen Victoria.
1882 - The Myopia Hunt Club, in Winchester, MA, became the first country club in the United States.
1907 - An earthquake killed over 1,000 people in Kingston, Jamaica.
1939 - "Honolulu Bound" was heard on CBS radio for the first time.
1943 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane while in office. He flew from Miami, FL, to French Morocco where he met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to discuss World War II.
1951 - The first National Football League Pro Bowl All-Star Game was played in Los Angeles, CA.
1952 - NBC's "Today" show premiered.
1953 - Josip Broz Tito was elected president of Yugoslavia by the country's Parliament.
1954 - Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were married. The marriage only lasted nine months.
1954 - The Hudson Motor Car Company merged with Nash-Kelvinator. The new company was called the American Motors Corporation.
1963 - George C. Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama.
1969 - An explosion aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier Enterprise off Hawaii killed 25 crew members.
1972 - NBC-TV debuted "Sanford & Son."
1973 - The Miami Dolphins defeated the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII and became the first NFL team to go undefeated in a season.
1985 - Martina Navratilova won her 100th tournament. She joined Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert Lloyd as the only professional tennis players to win 100 tournaments.
1985 - Former Miss America, Phyllis George, joined Bill Kurtis as host of "The CBS Morning News".
1986 - "Rambo: First Blood, Part II" arrived at video stores. It broke the record set by "Ghostbusters", for first day orders. 435,000 copies of the video were sold.
1993 - Television talk show host David Letterman announced he was moving from NBC to CBS.
1993 - The British government pledged to introduce legislation to criminalize invasions of privacy by the press.
1994 - U.S. President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed Kremlin accords to stop aiming missiles at any nation and to dismantle the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine.
1996 - Jorge Sampaio was elected president of Portugal.
1996 - Juan Garcia Abrego was arrested by Mexican agents. The alleged drug lord was handed over to the FBI the next day.
1998 - Whitewater prosecutors questioned Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House for 10 minutes about the gathering of FBI background files on past Republican political appointees.
1998 - In Dallas, researchers report an enzyme that slows the aging process and cell death.
1999 - The impeachment trial of U.S. President Clinton began in Washington, DC.
1999 - The U.S. proposed the lifting of the U.N. ceilings on the sale of oil in Iraq. The restriction being that the money be used to buy medicine and food for the Iraqi people.
2000 - A U.N. tribunal sentenced five Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years for the 1993 massacre of over 100 Muslims in a Bosnian village.
2000 - The Dow Jones industrial average hit a new high when it closed at 11,722.98. Earlier in the session, the Dow had risen to 11,750.98. Both records stood until October 3, 2006.
2002 - NBC's "Today" celebrated its 50th anniversary on television.
2002 - Actor Brad Renfro, 19, was arrested after being stopped on a traffic violation. He was charged with public intoxication and driving without a license.
2004 - In St. Louis, a Lewis and Clark Exhibition opened at the Missouri History Museum. The exhibit featured 500 rare and priceless objects used by the Corps of Discovery.
2005 - A probe, from the Cassini-Huygens mission, sent back pictures during and after landing on Saturn's moon Titan. The mission was launched on October 15, 1997.
Current Birthdays
Jason Bateman turns 40 years old today.
90 Andy Rooney
Commentator ("60 Minutes")
73 Clarence Carter
Blues singer
72 Billie Jo Spears
Country singer
71 Jack Jones
Singer
71 Allen Toussaint
R&B singer, songwriter
69 Julian Bond
Civil rights activist
68 Faye Dunaway
Actress
66 Holland Taylor
Actress
62 Bev Perdue
Governor of North Carolina
61 T-Bone Burnett
Rock singer, producer
61 Carl Weathers
Actor
60 Lawrence Kasdan
Screenwriter, director
57 Maureen Dowd
Columnist
50 Geoff Tate
Rock singer (Queensryche)
46 Steven Soderbergh
Director
45 Mark Addy
Actor
45 Shepard Smith
Broadcast journalist ("The Fox Report")
44 Slick Rick
Rapper
43 Dan Schneider
Actor
42 Tom Rhodes
Actor, comedian
42 Emily Watson
Actress
42 Zakk Wylde
Rock musician
40 Dave Grohl
Rock singer, musician (Foo Fighters)
34 Jordan Ladd
Actress
27 Marc Broussard
Singer, songwriter
27 Caleb Followill
Rock musician (Kings of Leon)
26 Joe Guese
Rock musician (The Click Five)
Historic Birthdays
Albert Schweitzer
1/14/1875 - 9/4/1965
Alsatian/German physician
60 Benedict Arnold
1/14/1741 - 6/14/1801
American patriot/traitor
64 Henry Baldwin
1/14/1780 - 4/21/1844
American Supreme Court justice
54 Berthe Morisot
1/14/1841 - 3/2/1895
French painter/printmaker
77 Art Young
1/14/1866 - 12/29/1943
American cartoonist
61 Hugh Lofting
1/14/1886 - 9/26/1947
English/American author
100 Hal Roach
1/14/1892 - 11/2/1992
American producer/director
74 John Dos Passos
1/14/1896 - 9/28/1970
American writer/journalist
86 Carlos Romulo
1/14/1899 - 12/15/1985
Philippine diplomat
76 Sir Cecil Beaton
1/14/1904 - 1/18/1980
American photographer
1784 - The United States ratified a peace treaty with England ending the Revolutionary War.
1858 - French emperor Napoleon III escaped an attempt on his life.
1873 - John Hyatt's 1869 invention ‘Celluloid’ was registered as a trademark.
1878 - Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone for Britain's Queen Victoria.
1882 - The Myopia Hunt Club, in Winchester, MA, became the first country club in the United States.
1907 - An earthquake killed over 1,000 people in Kingston, Jamaica.
1939 - "Honolulu Bound" was heard on CBS radio for the first time.
1943 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane while in office. He flew from Miami, FL, to French Morocco where he met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to discuss World War II.
1951 - The first National Football League Pro Bowl All-Star Game was played in Los Angeles, CA.
1952 - NBC's "Today" show premiered.
1953 - Josip Broz Tito was elected president of Yugoslavia by the country's Parliament.
1954 - Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were married. The marriage only lasted nine months.
1954 - The Hudson Motor Car Company merged with Nash-Kelvinator. The new company was called the American Motors Corporation.
1963 - George C. Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama.
1969 - An explosion aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier Enterprise off Hawaii killed 25 crew members.
1972 - NBC-TV debuted "Sanford & Son."
1973 - The Miami Dolphins defeated the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII and became the first NFL team to go undefeated in a season.
1985 - Martina Navratilova won her 100th tournament. She joined Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert Lloyd as the only professional tennis players to win 100 tournaments.
1985 - Former Miss America, Phyllis George, joined Bill Kurtis as host of "The CBS Morning News".
1986 - "Rambo: First Blood, Part II" arrived at video stores. It broke the record set by "Ghostbusters", for first day orders. 435,000 copies of the video were sold.
1993 - Television talk show host David Letterman announced he was moving from NBC to CBS.
1993 - The British government pledged to introduce legislation to criminalize invasions of privacy by the press.
1994 - U.S. President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed Kremlin accords to stop aiming missiles at any nation and to dismantle the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine.
1996 - Jorge Sampaio was elected president of Portugal.
1996 - Juan Garcia Abrego was arrested by Mexican agents. The alleged drug lord was handed over to the FBI the next day.
1998 - Whitewater prosecutors questioned Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House for 10 minutes about the gathering of FBI background files on past Republican political appointees.
1998 - In Dallas, researchers report an enzyme that slows the aging process and cell death.
1999 - The impeachment trial of U.S. President Clinton began in Washington, DC.
1999 - The U.S. proposed the lifting of the U.N. ceilings on the sale of oil in Iraq. The restriction being that the money be used to buy medicine and food for the Iraqi people.
2000 - A U.N. tribunal sentenced five Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years for the 1993 massacre of over 100 Muslims in a Bosnian village.
2000 - The Dow Jones industrial average hit a new high when it closed at 11,722.98. Earlier in the session, the Dow had risen to 11,750.98. Both records stood until October 3, 2006.
2002 - NBC's "Today" celebrated its 50th anniversary on television.
2002 - Actor Brad Renfro, 19, was arrested after being stopped on a traffic violation. He was charged with public intoxication and driving without a license.
2004 - In St. Louis, a Lewis and Clark Exhibition opened at the Missouri History Museum. The exhibit featured 500 rare and priceless objects used by the Corps of Discovery.
2005 - A probe, from the Cassini-Huygens mission, sent back pictures during and after landing on Saturn's moon Titan. The mission was launched on October 15, 1997.
Current Birthdays
Jason Bateman turns 40 years old today.
90 Andy Rooney
Commentator ("60 Minutes")
73 Clarence Carter
Blues singer
72 Billie Jo Spears
Country singer
71 Jack Jones
Singer
71 Allen Toussaint
R&B singer, songwriter
69 Julian Bond
Civil rights activist
68 Faye Dunaway
Actress
66 Holland Taylor
Actress
62 Bev Perdue
Governor of North Carolina
61 T-Bone Burnett
Rock singer, producer
61 Carl Weathers
Actor
60 Lawrence Kasdan
Screenwriter, director
57 Maureen Dowd
Columnist
50 Geoff Tate
Rock singer (Queensryche)
46 Steven Soderbergh
Director
45 Mark Addy
Actor
45 Shepard Smith
Broadcast journalist ("The Fox Report")
44 Slick Rick
Rapper
43 Dan Schneider
Actor
42 Tom Rhodes
Actor, comedian
42 Emily Watson
Actress
42 Zakk Wylde
Rock musician
40 Dave Grohl
Rock singer, musician (Foo Fighters)
34 Jordan Ladd
Actress
27 Marc Broussard
Singer, songwriter
27 Caleb Followill
Rock musician (Kings of Leon)
26 Joe Guese
Rock musician (The Click Five)
Historic Birthdays
Albert Schweitzer
1/14/1875 - 9/4/1965
Alsatian/German physician
60 Benedict Arnold
1/14/1741 - 6/14/1801
American patriot/traitor
64 Henry Baldwin
1/14/1780 - 4/21/1844
American Supreme Court justice
54 Berthe Morisot
1/14/1841 - 3/2/1895
French painter/printmaker
77 Art Young
1/14/1866 - 12/29/1943
American cartoonist
61 Hugh Lofting
1/14/1886 - 9/26/1947
English/American author
100 Hal Roach
1/14/1892 - 11/2/1992
American producer/director
74 John Dos Passos
1/14/1896 - 9/28/1970
American writer/journalist
86 Carlos Romulo
1/14/1899 - 12/15/1985
Philippine diplomat
76 Sir Cecil Beaton
1/14/1904 - 1/18/1980
American photographer
1559 - England's Queen Elizabeth I (Elizabeth Tudor) was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
1777 - The people of New Connecticut (now the state of Vermont) declared their independence.
1844 - The University of Notre Dame received its charter from the state of Indiana.
1863 - "The Boston Morning Journal" became the first paper in the U.S. to be published on wood pulp paper.
1870 - A cartoon by Thomas Nast titled "A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" appeared in "Harper's Weekly." The cartoon used the donkey to symbolize the Democratic Party for the first time.
1892 - "Triangle" magazine in Springfield, MA, published the rules for a brand new game. The original rules involved attaching a peach baskets to a suspended board. It is now known as basketball.
