January 4

Lead me in Thy truth and teach me, For Thou art the God of my salvation; For Thee I wait all the day. 

– Psalm 25: 5

January is:

Crime Stoppers Month

Born on this Day

• 1643: Sir Isaac Newton, scientist.
  

• 1710: Composer Pergolesi. He was the composer whose music inspired Stravinsky's ballet "Pulcinella