1899 - Edwin Markham's poem, "The Man With a Hoe," was published for the first time.
1906 - Willie Hoppe won the billiard championship of the world in Paris, France.
1908 - Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority became America's first Greek-letter organization established by African-American college women.
1936 - The first, all glass, windowless building was completed in Toledo, OH. The building was the new home of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company Laboratory.
1943 - The Pentagon was dedicated as the world's largest office building just outside Washington, DC, in Arlington, VA. The structure covers 34 acres of land and has 17 miles of corridors.
1945 - CBS Radio debuted "House Party". The show was on the air for 22 years.
1953 - Harry S Truman became the first U.S. President to use radio and television to give his farewell as he left office.
1955 - The first solar-heated, radiation-cooled house was built by Raymond Bliss in Tucson, AZ.
1967 - The first National Football League Super Bowl was played. The Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League. The final score was 35-10.
1973 - U.S. President Nixon announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam. He cited progress in peace negotiations as the reason.
1974 - "Happy Days" premiered on ABC-TV.
1976 - Sara Jane Moore was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of U.S. President Ford in San Francisco.
1978 - Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, two students at Florida State University in Tallahassee, were murdered in their sorority house. Ted Bundy was later convicted of the crime and was executed.
1987 - Paramount Home Video reported that it would place a commercial at the front of one of its video releases for the first time. It was a 30-second Diet Pepsi ad at the beginning of "Top Gun."
1998 - Lance Carvin, a stalker of Howard Stern, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for threatening to kill Stern and his family.
2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Congress had permission to repeatedly extend copyright protection.
Current Birthdays
Matt Holliday turns 29 years old today.
72 Margaret O'Brien
Actress
68 Captain Beefheart
Singer
62 Andrea Martin
Actress
52 Mario Van Peebles
Actor, director
44 James Nesbitt
Actor
42 Lisa Lisa
Singer (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam)
38 Regina King
Actress
34 Mary Pierce
Tennis player
31 Eddie Cahill
Actor ("CSI: NY")
28 Pitbull
Rapper, reggaeton artist
Historic Birthdays
Martin Luther King
1/15/1929 - 4/4/1968
American minister and civil rights leader
51 (Jean B. Poquelin) Moliere
1/15/1622 - 2/17/1673
French playwright
75 Jean Coralli
1/15/1779 - 5/1/1854
French dancer/choreographer
76 Abigail Kelley Foster
1/15/1810 - 1/14/1887
American feminist/abolitionist
83 Josef Breuer
1/15/1842 - 6/20/1925
Austrian physician/physiologist
84 Pierre Samuel du Pont
1/15/1870 - 4/5/1954
American businessman
78 Arturi Virtanen
1/15/1895 - 11/11/1973
Finnish biochemist
83 Goodman Ace
1/15/1899 - 3/25/1982
American writer/producer
64 Gene Krupa
1/15/1909 - 10/16/1973
American jazz drummer
52 Gamal Nasser
1/15/1918 - 9/28/1970
Egyptian Prime Minister
1777 - The people of New Connecticut (now the state of Vermont) declared their independence.
1844 - The University of Notre Dame received its charter from the state of Indiana.
1863 - "The Boston Morning Journal" became the first paper in the U.S. to be published on wood pulp paper.
1870 - A cartoon by Thomas Nast titled "A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" appeared in "Harper's Weekly." The cartoon used the donkey to symbolize the Democratic Party for the first time.
1892 - "Triangle" magazine in Springfield, MA, published the rules for a brand new game. The original rules involved attaching a peach baskets to a suspended board. It is now known as basketball.
1899 - Edwin Markham's poem, "The Man With a Hoe," was published for the first time.
1906 - Willie Hoppe won the billiard championship of the world in Paris, France.
1908 - Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority became America's first Greek-letter organization established by African-American college women.
1936 - The first, all glass, windowless building was completed in Toledo, OH. The building was the new home of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company Laboratory.
1943 - The Pentagon was dedicated as the world's largest office building just outside Washington, DC, in Arlington, VA. The structure covers 34 acres of land and has 17 miles of corridors.
1945 - CBS Radio debuted "House Party". The show was on the air for 22 years.
1953 - Harry S Truman became the first U.S. President to use radio and television to give his farewell as he left office.
1955 - The first solar-heated, radiation-cooled house was built by Raymond Bliss in Tucson, AZ.
1967 - The first National Football League Super Bowl was played. The Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League. The final score was 35-10.
1973 - U.S. President Nixon announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam. He cited progress in peace negotiations as the reason.
1974 - "Happy Days" premiered on ABC-TV.
1976 - Sara Jane Moore was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of U.S. President Ford in San Francisco.
1978 - Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, two students at Florida State University in Tallahassee, were murdered in their sorority house. Ted Bundy was later convicted of the crime and was executed.
1987 - Paramount Home Video reported that it would place a commercial at the front of one of its video releases for the first time. It was a 30-second Diet Pepsi ad at the beginning of "Top Gun."
1998 - Lance Carvin, a stalker of Howard Stern, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for threatening to kill Stern and his family.
2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Congress had permission to repeatedly extend copyright protection.
Current Birthdays
Matt Holliday turns 29 years old today.
72 Margaret O'Brien
Actress
68 Captain Beefheart
Singer
62 Andrea Martin
Actress
52 Mario Van Peebles
Actor, director
44 James Nesbitt
Actor
42 Lisa Lisa
Singer (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam)
38 Regina King
Actress
34 Mary Pierce
Tennis player
31 Eddie Cahill
Actor ("CSI: NY")
28 Pitbull
Rapper, reggaeton artist
Historic Birthdays
Martin Luther King
1/15/1929 - 4/4/1968
American minister and civil rights leader
51 (Jean B. Poquelin) Moliere
1/15/1622 - 2/17/1673
French playwright
75 Jean Coralli
1/15/1779 - 5/1/1854
French dancer/choreographer
76 Abigail Kelley Foster
1/15/1810 - 1/14/1887
American feminist/abolitionist
83 Josef Breuer
1/15/1842 - 6/20/1925
Austrian physician/physiologist
84 Pierre Samuel du Pont
1/15/1870 - 4/5/1954
American businessman
78 Arturi Virtanen
1/15/1895 - 11/11/1973
Finnish biochemist
83 Goodman Ace
1/15/1899 - 3/25/1982
American writer/producer
64 Gene Krupa
1/15/1909 - 10/16/1973
American jazz drummer
52 Gamal Nasser
1/15/1918 - 9/28/1970
Egyptian Prime Minister
1377 - The Papal See was transferred from Avignon in France back to Rome.
1562 - French Protestants were recognized under the Edict of St. Germain.
1773 - Captain Cook's Resolution became the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle.
1795 - The Dudingston Curling Society was organized in Edinburgh, Scotland.
1806 - James Madison Randolph, grandson of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, was the first child born in the White House.
1852 - The independence of the Transvaal Boers was recognized by Britain.
1871 - Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for a cable car system.
1882 - Thomas Edison's exhibit opened the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London.
1893 - Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.
1900 - The U.S. took Wake Island where there was in important cable link between Hawaii and Manila.
1900 - Yaqui Indians in Texas proclaimed their independence from Mexico.
1900 - Mormon Brigham Roberts was denied a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for his practicing of polygamy.
1905 - Punchboards were patented by a manufacturing firm in Chicago, IL.
1912 - English explorer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole. Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him there by one month. Scott and his party died during the return trip.
1913 - All partner interests in 36 Golden Rule Stores were consolidated and incorporated in Utah into one company. The new corporation was the J.C. Penney Company.
1916 - The Professional Golfers Association was formed in New York City.
1928 - The fully automatic, film-developing machine was patented by A.M. Josepho.
1934 - Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design for a people's car, a "Volkswagen," to the new German Reich government.
1938 - "Stepmother" debuted on CBS radio.
1945 - Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II.
1945 - Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Wallenberg was credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews.
1946 - The United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.
1949 - "The Goldbergs" debuted on CBS-TV. The program had been on radio since 1931. The TV version lasted for four years.
1959 - Senegal and the French Sudan joined to form the Federal State of Mali.
1961 - In his farewell address, U.S. President Eisenhower warned against the rise of "the military-industrial complex."
1966 - A B-52 carrying four H-bombs collided with a refuelling tanker. The bombs were released and eight crewmembers were killed.
1977 - Double murderer Gary Gilmore became the first to be executed in the U.S. in a decade. The firing squad took place at Utah State Prison.
1985 - Leonard Nimoy got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1991 - Coalition airstrikes began against Iraq after negotiations failed to get Iraq to retreat from the country of Kuwait.
1992 - An IRA bomb, placed next to a remote country road in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killed seven building workers and injured seven others.
1994 - The Northridge earthquake rocked Los Angeles, CA, registering a 6.7 on the Richter Scale. At least 61 people were killed and about $20 billion in damage was caused.
1995 - More than 6,000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.
1997 - A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history.
1997 - Israel gave over 80% of Hebron to Palestinian rule, but held the remainder where several hundred Jewish settlers lived among 20,000 Palestinians.
1998 - U.S. President Clinton gave his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He was the first U.S. President to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil lawsuit.
2000 - British pharmaceutical companies Glaxo Wellcome PLC and SmithKline Beecham PLC agreed to a merger that created the world's largest drugmaker.
2001 - Congo's President Laurent Kabila was shot and killed during a coup attempt. Congolese officials temporarily placed Kabila's son in charge of the government.
2001 - The director of Palestinian TV, Hisham Miki, was killed at a restaurant when three masked gunmen walked up to his table and shot him more than 10 times.
2002 - It was announced that Microsoft had signed a joint venture agreement to produce software with two partners in China. The two partners were Beijin Centergate Technologies (Holding) Co. and the Stone Group.
Current Birthdays
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. turns 55 years old today
87 Betty White
Actress ("The Golden Girls")
78 James Earl Jones
Actor
78 Don Zimmer
Baseball coach
74 Ruth Ann Minner
Governor of Delaware
70 Maury Povich
Talk show host
67 Muhammad Ali
Boxing Hall of Famer
67 Chris Montez
Singer
64 William Hart
R&B singer (The Delfonics)
61 Mick Taylor
Rock musician (Rolling Stones)
56 Sheila Hutchinson
R&B singer (The Emotions)
54 Steve Earle
Rock singer
53 Paul Young
Rock singer
52 Steve Harvey
Actor, comedian
50 Susanna Hoffs
Rock musician, singer (The Bangles)
47 Jim Carrey
Actor
45 Michelle Obama
Wife of President-elect Barack Obama
43 Joshua Malina
Actor ("The West Wing," "Sports Night")
43 Shabba Ranks
Reggae singer
40 Naveen Andrews
Actor ("Lost")
38 Kid Rock
Rapper
34 Freddy Rodriguez
Actor ("Six Feet Under")
28 Ray J
Actor, R&B singer
27 Amanda Wilkinson
Country singer (The Wilkinsons)
Historic Birthdays
Al Capone
1/17/1899 - 1/25/1947
American gangster
62 Philip II of Burgandy
1/17/1342 - 4/27/1404
French Duke
59 Guarino Guarini
1/17/1624 - 3/6/1683
Italian architect
69 Jacques-Francois Blondel
1/17/1705 - 1/9/1774
French architect
29 Anne Bronte
1/17/1820 - 5/28/1849
English novelist
82 David Lloyd George
1/17/1863 - 3/26/1945
English Prime Minister
80 Mack Sennett
1/17/1880 - 11/5/1960
American director/producer
69 Glenn Martin
1/17/1886 - 12/4/1955
American airplane inventor
61 Nevil Shute
1/17/1899 - 1/12/1960
English/Australian writer
78 Robert M. Hutchins
1/17/1899 - 5/14/1977
American educator
67 Nora Kaye
1/17/1920 - 2/28/1987
American ballerina
34 Thomas Dooley
1/17/1927 - 1/18/1961
American physician/author
1562 - French Protestants were recognized under the Edict of St. Germain.
1773 - Captain Cook's Resolution became the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle.
1795 - The Dudingston Curling Society was organized in Edinburgh, Scotland.
1806 - James Madison Randolph, grandson of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, was the first child born in the White House.
1852 - The independence of the Transvaal Boers was recognized by Britain.
1871 - Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for a cable car system.
1882 - Thomas Edison's exhibit opened the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London.
1893 - Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.
1900 - The U.S. took Wake Island where there was in important cable link between Hawaii and Manila.
1900 - Yaqui Indians in Texas proclaimed their independence from Mexico.
1900 - Mormon Brigham Roberts was denied a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for his practicing of polygamy.
1905 - Punchboards were patented by a manufacturing firm in Chicago, IL.
1912 - English explorer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole. Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him there by one month. Scott and his party died during the return trip.
1913 - All partner interests in 36 Golden Rule Stores were consolidated and incorporated in Utah into one company. The new corporation was the J.C. Penney Company.
1916 - The Professional Golfers Association was formed in New York City.
1928 - The fully automatic, film-developing machine was patented by A.M. Josepho.
1934 - Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design for a people's car, a "Volkswagen," to the new German Reich government.
1938 - "Stepmother" debuted on CBS radio.
1945 - Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II.
1945 - Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Wallenberg was credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews.
1946 - The United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.
1949 - "The Goldbergs" debuted on CBS-TV. The program had been on radio since 1931. The TV version lasted for four years.
1959 - Senegal and the French Sudan joined to form the Federal State of Mali.
1961 - In his farewell address, U.S. President Eisenhower warned against the rise of "the military-industrial complex."
1966 - A B-52 carrying four H-bombs collided with a refuelling tanker. The bombs were released and eight crewmembers were killed.
1977 - Double murderer Gary Gilmore became the first to be executed in the U.S. in a decade. The firing squad took place at Utah State Prison.
1985 - Leonard Nimoy got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1991 - Coalition airstrikes began against Iraq after negotiations failed to get Iraq to retreat from the country of Kuwait.
1992 - An IRA bomb, placed next to a remote country road in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killed seven building workers and injured seven others.
1994 - The Northridge earthquake rocked Los Angeles, CA, registering a 6.7 on the Richter Scale. At least 61 people were killed and about $20 billion in damage was caused.
1995 - More than 6,000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.
1997 - A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history.
1997 - Israel gave over 80% of Hebron to Palestinian rule, but held the remainder where several hundred Jewish settlers lived among 20,000 Palestinians.
1998 - U.S. President Clinton gave his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He was the first U.S. President to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil lawsuit.
2000 - British pharmaceutical companies Glaxo Wellcome PLC and SmithKline Beecham PLC agreed to a merger that created the world's largest drugmaker.
2001 - Congo's President Laurent Kabila was shot and killed during a coup attempt. Congolese officials temporarily placed Kabila's son in charge of the government.
2001 - The director of Palestinian TV, Hisham Miki, was killed at a restaurant when three masked gunmen walked up to his table and shot him more than 10 times.
2002 - It was announced that Microsoft had signed a joint venture agreement to produce software with two partners in China. The two partners were Beijin Centergate Technologies (Holding) Co. and the Stone Group.
Current Birthdays
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. turns 55 years old today
87 Betty White
Actress ("The Golden Girls")
78 James Earl Jones
Actor
78 Don Zimmer
Baseball coach
74 Ruth Ann Minner
Governor of Delaware
70 Maury Povich
Talk show host
67 Muhammad Ali
Boxing Hall of Famer
67 Chris Montez
Singer
64 William Hart
R&B singer (The Delfonics)
61 Mick Taylor
Rock musician (Rolling Stones)
56 Sheila Hutchinson
R&B singer (The Emotions)
54 Steve Earle
Rock singer
53 Paul Young
Rock singer
52 Steve Harvey
Actor, comedian
50 Susanna Hoffs
Rock musician, singer (The Bangles)
47 Jim Carrey
Actor
45 Michelle Obama
Wife of President-elect Barack Obama
43 Joshua Malina
Actor ("The West Wing," "Sports Night")
43 Shabba Ranks
Reggae singer
40 Naveen Andrews
Actor ("Lost")
38 Kid Rock
Rapper
34 Freddy Rodriguez
Actor ("Six Feet Under")
28 Ray J
Actor, R&B singer
27 Amanda Wilkinson
Country singer (The Wilkinsons)
Historic Birthdays
Al Capone
1/17/1899 - 1/25/1947
American gangster
62 Philip II of Burgandy
1/17/1342 - 4/27/1404
French Duke
59 Guarino Guarini
1/17/1624 - 3/6/1683
Italian architect
69 Jacques-Francois Blondel
1/17/1705 - 1/9/1774
French architect
29 Anne Bronte
1/17/1820 - 5/28/1849
English novelist
82 David Lloyd George
1/17/1863 - 3/26/1945
English Prime Minister
80 Mack Sennett
1/17/1880 - 11/5/1960
American director/producer
69 Glenn Martin
1/17/1886 - 12/4/1955
American airplane inventor
61 Nevil Shute
1/17/1899 - 1/12/1960
English/Australian writer
78 Robert M. Hutchins
1/17/1899 - 5/14/1977
American educator
67 Nora Kaye
1/17/1920 - 2/28/1987
American ballerina
34 Thomas Dooley
1/17/1927 - 1/18/1961
American physician/author
1803 - Thomas Jefferson, in secret communication with Congress, sopught authorization for the first official exploration by the U.S. government.
1778 - English navigator Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he called the "Sandwich Islands."
1788 - The first English settlers arrived in Australia's Botany Bay to establish a penal colony. The group moved north eight days later and settled at Port Jackson.
1871 - Wilhelm, King of Prussia from 1861, was proclaimed the first German Emperor.
1886 - The Hockey Association was formed in England. This date is the birthday of modern field hockey.
1896 - The x-ray machine was exhibited for the first time.
1911 - For the first time an aircraft landed on a ship. Pilot Eugene B. Ely flew onto the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbor.
1919 - The World War I Peace Congress opened in Versailles, France.
1929 - Walter Winchell made his debut on radio.
1937 - CBS radio debuted "Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories".
1939 - Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded "Jeepers Creepers."
1943 - During World War II, the Soviets announced that they had broken the Nazi siege of Leningrad, which had began in September of 1941.
1943 - U.S. commercial bakers stopped selling sliced bread. Only whole loaves were sold during the ban until the end of World War II.
1948 - "The Original Amateur Hour" debuted. The show was on the air for 22 years.
1950 - The federal tax on oleomargarine was repealed.
1951 - Joan Blondell made her TV debut on "Pot of Gold" episode of "Airflyte Theatre" on CBS-TV.
1957 - The first, non-stop, around-the-world, jet flight came to an end at Riverside, CA. The plane was refueled in mid-flight by huge aerial tankers.
1958 - Willie O'Ree made his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins. He was the first black player to enter the league.
1967 - Albert DeSalvo, who claimed to be the "Boston Strangler," was convicted in Cambridge, MA, of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison. Desalvo was killed in 1973 by a fellow inmate.
1972 - Former Rhodesian prime minister Garfield Todd and his daughter were placed under house arrest for campaigning against Rhodesian independence.
1975 - "The Jeffersons" debuted on CBS-TV.
1978 - The European Court of Human Rights cleared the British government of torture but found it guilty of inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners in Northern Ireland.
1985 - Mary Decker broke a world, indoor record when she ran the women’s, 2,000-meter race in 5:34.2. She also ran the outdoor mile in 4:16.7.
1987 - For the first time in history the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) was seen by over 100 million viewers. The audience was measured during the week of January 12-18.
1990 - A jury in Los Angeles, CA, acquitted former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, of 52 child molestation charges.
1990 - In an FBI sting, Washington, DC, Mayor Marion Barry was arrested for drug possession. He was later convicted of a misdemeanor.
1991 - Eastern Airlines shut down after 62 years in business due to financial problems.
1993 - The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was observed in all 50 U.S. states for the first time.
1995 - A network of caves were discovered near the town of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in southern France. The caves contained paintings and engravings that were 17,000 to 20,000 years old.
1997 - Hutu militiamen killed three Spanish aid workers and three soldiers and seriously wound an American in a night attack in NW Rwanda.
2002 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of a saliva-based ovulation test.
1778 - English navigator Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he called the "Sandwich Islands."
1788 - The first English settlers arrived in Australia's Botany Bay to establish a penal colony. The group moved north eight days later and settled at Port Jackson.
1871 - Wilhelm, King of Prussia from 1861, was proclaimed the first German Emperor.
1886 - The Hockey Association was formed in England. This date is the birthday of modern field hockey.
1896 - The x-ray machine was exhibited for the first time.
1911 - For the first time an aircraft landed on a ship. Pilot Eugene B. Ely flew onto the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbor.
1919 - The World War I Peace Congress opened in Versailles, France.
1929 - Walter Winchell made his debut on radio.
1937 - CBS radio debuted "Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories".
1939 - Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded "Jeepers Creepers."
1943 - During World War II, the Soviets announced that they had broken the Nazi siege of Leningrad, which had began in September of 1941.
1943 - U.S. commercial bakers stopped selling sliced bread. Only whole loaves were sold during the ban until the end of World War II.
1948 - "The Original Amateur Hour" debuted. The show was on the air for 22 years.
1950 - The federal tax on oleomargarine was repealed.
1951 - Joan Blondell made her TV debut on "Pot of Gold" episode of "Airflyte Theatre" on CBS-TV.
1957 - The first, non-stop, around-the-world, jet flight came to an end at Riverside, CA. The plane was refueled in mid-flight by huge aerial tankers.
1958 - Willie O'Ree made his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins. He was the first black player to enter the league.
1967 - Albert DeSalvo, who claimed to be the "Boston Strangler," was convicted in Cambridge, MA, of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison. Desalvo was killed in 1973 by a fellow inmate.
1972 - Former Rhodesian prime minister Garfield Todd and his daughter were placed under house arrest for campaigning against Rhodesian independence.
1975 - "The Jeffersons" debuted on CBS-TV.
1978 - The European Court of Human Rights cleared the British government of torture but found it guilty of inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners in Northern Ireland.
1985 - Mary Decker broke a world, indoor record when she ran the women’s, 2,000-meter race in 5:34.2. She also ran the outdoor mile in 4:16.7.
1987 - For the first time in history the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) was seen by over 100 million viewers. The audience was measured during the week of January 12-18.
1990 - A jury in Los Angeles, CA, acquitted former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, of 52 child molestation charges.
1990 - In an FBI sting, Washington, DC, Mayor Marion Barry was arrested for drug possession. He was later convicted of a misdemeanor.
1991 - Eastern Airlines shut down after 62 years in business due to financial problems.
1993 - The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was observed in all 50 U.S. states for the first time.
1995 - A network of caves were discovered near the town of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in southern France. The caves contained paintings and engravings that were 17,000 to 20,000 years old.
1997 - Hutu militiamen killed three Spanish aid workers and three soldiers and seriously wound an American in a night attack in NW Rwanda.
2002 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of a saliva-based ovulation test.
1419 - Rouen surrendered to Henry V, completing his conquest of Normandy.
1764 - John Wilkes was expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.
1793 - King Louis XVI was tried by the French Convention, found guilty of treason and sentenced to the guillotine.
1825 - Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett of New York City patented a canning process to preserve salmon, oysters and lobsters.
1861 - Georgia seceded from the Union.
1883 - Thomas Edison's first village electric lighting system using overhead wires began operation in Roselle, NJ.
1907 - The first film reviews appeared in "Variety" magazine.
1915 - George Claude, of Paris, France, patented the neon discharge tube for use in advertising signs.
1915 - More than 20 people were killed when German zeppelins bombed England for the first time. The bombs were dropped on Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.
1937 - Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record. He flew from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
1942 - The Japanese invaded Burma (later Myanmar).
1944 - The U.S. federal government relinquished control of the nation's railroads after the settlement of a wage dispute.
1949 - The salary of the President of the United States was increased from $75,000 to $100,000 with an additional $50,000 expense allowance for each year in office.
1952 - The National Football League (NFL) bought the franchise of the New York Yankees from Ted Collins. The franchise was then awarded to a group in Dallas on January 24.
1953 - Sixty-eight percent of all TV sets in the U.S. were tuned to CBS-TV, as Lucy Ricardo, of "I Love Lucy," gave birth to a baby boy.
1955 - U.S. President Eisenhower allowed a filmed news conference to be used on television (and in movie newsreels) for the first time.
1957 - Philadelphia comedian, Ernie Kovacs, did a half-hour TV show without saying a single word of dialogue.
1966 - Indira Gandhi was elected prime minister of India.
1969 - In protest against the Russian invasion of 1968, Czech student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square.
1971 - At the Charles Manson murder trial, the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" was played. At the scene of one of his gruesome murders, the words "helter skelter" were written on a mirror.
1971 - "No, No Nanette" opened at the 46th Street Theatre in New York City.
1977 - U.S. President Ford pardoned Iva Toguri D'Aquino (the "Tokyo Rose").
1979 - Former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell was released on parole after serving 19 months at a federal prison in Alabama.
1981 - The U.S. and Iran signed an agreement paving the way for the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months and for arrangements to unfreeze Iranian assets and to resolve all claims against Iran.
1993 - IBM announced a loss of $4.97 billion for 1992. It was the largest single-year loss in U.S. corporate history.
1995 - Russian forces overwhelmed the resistance forces in Chechnya.
1996 - U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury. The investigation was concerning the discovery of billing records related to the Whitewater real estate investment venture.
1997 - Yasser Arafat returned to Hebron for the first time in more than 30 years. He joined 60,000 Palestinians in celebration over the handover of the last West Bank city in Israeli control.
2000 - In New York's Time Square, the first WWF restraunt opened.
2001 - Texas officials demoted a warden and suspended three other prison workers in the wake of the escape of the "Texas 7."
Current Birthdays
Shawn Johnson turns 17 years old today.
86 Jean Stapleton
Actress ("All in the Family")
83 Fritz Weaver
Actor
79 Tippi Hedren
Actress ("The Birds")
78 Robert MacNeil
Journalist
77 Richard Lester
Movie director
70 Phil Everly
Singer (The Everly Brothers)
67 Michael Crawford
Actor, singer
65 Shelley Fabares
Actress
65 Dan Reeves
Football coach
63 Dolly Parton
Country singer, actress
62 Ann Compton
Broadcast journalist
62 Paula Deen
TV chef
58 Martha Davis
Rock singer (The Motels)
57 Dewey Bunnell
Singer (America)
56 Desi Arnaz Jr.
Actor
54 Paul Rodriguez
Comedian
52 Katey Sagal
Actress ("Married ... With Children")
52 Mickey Virtue
Reggae musician (UB40)
48 Paul McCrane
Actor
48 William Ragsdale
Actor
43 Stefan Edberg
Tennis Hall of Famer
41 Whitfield Crane
Rock singer (Ugly Kid Joe)
40 Trey Lorenz
R&B singer
40 Junior Seau
Football player
38 Eric Mangini
Football coach
38 John Wozniak
Rock musician (Marcy Playground)
37 Drea de Matteo
Actress ("The Sopranos")
35 Frank Caliendo
Comedian, impressionist ("Frank TV")
33 Marsha Thomason
Actress
27 Jodie Sweetin
Actress ("Full House")
17 Logan Lerman
Actor
Historic Birthdays
Robert E. Lee
1/19/1807 - 10/12/1870
American Civil War general
53 Tai Chen
1/19/1724 - 7/1/1777
Chinese philosopher
83 James Watt
1/19/1736 - 8/25/1819
Scottish steam engine inventor
82 Isaiah Thomas
1/19/1749 - 4/4/1831
American anti-British journalist
67 Auguste Comte
1/19/1790 - 9/5/1857
French philosopher
40 Edgar Allan Poe
1/19/1809 - 10/7/1849
American writer/poet
95 William Keen
1/19/1837 - 6/7/1932
American-1st Am. Brain surgeon
67 Paul Cezanne
1/19/1839 - 10/22/1906
French Post-Impressionist painter
79 George Trumbull Ladd
1/19/1842 - 8/8/1921
American philosopher/psychologist
56 Alexander Woollcott
1/19/1887 - 1/23/1943
American author/critic
72 Olafur Thors
1/19/1892 - 12/31/1964
Icelandic Prime Minister
90 Oveta Culp Hobby
1/19/1905 - 8/16/1995
American publisher and first secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1953-55)
1764 - John Wilkes was expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.
1793 - King Louis XVI was tried by the French Convention, found guilty of treason and sentenced to the guillotine.
1825 - Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett of New York City patented a canning process to preserve salmon, oysters and lobsters.
1861 - Georgia seceded from the Union.
1883 - Thomas Edison's first village electric lighting system using overhead wires began operation in Roselle, NJ.
1907 - The first film reviews appeared in "Variety" magazine.
1915 - George Claude, of Paris, France, patented the neon discharge tube for use in advertising signs.
1915 - More than 20 people were killed when German zeppelins bombed England for the first time. The bombs were dropped on Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.
1937 - Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record. He flew from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
1942 - The Japanese invaded Burma (later Myanmar).
1944 - The U.S. federal government relinquished control of the nation's railroads after the settlement of a wage dispute.
1949 - The salary of the President of the United States was increased from $75,000 to $100,000 with an additional $50,000 expense allowance for each year in office.
1952 - The National Football League (NFL) bought the franchise of the New York Yankees from Ted Collins. The franchise was then awarded to a group in Dallas on January 24.
1953 - Sixty-eight percent of all TV sets in the U.S. were tuned to CBS-TV, as Lucy Ricardo, of "I Love Lucy," gave birth to a baby boy.
1955 - U.S. President Eisenhower allowed a filmed news conference to be used on television (and in movie newsreels) for the first time.
1957 - Philadelphia comedian, Ernie Kovacs, did a half-hour TV show without saying a single word of dialogue.
1966 - Indira Gandhi was elected prime minister of India.
1969 - In protest against the Russian invasion of 1968, Czech student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square.
1971 - At the Charles Manson murder trial, the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" was played. At the scene of one of his gruesome murders, the words "helter skelter" were written on a mirror.
1971 - "No, No Nanette" opened at the 46th Street Theatre in New York City.
1977 - U.S. President Ford pardoned Iva Toguri D'Aquino (the "Tokyo Rose").
1979 - Former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell was released on parole after serving 19 months at a federal prison in Alabama.
1981 - The U.S. and Iran signed an agreement paving the way for the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months and for arrangements to unfreeze Iranian assets and to resolve all claims against Iran.
1993 - IBM announced a loss of $4.97 billion for 1992. It was the largest single-year loss in U.S. corporate history.
1995 - Russian forces overwhelmed the resistance forces in Chechnya.
1996 - U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury. The investigation was concerning the discovery of billing records related to the Whitewater real estate investment venture.
1997 - Yasser Arafat returned to Hebron for the first time in more than 30 years. He joined 60,000 Palestinians in celebration over the handover of the last West Bank city in Israeli control.
2000 - In New York's Time Square, the first WWF restraunt opened.
2001 - Texas officials demoted a warden and suspended three other prison workers in the wake of the escape of the "Texas 7."
Current Birthdays
Shawn Johnson turns 17 years old today.
86 Jean Stapleton
Actress ("All in the Family")
83 Fritz Weaver
Actor
79 Tippi Hedren
Actress ("The Birds")
78 Robert MacNeil
Journalist
77 Richard Lester
Movie director
70 Phil Everly
Singer (The Everly Brothers)
67 Michael Crawford
Actor, singer
65 Shelley Fabares
Actress
65 Dan Reeves
Football coach
63 Dolly Parton
Country singer, actress
62 Ann Compton
Broadcast journalist
62 Paula Deen
TV chef
58 Martha Davis
Rock singer (The Motels)
57 Dewey Bunnell
Singer (America)
56 Desi Arnaz Jr.
Actor
54 Paul Rodriguez
Comedian
52 Katey Sagal
Actress ("Married ... With Children")
52 Mickey Virtue
Reggae musician (UB40)
48 Paul McCrane
Actor
48 William Ragsdale
Actor
43 Stefan Edberg
Tennis Hall of Famer
41 Whitfield Crane
Rock singer (Ugly Kid Joe)
40 Trey Lorenz
R&B singer
40 Junior Seau
Football player
38 Eric Mangini
Football coach
38 John Wozniak
Rock musician (Marcy Playground)
37 Drea de Matteo
Actress ("The Sopranos")
35 Frank Caliendo
Comedian, impressionist ("Frank TV")
33 Marsha Thomason
Actress
27 Jodie Sweetin
Actress ("Full House")
17 Logan Lerman
Actor
Historic Birthdays
Robert E. Lee
1/19/1807 - 10/12/1870
American Civil War general
53 Tai Chen
1/19/1724 - 7/1/1777
Chinese philosopher
83 James Watt
1/19/1736 - 8/25/1819
Scottish steam engine inventor
82 Isaiah Thomas
1/19/1749 - 4/4/1831
American anti-British journalist
67 Auguste Comte
1/19/1790 - 9/5/1857
French philosopher
40 Edgar Allan Poe
1/19/1809 - 10/7/1849
American writer/poet
95 William Keen
1/19/1837 - 6/7/1932
American-1st Am. Brain surgeon
67 Paul Cezanne
1/19/1839 - 10/22/1906
French Post-Impressionist painter
79 George Trumbull Ladd
1/19/1842 - 8/8/1921
American philosopher/psychologist
56 Alexander Woollcott
1/19/1887 - 1/23/1943
American author/critic
72 Olafur Thors
1/19/1892 - 12/31/1964
Icelandic Prime Minister
90 Oveta Culp Hobby
1/19/1905 - 8/16/1995
American publisher and first secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1953-55)
1265 - The first English parliament met in Westminster Hall.
1801 - John Marshall was appointed chief justice of the United States.
1839 - Chile defeated a confederation of Peru and Bolivia in the Battle of Yungay.
1841 - The island of Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain. It returned to Chinese control in July 1997.
1885 - The roller coaster was patented by L.A. Thompson.
1886 - The Mersey Railway Tunnel was officially opened by the Prince of Wales.
1887 - The U.S. Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
1891 - James Hogg took office as the first native-born governor of Texas.
1892 - The first official basketball game was played by students at the Springfield, MA, YMCA Training School.
1929 - The movie "In Old Arizona" was released. The film was the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors.
1937 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to be inaugurated on January 20th. The 20th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution officially set the date for the swearing in of the President and Vice President.
1942 - Nazi officials held the Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their "final solution" that called for exterminating Europe's Jews.
1944 - The British RAF dropped 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.
1952 - In Juarez, Mexico, Patricia McCormick debuted as the first professional woman bullfighter from the United States.
1953 - "Studio One" became the first television show to be transmitted from the United States to Canada.
1954 - The National Negro Network was formed on this date. Forty radio stations were charter members of the network.
1961 - Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were divorced. They were married on June 29, 1956.
1972 - The number of unemployed in Britain exceeded 1 million.
1981 - Iran released 52 Americans that had been held hostage for 444 days. The hostages were flown to Algeria and then to a U.S. base in Wiesbaden, West Germany. The release occurred minutes after the U.S. presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.
1985 - The most-watched Super Bowl game in history was seen by an estimated 115.9 million people. The San Francisco 49ers downed the Miami Dolphins, 38-16. Super Bowl XIX marked the first time that TV commericals sold for a million dollars a minute.
1986 - The U.S. observed the first federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
1986 - Britain and France announced their plans to build the Channel Tunnel.
1986 - New footage of the 1931 "Frankenstein" was found. The footage was originally deleted because it was considered to be too shocking.
1987 - Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped in Beirut, Lebanon. He was there attempting to negotiate the release of Western hostages. He was not freed until November 1991.
1994 - Shannon Faulkner became the first woman to attend classes at The Citadel in South Carolina. Faulkner joined the cadet corps in August 1995 under court order but soon dropped out.
1996 - Yasser Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Authority and his supporters won two thirds of the 80 seats in the Legislative Council.
1997 - Bill Clinton was inagurated for his second term as president of the United States.
1998 - American researchers announced that they had cloned calves that may produce medicinal milk.
1998 - In Chile, a judge agreed to hear a lawsuit that accused Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet with genocide.
1999 - The China News Service announced that the Chinese government was tightening restrictions on internet use. The rules were aimed at 'Internet Bars.'
2000 - Greece and Turkey signed five accords aimed to build confidence between the two nations.
2002 - Michael Jordan (Washington Wizards) played his first game in Chicago as a visiting player. The Wizards beat the Bulls 77-69.
Current Birthdays
Rainn Wilson turns 43 years old today
85 Slim Whitman
Country singer
80 Arte Johnson
Comedian ("Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In")
79 Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin
Former astronaut
72 Dorothy Provine
Actress
64 Eric Stewart
Singer
63 David Lynch
Director
59 Daniel Benzali
Actor
57 Ian Hill
Rock musician (Judas Priest)
57 Paul Stanley
Rock musician (Kiss)
53 Bill Maher
Comedian, talk show host
51 Lorenzo Lamas
Actor
46 James Denton
Actor ("Desperate Housewives")
44 Greg K.
Rock musician (The Offspring)
44 John Michael Montgomery
Country singer
42 Stacey Dash
Actress
41 Melissa Rivers
TV personality
41 Xavier
R&B singer
39 Edwin McCain
Rock singer
39 Skeet Ulrich
Actor
34 David Eckstein
Baseball player
30 Rob Bourdon
Rock musician (Linkin Park)
26 Geovany Soto
Baseball player
22 Evan Peters
Actor
Historic Birthdays
Federico Fellini
1/20/1920 - 10/31/1993
Italian film director
44 Johannes Schein
1/20/1586 - 11/19/1630
German composer
46 Henry Cromwell
1/20/1628 - 3/23/1674
English, brief ruler of Ireland
62 Richard Henry Lee
1/20/1732 - 6/19/1794
American statesman/orator
72 Anne J. Clough
1/20/1820 - 2/27/1892
English educator/feminist
77 Johannes Jenson
1/20/1873 - 11/25/1950
Danish novelist/essayist
91 Ruth St. Denis
1/20/1877 - 7/21/1968
American dancer & choreographer
82 Walter Piston
1/20/1894 - 11/12/1976
American composer/teacher
74 Harold Gray
1/20/1894 - 5/9/1968
American "Orphan Annie" cartoonist
69 Joy Adamson
1/20/1910 - 1/3/1980
Australian conservationist/writer
1801 - John Marshall was appointed chief justice of the United States.
1839 - Chile defeated a confederation of Peru and Bolivia in the Battle of Yungay.
1841 - The island of Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain. It returned to Chinese control in July 1997.
1885 - The roller coaster was patented by L.A. Thompson.
1886 - The Mersey Railway Tunnel was officially opened by the Prince of Wales.
1887 - The U.S. Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
1891 - James Hogg took office as the first native-born governor of Texas.
1892 - The first official basketball game was played by students at the Springfield, MA, YMCA Training School.
1929 - The movie "In Old Arizona" was released. The film was the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors.
1937 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to be inaugurated on January 20th. The 20th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution officially set the date for the swearing in of the President and Vice President.
1942 - Nazi officials held the Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their "final solution" that called for exterminating Europe's Jews.
1944 - The British RAF dropped 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.
1952 - In Juarez, Mexico, Patricia McCormick debuted as the first professional woman bullfighter from the United States.
1953 - "Studio One" became the first television show to be transmitted from the United States to Canada.
1954 - The National Negro Network was formed on this date. Forty radio stations were charter members of the network.
1961 - Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were divorced. They were married on June 29, 1956.
1972 - The number of unemployed in Britain exceeded 1 million.
1981 - Iran released 52 Americans that had been held hostage for 444 days. The hostages were flown to Algeria and then to a U.S. base in Wiesbaden, West Germany. The release occurred minutes after the U.S. presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.
1985 - The most-watched Super Bowl game in history was seen by an estimated 115.9 million people. The San Francisco 49ers downed the Miami Dolphins, 38-16. Super Bowl XIX marked the first time that TV commericals sold for a million dollars a minute.
1986 - The U.S. observed the first federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
1986 - Britain and France announced their plans to build the Channel Tunnel.
1986 - New footage of the 1931 "Frankenstein" was found. The footage was originally deleted because it was considered to be too shocking.
1987 - Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped in Beirut, Lebanon. He was there attempting to negotiate the release of Western hostages. He was not freed until November 1991.
1994 - Shannon Faulkner became the first woman to attend classes at The Citadel in South Carolina. Faulkner joined the cadet corps in August 1995 under court order but soon dropped out.
1996 - Yasser Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Authority and his supporters won two thirds of the 80 seats in the Legislative Council.
1997 - Bill Clinton was inagurated for his second term as president of the United States.
1998 - American researchers announced that they had cloned calves that may produce medicinal milk.
1998 - In Chile, a judge agreed to hear a lawsuit that accused Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet with genocide.
1999 - The China News Service announced that the Chinese government was tightening restrictions on internet use. The rules were aimed at 'Internet Bars.'
2000 - Greece and Turkey signed five accords aimed to build confidence between the two nations.
2002 - Michael Jordan (Washington Wizards) played his first game in Chicago as a visiting player. The Wizards beat the Bulls 77-69.
Current Birthdays
Rainn Wilson turns 43 years old today
85 Slim Whitman
Country singer
80 Arte Johnson
Comedian ("Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In")
79 Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin
Former astronaut
72 Dorothy Provine
Actress
64 Eric Stewart
Singer
63 David Lynch
Director
59 Daniel Benzali
Actor
57 Ian Hill
Rock musician (Judas Priest)
57 Paul Stanley
Rock musician (Kiss)
53 Bill Maher
Comedian, talk show host
51 Lorenzo Lamas
Actor
46 James Denton
Actor ("Desperate Housewives")
44 Greg K.
Rock musician (The Offspring)
44 John Michael Montgomery
Country singer
42 Stacey Dash
Actress
41 Melissa Rivers
TV personality
41 Xavier
R&B singer
39 Edwin McCain
Rock singer
39 Skeet Ulrich
Actor
34 David Eckstein
Baseball player
30 Rob Bourdon
Rock musician (Linkin Park)
26 Geovany Soto
Baseball player
22 Evan Peters
Actor
Historic Birthdays
Federico Fellini
1/20/1920 - 10/31/1993
Italian film director
44 Johannes Schein
1/20/1586 - 11/19/1630
German composer
46 Henry Cromwell
1/20/1628 - 3/23/1674
English, brief ruler of Ireland
62 Richard Henry Lee
1/20/1732 - 6/19/1794
American statesman/orator
72 Anne J. Clough
1/20/1820 - 2/27/1892
English educator/feminist
77 Johannes Jenson
1/20/1873 - 11/25/1950
Danish novelist/essayist
91 Ruth St. Denis
1/20/1877 - 7/21/1968
American dancer & choreographer
82 Walter Piston
1/20/1894 - 11/12/1976
American composer/teacher
74 Harold Gray
1/20/1894 - 5/9/1968
American "Orphan Annie" cartoonist
69 Joy Adamson
1/20/1910 - 1/3/1980
Australian conservationist/writer
youwanttoshagme
Closed Account
20th Jan 2008 - Nothing much happening really. Think it'll go down in history just like any other Tuesday.
Oh, US unemployment went up by one person, and a house exchange hands, but at a rock bottom price of nothing. Tenancy agreement will be reviewed in 4 years though.
Oh, US unemployment went up by one person, and a house exchange hands, but at a rock bottom price of nothing. Tenancy agreement will be reviewed in 4 years though.
1789 - W.H. Brown's "Power of Sympathy" was published. It was the first American novel to be published.
1793 - During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI was executed on the guillotine. He had been condemned for treason.
1812 - The Y-bridge in Zanesville, OH, was approved for construction.
1846 - The first issue of the "Daily News," edited by Charles Dickens, was published.
1853 - Dr. Russell L. Hawes patented the envelope folding machine.
1861 - The future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, resigned from the U.S. Senate. Four other Southerners also resigned.
1865 - An oil well was drilled by torpedoes for the first time.
1900 - Canadian troops set sail to fight in South Africa. The Boers had attacked Ladysmith on January 8, 1900.
1908 - The Sullivan Ordinance was passed in New York City making smoking by women became illegal. The measure was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr.
1911 - The first Monte Carlo car rally was held. Seven days later by French it was won by Henri Rougier.
1915 - The first Kiwanis club was formed in Detroit, MI.
1924 - Soviet leader Vladimir Llyich Lenin died. Joseph Stalin began a purge of his rivals for the leadership of the Soviet Union.
1927 - The first opera broadcast over a national radio network was presented in Chicago, IL. The opera was "Faust".
1941 - The British communist newspaper, the "Daily Worker," was banned due to wartime restrictions.
1946 - "The Fat Man" debuted on ABC radio.
1954 - The Nautilus was launched in Groton, CT. It was the first atomic-powered submarine. U.S. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower broke the traditional bottle of champagne across the bow.
1954 - The gas turbine automobile was introduced in New York City.
1970 - The Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight from New York to London for Pan American.
1970 - ABC-TV presented "The Johnny Cash Show" in prime time.
1976 - The French Concorde SST aircraft began regular commercial service for Air France and British Airways.
1977 - U.S. President Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.
1980 - Gold was valued at $850 an ounce.
1986 - Former major-league player, Randy Bass, became the highest-paid baseball player in Japanese history. Bass signed a three-year contract for $3.25 million. He played for the Hanshin Tigers.
1994 - A jury in Manassas, VA, acquitted Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding (severing his penis) her husband John. She accused him of sexually assaulting her.
1997 - Newt Gingrich was fined as the U.S. House of Representatvies voted for first time in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct.
1998 - A former White House intern said on tape that she had an affair with U.S. President Clinton.
1999 - The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a ship headed for Houston, TX, that had over 9,500 pounds of cocaine aboard. It was one of the largest drug busts in U.S. history.
2002 - In Goma, Congo, about fifty people were killed when lava flow ignited a gas station. The people killed were trying to steal fuel from elevated tanks. The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo began on January 17, 2002.
2002 - In London, a 17th century book by Capt. John Smith, founder of the English settlement at Jamestown, was sold at auction for $48,800. "The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles" was published in 1632.
2003 - It was announced by the U.S. Census Bureau that estimates showed that the Hispanic population had passed the black population for the first time.
Current Birthdays
Placido Domingo turns 68 years old today.
75 Ann Wedgeworth
Actress
73 Snooks Eaglin
Blues singer-musician
69 Jack Nicklaus
Golfer
69 Richie Havens
Folk singer, musician
67 Mac Davis
Singer
62 Jill Eikenberry
Actress ("L.A. Law")
62 Jim Ibbotson
Country musician (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
59 Billy Ocean
R&B singer
53 Robby Benson
Actor, director
53 Geena Davis
Actress
46 Hakeem Olajuwon
Basketball player
41 Charlotte Ross
Actress
40 John Ducey
Actor
40 Karina Lombard
Actress
39 Levirt
Rapper (B-Rock and the Bizz)
39 Mark Trojanowski
Rock musician (Sister Hazel)
37 Cat Power
Rock singer
36 Chris Kilmore
DJ (Incubus)
36 Princess Mathilde
Member of the Belgian royal family
35 Vincent Laresca
Actor
33 Emma Bunton
Singer (Spice Girls)
31 Phil Stacey
Country singer ("American Idol")
30 Nokio
R&B singer (Dru Hill)
28 Izabella Miko
Actress
Historic Birthdays
Christian Dior
1/21/1905 - 10/24/1957
French fashion designer
35 George Gillespie
1/21/1613 - 12/17/1648
Scottish minister/polemical writer
51 Ethan Allen
1/21/1738 - 2/12/1789
American soldier - frontiersman
55 John Fitch
1/21/1743 - 7/2/1798
American steamboat builder
77 John Fremont
1/21/1813 - 7/13/1890
Americium mapmaker/explorer
39 Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
1/21/1824 - 5/10/1863
American Civil War general
71 Sophia Jex-Blake
1/21/1840 - 1/7/1912
English physician
71 John Browning
1/21/1855 - 11/26/1926
American weapons designer
98 Maxime Weygand
1/21/1867 - 1/28/1965
Belgian-bn.French army officer
77 Cristobal Balenciaga
1/21/1895 - 3/23/1972
Spanish dress designer
88 Sir Charles Moses
1/21/1900 - 2/9/1988
English-bn. Australian broadcaster
1793 - During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI was executed on the guillotine. He had been condemned for treason.
1812 - The Y-bridge in Zanesville, OH, was approved for construction.
1846 - The first issue of the "Daily News," edited by Charles Dickens, was published.
1853 - Dr. Russell L. Hawes patented the envelope folding machine.
1861 - The future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, resigned from the U.S. Senate. Four other Southerners also resigned.
1865 - An oil well was drilled by torpedoes for the first time.
1900 - Canadian troops set sail to fight in South Africa. The Boers had attacked Ladysmith on January 8, 1900.
1908 - The Sullivan Ordinance was passed in New York City making smoking by women became illegal. The measure was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr.
1911 - The first Monte Carlo car rally was held. Seven days later by French it was won by Henri Rougier.
1915 - The first Kiwanis club was formed in Detroit, MI.
1924 - Soviet leader Vladimir Llyich Lenin died. Joseph Stalin began a purge of his rivals for the leadership of the Soviet Union.
1927 - The first opera broadcast over a national radio network was presented in Chicago, IL. The opera was "Faust".
1941 - The British communist newspaper, the "Daily Worker," was banned due to wartime restrictions.
1946 - "The Fat Man" debuted on ABC radio.
1954 - The Nautilus was launched in Groton, CT. It was the first atomic-powered submarine. U.S. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower broke the traditional bottle of champagne across the bow.
1954 - The gas turbine automobile was introduced in New York City.
1970 - The Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight from New York to London for Pan American.
1970 - ABC-TV presented "The Johnny Cash Show" in prime time.
1976 - The French Concorde SST aircraft began regular commercial service for Air France and British Airways.
1977 - U.S. President Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.
1980 - Gold was valued at $850 an ounce.
1986 - Former major-league player, Randy Bass, became the highest-paid baseball player in Japanese history. Bass signed a three-year contract for $3.25 million. He played for the Hanshin Tigers.
1994 - A jury in Manassas, VA, acquitted Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding (severing his penis) her husband John. She accused him of sexually assaulting her.
1997 - Newt Gingrich was fined as the U.S. House of Representatvies voted for first time in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct.
1998 - A former White House intern said on tape that she had an affair with U.S. President Clinton.
1999 - The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a ship headed for Houston, TX, that had over 9,500 pounds of cocaine aboard. It was one of the largest drug busts in U.S. history.
2002 - In Goma, Congo, about fifty people were killed when lava flow ignited a gas station. The people killed were trying to steal fuel from elevated tanks. The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo began on January 17, 2002.
2002 - In London, a 17th century book by Capt. John Smith, founder of the English settlement at Jamestown, was sold at auction for $48,800. "The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles" was published in 1632.
2003 - It was announced by the U.S. Census Bureau that estimates showed that the Hispanic population had passed the black population for the first time.
Current Birthdays
Placido Domingo turns 68 years old today.
75 Ann Wedgeworth
Actress
73 Snooks Eaglin
Blues singer-musician
69 Jack Nicklaus
Golfer
69 Richie Havens
Folk singer, musician
67 Mac Davis
Singer
62 Jill Eikenberry
Actress ("L.A. Law")
62 Jim Ibbotson
Country musician (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
59 Billy Ocean
R&B singer
53 Robby Benson
Actor, director
53 Geena Davis
Actress
46 Hakeem Olajuwon
Basketball player
41 Charlotte Ross
Actress
40 John Ducey
Actor
40 Karina Lombard
Actress
39 Levirt
Rapper (B-Rock and the Bizz)
39 Mark Trojanowski
Rock musician (Sister Hazel)
37 Cat Power
Rock singer
36 Chris Kilmore
DJ (Incubus)
36 Princess Mathilde
Member of the Belgian royal family
35 Vincent Laresca
Actor
33 Emma Bunton
Singer (Spice Girls)
31 Phil Stacey
Country singer ("American Idol")
30 Nokio
R&B singer (Dru Hill)
28 Izabella Miko
Actress
Historic Birthdays
Christian Dior
1/21/1905 - 10/24/1957
French fashion designer
35 George Gillespie
1/21/1613 - 12/17/1648
Scottish minister/polemical writer
51 Ethan Allen
1/21/1738 - 2/12/1789
American soldier - frontiersman
55 John Fitch
1/21/1743 - 7/2/1798
American steamboat builder
77 John Fremont
1/21/1813 - 7/13/1890
Americium mapmaker/explorer
39 Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
1/21/1824 - 5/10/1863
American Civil War general
71 Sophia Jex-Blake
1/21/1840 - 1/7/1912
English physician
71 John Browning
1/21/1855 - 11/26/1926
American weapons designer
98 Maxime Weygand
1/21/1867 - 1/28/1965
Belgian-bn.French army officer
77 Cristobal Balenciaga
1/21/1895 - 3/23/1972
Spanish dress designer
88 Sir Charles Moses
1/21/1900 - 2/9/1988
English-bn. Australian broadcaster
1666 - Shah Jahan, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, died at the age of 74. He was the Mogul emperor of India that built the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz-i-Mahal.
1771 - The Falkland Islands were ceded to Britain by Spain.
1789 - "The Power of Sympathy," by Philenia (Mrs. Sarah W.) Morton, was published in Boston, MA.
1824 - The Asante army crushed British troops in the Gold Coast.
1879 - James Shields began a term as a U.S. Senator from Missouri. He had previously served Illinois and Minnesota. He was the first Senator to serve three states.
1879 - British troops were massacred by the Zulus at Isandhlwana.
1889 - The Columbia Phonograph Company was formed in Washington, DC.
1895 - The National Association of Manufacturers was organized in Cincinnati, OH.
1900 - Off of South Africa, the British released the German steamer Herzog, which had been seized on January 6.
1901 - Queen Victoria of England died after reigning for nearly 64 years. Edward VII, her son, succeeded her.
1905 - Insurgent workers were fired on in St Petersburg, Russia, resulting in "Bloody Sunday." 500 people were killed.
1917 - U.S. President Wilson pleaded for an end to war in Europe, calling for "peace without victory." America entered the war the following April.
1924 - Ramsay MacDonald became Britain's first Labour Prime Minister.
1936 - In Paris, Premier Pierre Laval resigned over diplomatic failure in the Ethiopian crisis.
1938 - "Our Town," by Thornton Wilder, was performed publicly for the first time, in Princeton, NJ.
1941 - Britain captured Tobruk from German forces.
1944 - Allied forces began landing at Anzio, Italy, during World War II.
1947 - KTLA, Channel 5, in Hollywood, CA, began operation as the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River.
1950 - Alger Hiss, a former adviser to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, was convicted of perjury for denying contacts with a Soviet agent. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
1951 - Fidel Castro was ejected from a Winter League baseball game after hitting a batter. He later gave up baseball for politics.
1953 - The Arthur Miller drama "The Crucible" opened on Broadway.
1956 - Raymond Burr starred as Captain Lee Quince in the "Fort Laramie" debut on CBS radio.
1957 - Suspected "Mad Bomber" was arrested in Waterbury, CT. George P. Metesky was accused of planting more than 30 explosive devices in the New York City area.
1957 - The Israeli army withdrew from the Sinai. They had invaded Egypt on October 29, 1956.
1959 - British world racing champion Mike Hawthorn was killed while driving on the Guildford bypass.
1961 - Wilma Rudolph, set a world indoor record in the women’s 60-yard dash. She ran the race in 6.9 seconds.
1962 - Cuba's membership in the Organization of American States (OAS) was suspended.
1964 - Kenneth Kaunda was sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia.
1968 - "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", debuted on NBC TV.
1970 - The first regularly scheduled commercial flight of the Boeing 747 began in New York City and ended in London about 6 1/2 hours later.
1972 - The United Kingdom, the Irish Republic, and Denmark joined the EEC.
1973 - Joe Frazier lost the first fight of his professional career to George Foreman. He been the undefeated heavyweight world champion since February 16, 1970 when he knocked out Jimmy Ellis.
1973 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws that had been restricting abortions during the first six months of pregnancy. The case (Roe vs. Wade) legalized abortion.
1983 - Bjorn Borg retired from tennis. He had set a record by winning 5 consecutive Wimbledon championships.
1984 - Apple introduced the Macintosh. It was the first computer to use point-and-click technology.
1987 - Phil Donahue became the first talk show host to tape a show from inside the Soviet Union. The shows were shown later in the year.
1992 - Rebel soldiers seized the national radio station in Kinshasa, Zaire's capital, and broadcast a demand for the government's resignation.
1995 - Two Palestinian suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip detonated powerful explosives at a military transit point in central Israel, killing 19 Israelis.
1997 - The U.S. Senate confirmed Madeleine Albright as the first female secretary of state.
1998 - Theodore Kaczynski plead guilty to federal charges for his role as the Unabomber. He agreed to life in prison without parole.
2000 - Elian Gonzalez's grandmothers met privately with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno as they appealed for help in removing the boy from his Florida relatives and reuniting him with his father in Cuba.
2001 - Former National Football League (NFL) player Rae Carruth was sentenced to a minimum 18 years and 11 months in prison for his role in the 1999 shooting death of his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams. Adams died a month later from her wounds. The baby survived and lives with the victim's mother.
2001 - Acting on a tip, authorities captured four of the "Texas 7" in Woodland Park, CO, at a convenience store. A fifth convict killed himself inside a motor home.
2002 - In Calcutta, India, Heavily armed gunmen attacked the U.S. government cultural center. Five police officers were killed and twenty others, including one pedestrian and one private security guard, were wounded.
2002 - Lawyers suing Enron Corp. asked a court to prevent further shredding of documents due to the pending federal investigation.
2002 - Amazon.com announced that it had posted its first net profit in the fourth quarter (quarter ending December 31, 2001).
2002 - AOL Time Warner filed suit against Microsoft in federal court seeking damages for harm done to AOL's Netscape Internet Browser when Microsoft began giving away its competing browser.
2002 - Marc Chagall's work "Study for 'Over Vitebsk" was found at a postal installation in Topeka, KS. The 8x10 oil painting is valued at about $1 million. The work was stolen a year before form the Jewish Museum in New York City.
2002 - Kmart Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy making it the largest retailer in history to seek legal protection from its creditors.
2003 - In New York, the "Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsmen" exhibit opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
2003 - It was reported that scientists in China had found fossilized remains of a dinosaur with four feathered wings.
Current Birthdays
Piper Laurie turns 77 years old today.
81 Birch Bayh
Former U.S. senator, D-Ind.
74 Seymour Cassel
Actor
72 Joseph Wambaugh
Author
69 John Hurt
Actor
60 Steve Perry
Rock singer (Journey)
57 Teddy Gentry
Country singer, musician (Alabama)
56 Jim Jarmusch
Director
52 Mike Bossy
Hockey Hall of Famer
50 Linda Blair
Actress ("The Excorcist")
44 Jazzy Jeff
Actor, rapper ("The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air")
44 Diane Lane
Actress
44 Regina Nicks
Country singer (Regina Regina)
40 Marc Gay
R&B singer (Shai)
37 Gabriel Macht
Actor
34 Balthazar Getty
Actor
29 Christopher Kennedy Masterson
Actor ("Malcolm in the Middle")
28 Willa Ford
Singer
28 Beverley Mitchell
Actress ("7th Heaven")
28 Ben Moody
Rock musician
Historic Birthdays
Fred Vinson
1/22/1890 - 9/8/1953
Chief Justice of the United States
36 Lord George Gordan Byron
1/22/1788 - 4/19/1824
English romantic/satirical poet
63 August Strindberg
1/22/1849 - 5/14/1912
Swedish playwright/novelist
82 Robert Brookings
1/22/1850 - 11/15/1932
American businessman/philanthropist
73 D. W. Griffith
1/22/1875 - 7/23/1948
American film director
94 Marcel Dassault
1/22/1892 - 4/18/1986
French aircraft designer
84 Rosa Ponselle
1/22/1897 - 5/25/1981
American coloratura soprano
79 George Balanchine
1/22/1904 - 4/30/1983
Russian-bn. American choreographer
65 U. Thant
1/22/1909 - 11/25/1974
Myanmar 3rd U.N. Secy. General
65 Howard Moss
1/22/1922 - 9/16/1987
American poet/editor of The New Yorker
1771 - The Falkland Islands were ceded to Britain by Spain.
1789 - "The Power of Sympathy," by Philenia (Mrs. Sarah W.) Morton, was published in Boston, MA.
1824 - The Asante army crushed British troops in the Gold Coast.
1879 - James Shields began a term as a U.S. Senator from Missouri. He had previously served Illinois and Minnesota. He was the first Senator to serve three states.
1879 - British troops were massacred by the Zulus at Isandhlwana.
1889 - The Columbia Phonograph Company was formed in Washington, DC.
1895 - The National Association of Manufacturers was organized in Cincinnati, OH.
1900 - Off of South Africa, the British released the German steamer Herzog, which had been seized on January 6.
1901 - Queen Victoria of England died after reigning for nearly 64 years. Edward VII, her son, succeeded her.
1905 - Insurgent workers were fired on in St Petersburg, Russia, resulting in "Bloody Sunday." 500 people were killed.
1917 - U.S. President Wilson pleaded for an end to war in Europe, calling for "peace without victory." America entered the war the following April.
1924 - Ramsay MacDonald became Britain's first Labour Prime Minister.
1936 - In Paris, Premier Pierre Laval resigned over diplomatic failure in the Ethiopian crisis.
1938 - "Our Town," by Thornton Wilder, was performed publicly for the first time, in Princeton, NJ.
1941 - Britain captured Tobruk from German forces.
1944 - Allied forces began landing at Anzio, Italy, during World War II.
1947 - KTLA, Channel 5, in Hollywood, CA, began operation as the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River.
1950 - Alger Hiss, a former adviser to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, was convicted of perjury for denying contacts with a Soviet agent. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
1951 - Fidel Castro was ejected from a Winter League baseball game after hitting a batter. He later gave up baseball for politics.
1953 - The Arthur Miller drama "The Crucible" opened on Broadway.
1956 - Raymond Burr starred as Captain Lee Quince in the "Fort Laramie" debut on CBS radio.
1957 - Suspected "Mad Bomber" was arrested in Waterbury, CT. George P. Metesky was accused of planting more than 30 explosive devices in the New York City area.
1957 - The Israeli army withdrew from the Sinai. They had invaded Egypt on October 29, 1956.
1959 - British world racing champion Mike Hawthorn was killed while driving on the Guildford bypass.
1961 - Wilma Rudolph, set a world indoor record in the women’s 60-yard dash. She ran the race in 6.9 seconds.
1962 - Cuba's membership in the Organization of American States (OAS) was suspended.
1964 - Kenneth Kaunda was sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia.
1968 - "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", debuted on NBC TV.
1970 - The first regularly scheduled commercial flight of the Boeing 747 began in New York City and ended in London about 6 1/2 hours later.
1972 - The United Kingdom, the Irish Republic, and Denmark joined the EEC.
1973 - Joe Frazier lost the first fight of his professional career to George Foreman. He been the undefeated heavyweight world champion since February 16, 1970 when he knocked out Jimmy Ellis.
1973 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws that had been restricting abortions during the first six months of pregnancy. The case (Roe vs. Wade) legalized abortion.
1983 - Bjorn Borg retired from tennis. He had set a record by winning 5 consecutive Wimbledon championships.
1984 - Apple introduced the Macintosh. It was the first computer to use point-and-click technology.
1987 - Phil Donahue became the first talk show host to tape a show from inside the Soviet Union. The shows were shown later in the year.
1992 - Rebel soldiers seized the national radio station in Kinshasa, Zaire's capital, and broadcast a demand for the government's resignation.
1995 - Two Palestinian suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip detonated powerful explosives at a military transit point in central Israel, killing 19 Israelis.
1997 - The U.S. Senate confirmed Madeleine Albright as the first female secretary of state.
1998 - Theodore Kaczynski plead guilty to federal charges for his role as the Unabomber. He agreed to life in prison without parole.
2000 - Elian Gonzalez's grandmothers met privately with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno as they appealed for help in removing the boy from his Florida relatives and reuniting him with his father in Cuba.
2001 - Former National Football League (NFL) player Rae Carruth was sentenced to a minimum 18 years and 11 months in prison for his role in the 1999 shooting death of his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams. Adams died a month later from her wounds. The baby survived and lives with the victim's mother.
2001 - Acting on a tip, authorities captured four of the "Texas 7" in Woodland Park, CO, at a convenience store. A fifth convict killed himself inside a motor home.
2002 - In Calcutta, India, Heavily armed gunmen attacked the U.S. government cultural center. Five police officers were killed and twenty others, including one pedestrian and one private security guard, were wounded.
2002 - Lawyers suing Enron Corp. asked a court to prevent further shredding of documents due to the pending federal investigation.
2002 - Amazon.com announced that it had posted its first net profit in the fourth quarter (quarter ending December 31, 2001).
2002 - AOL Time Warner filed suit against Microsoft in federal court seeking damages for harm done to AOL's Netscape Internet Browser when Microsoft began giving away its competing browser.
2002 - Marc Chagall's work "Study for 'Over Vitebsk" was found at a postal installation in Topeka, KS. The 8x10 oil painting is valued at about $1 million. The work was stolen a year before form the Jewish Museum in New York City.
2002 - Kmart Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy making it the largest retailer in history to seek legal protection from its creditors.
2003 - In New York, the "Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsmen" exhibit opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
2003 - It was reported that scientists in China had found fossilized remains of a dinosaur with four feathered wings.
Current Birthdays
Piper Laurie turns 77 years old today.
81 Birch Bayh
Former U.S. senator, D-Ind.
74 Seymour Cassel
Actor
72 Joseph Wambaugh
Author
69 John Hurt
Actor
60 Steve Perry
Rock singer (Journey)
57 Teddy Gentry
Country singer, musician (Alabama)
56 Jim Jarmusch
Director
52 Mike Bossy
Hockey Hall of Famer
50 Linda Blair
Actress ("The Excorcist")
44 Jazzy Jeff
Actor, rapper ("The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air")
44 Diane Lane
Actress
44 Regina Nicks
Country singer (Regina Regina)
40 Marc Gay
R&B singer (Shai)
37 Gabriel Macht
Actor
34 Balthazar Getty
Actor
29 Christopher Kennedy Masterson
Actor ("Malcolm in the Middle")
28 Willa Ford
Singer
28 Beverley Mitchell
Actress ("7th Heaven")
28 Ben Moody
Rock musician
Historic Birthdays
Fred Vinson
1/22/1890 - 9/8/1953
Chief Justice of the United States
36 Lord George Gordan Byron
1/22/1788 - 4/19/1824
English romantic/satirical poet
63 August Strindberg
1/22/1849 - 5/14/1912
Swedish playwright/novelist
82 Robert Brookings
1/22/1850 - 11/15/1932
American businessman/philanthropist
73 D. W. Griffith
1/22/1875 - 7/23/1948
American film director
94 Marcel Dassault
1/22/1892 - 4/18/1986
French aircraft designer
84 Rosa Ponselle
1/22/1897 - 5/25/1981
American coloratura soprano
79 George Balanchine
1/22/1904 - 4/30/1983
Russian-bn. American choreographer
65 U. Thant
1/22/1909 - 11/25/1974
Myanmar 3rd U.N. Secy. General
65 Howard Moss
1/22/1922 - 9/16/1987
American poet/editor of The New Yorker
1556 - An earthquake in Shanxi Province, China, was thought to have killed about 830,000 people.
1571 - The Royal Exchange in London, founded by financier Thomas Gresham, was opened by Queen Elizabeth I.
1789 - Georgetown College was established as the first Catholic college in the U.S. The school is in Washington, DC.
1845 - The U.S. Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
1849 - English-born Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to receive medical degree. It was from the Medical Institution of Geneva, NY.
1907 - Charles Curtis, of Kansas, began serving in the United States Senate. He was the first American Indian to become a U.S. Senator. He resigned in March of 1929 to become U.S. President Herbert Hoover’s Vice President.
1920 - The Dutch government refused the demands from the Allies to hand over the ex-kaiser of Germany.
1924 - The first Labour government was formed, under Ramsay MacDonald.
1937 - In Moscow, seventeen people went on trial during Josef Stalin's "Great Purge."
1941 - The play, "Lady in the Dark" premiered.
1943 - Duke Ellington and the band played for a black-tie crowd at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
1943 - The British captured Tripoli from the Germans.
1950 - The Israeli Knesset approved a resolution proclaiming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
1960 - The U.S. Navy bathyscaphe Trieste descended to a record depth of 35,820 feet (10,750 meters) in the Pacific Ocean.
1964 - Ratification of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was completed. This amendment eliminated the poll tax in federal elections.
1968 - North Korea seized the U.S. Navy ship Pueblo, charging it had intruded into the nation's territorial waters on a spying mission. The crew was released 11 months later.
1971 - In Prospect Creek Camp, AK, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. was reported as minus 80 degrees.
1973 - U.S. President Nixon announced that an accord had been reached to end the Vietnam War.
1974 - Mike Oldfield’s "Tubular Bells" opened the credits of the movie, "The Exorcist".
1975 - "Barney Miller" made his debut on ABC-TV.
1977 - The TV mini-series "Roots," began airing on ABC. The show was based on the Alex Haley novel.
1978 - Sweden banned aerosol sprays because of damage to environment. They were the first country to do so.
1983 - "The A-Team" debuted on TV.
1985 - O.J. Simpson became the first Heisman Trophy winner to be elected to pro football’s Hall of Fame in Canton, OH.
1985 - The proceedings of the House of Lords were televised for the first time.
1989 - Surrealist artist Salvador Dali died in Spain at age 84.
1997 - A judge in Fairfax, VA, sentenced Mir Aimal Kasi to death for an assault rifle attack outside the CIA headquarters in 1993 that killed two men and wounded three other people.
1997 - A British woman received a record £186,000 damages for Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).
2001 - A van used by the remaining two fugitives of the "Texas 7" was recovered in Colorado Springs, CO. A few hours later police surrounded a hotel where the convicts were hiding. Patrick Murphy Jr. and Donald Newbury were taken into custody the next morning without incident.
2002 - John Walker Lindh returned to the U.S. under FBI custody. Lindh was charge with conspiring to kill U.S. citizens, providing support to terrorists and engaging in prohibited transactions with the Taliban while a member of the al-Quaida terrorist organization in Afghanistan.
2003 - North Korea announced that it would consider sanctions an act of war for North Korea's reinstatement of its nuclear program.
Current Birthdays
Mariska Hargitay turns 45 years old today.
85 Frank Lautenberg
U.S. senator, D-N.J.
81 Jeanne Moreau
Actress
79 Derek Walcott
Nobel Prize-winning poet, playwright
76 Chita Rivera
Actress, dancer
75 Lou Antonio
Actor, director
66 Gil Gerard
Actor
65 Rutger Hauer
Actor
65 Jerry Lawson
R&B singer (The Persuasions)
62 Thomas R. Carper
U.S. senator, D-Del.
61 Anita Pointer
Singer (The Pointer Sisters)
59 Richard Dean Anderson
Actor
59 Bill Cunningham
Rock musician (The Box Tops)
56 Antonio Villaraigosa
Mayor of Los Angeles
56 Robin Zander
Rock singer (Cheap Trick)
52 Princess Caroline
Member of Monaco's royal family
51 Anita Baker
R&B singer
50 Earl Falconer
Reggae musician (UB40)
46 Gail O'Grady
Actress
38 Marc Nelson
R&B singer
35 Tiffani Thiessen
Actress ("Beverly Hills, 90210")
34 Nick Harmer
Rock musician (Death Cab for Cutie)
Historic Birthdays
Sergei Eisenstein
1/23/1898 - 2/11/1948
Russian film director
56 John Hancock
1/23/1737 (N.S.) - 10/8/1793
American Revolutionary statesman
59 Stendhal
1/23/1783 - 3/23/1842
French writer
82 Camilla Collett
1/23/1813 - 3/6/1895
Norwegian novelist/feminist
51 Edouard Manet
1/23/1832 - 4/30/1883
French Impressionist painter
81 David Hilbert
1/23/1862 - 2/14/1943
German mathematician
77 Sergius
1/23/1867 - 5/15/1944
Russian Patriarch of Moscow
61 Herbert D. Croly
1/23/1869 - 5/17/1930
American Founder of New Republic
72 Ralph De Palma
1/23/1884 - 3/31/1956
American race car driver
70 Potter Stewart
1/23/1915 - 12/7/1985
United States Associate Supreme Court Justice
81 Gertrude Belle Elion
1/23/1918 - 2/21/1999
American pharmacologist
1571 - The Royal Exchange in London, founded by financier Thomas Gresham, was opened by Queen Elizabeth I.
1789 - Georgetown College was established as the first Catholic college in the U.S. The school is in Washington, DC.
1845 - The U.S. Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
1849 - English-born Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to receive medical degree. It was from the Medical Institution of Geneva, NY.
1907 - Charles Curtis, of Kansas, began serving in the United States Senate. He was the first American Indian to become a U.S. Senator. He resigned in March of 1929 to become U.S. President Herbert Hoover’s Vice President.
1920 - The Dutch government refused the demands from the Allies to hand over the ex-kaiser of Germany.
1924 - The first Labour government was formed, under Ramsay MacDonald.
1937 - In Moscow, seventeen people went on trial during Josef Stalin's "Great Purge."
1941 - The play, "Lady in the Dark" premiered.
1943 - Duke Ellington and the band played for a black-tie crowd at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
1943 - The British captured Tripoli from the Germans.
1950 - The Israeli Knesset approved a resolution proclaiming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
1960 - The U.S. Navy bathyscaphe Trieste descended to a record depth of 35,820 feet (10,750 meters) in the Pacific Ocean.
1964 - Ratification of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was completed. This amendment eliminated the poll tax in federal elections.
1968 - North Korea seized the U.S. Navy ship Pueblo, charging it had intruded into the nation's territorial waters on a spying mission. The crew was released 11 months later.
1971 - In Prospect Creek Camp, AK, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. was reported as minus 80 degrees.
1973 - U.S. President Nixon announced that an accord had been reached to end the Vietnam War.
1974 - Mike Oldfield’s "Tubular Bells" opened the credits of the movie, "The Exorcist".
1975 - "Barney Miller" made his debut on ABC-TV.
1977 - The TV mini-series "Roots," began airing on ABC. The show was based on the Alex Haley novel.
1978 - Sweden banned aerosol sprays because of damage to environment. They were the first country to do so.
1983 - "The A-Team" debuted on TV.
1985 - O.J. Simpson became the first Heisman Trophy winner to be elected to pro football’s Hall of Fame in Canton, OH.
1985 - The proceedings of the House of Lords were televised for the first time.
1989 - Surrealist artist Salvador Dali died in Spain at age 84.
1997 - A judge in Fairfax, VA, sentenced Mir Aimal Kasi to death for an assault rifle attack outside the CIA headquarters in 1993 that killed two men and wounded three other people.
1997 - A British woman received a record £186,000 damages for Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).
2001 - A van used by the remaining two fugitives of the "Texas 7" was recovered in Colorado Springs, CO. A few hours later police surrounded a hotel where the convicts were hiding. Patrick Murphy Jr. and Donald Newbury were taken into custody the next morning without incident.
2002 - John Walker Lindh returned to the U.S. under FBI custody. Lindh was charge with conspiring to kill U.S. citizens, providing support to terrorists and engaging in prohibited transactions with the Taliban while a member of the al-Quaida terrorist organization in Afghanistan.
2003 - North Korea announced that it would consider sanctions an act of war for North Korea's reinstatement of its nuclear program.
Current Birthdays
Mariska Hargitay turns 45 years old today.
85 Frank Lautenberg
U.S. senator, D-N.J.
81 Jeanne Moreau
Actress
79 Derek Walcott
Nobel Prize-winning poet, playwright
76 Chita Rivera
Actress, dancer
75 Lou Antonio
Actor, director
66 Gil Gerard
Actor
65 Rutger Hauer
Actor
65 Jerry Lawson
R&B singer (The Persuasions)
62 Thomas R. Carper
U.S. senator, D-Del.
61 Anita Pointer
Singer (The Pointer Sisters)
59 Richard Dean Anderson
Actor
59 Bill Cunningham
Rock musician (The Box Tops)
56 Antonio Villaraigosa
Mayor of Los Angeles
56 Robin Zander
Rock singer (Cheap Trick)
52 Princess Caroline
Member of Monaco's royal family
51 Anita Baker
R&B singer
50 Earl Falconer
Reggae musician (UB40)
46 Gail O'Grady
Actress
38 Marc Nelson
R&B singer
35 Tiffani Thiessen
Actress ("Beverly Hills, 90210")
34 Nick Harmer
Rock musician (Death Cab for Cutie)
Historic Birthdays
Sergei Eisenstein
1/23/1898 - 2/11/1948
Russian film director
56 John Hancock
1/23/1737 (N.S.) - 10/8/1793
American Revolutionary statesman
59 Stendhal
1/23/1783 - 3/23/1842
French writer
82 Camilla Collett
1/23/1813 - 3/6/1895
Norwegian novelist/feminist
51 Edouard Manet
1/23/1832 - 4/30/1883
French Impressionist painter
81 David Hilbert
1/23/1862 - 2/14/1943
German mathematician
77 Sergius
1/23/1867 - 5/15/1944
Russian Patriarch of Moscow
61 Herbert D. Croly
1/23/1869 - 5/17/1930
American Founder of New Republic
72 Ralph De Palma
1/23/1884 - 3/31/1956
American race car driver
70 Potter Stewart
1/23/1915 - 12/7/1985
United States Associate Supreme Court Justice
81 Gertrude Belle Elion
1/23/1918 - 2/21/1999
American pharmacologist
my uncle and I gave her a lift back to her house a day before this happened. She was a rock chick, who loved the song sweet cheery he said her husband was a perv. Shes probably one of the coolest people I have ever met.
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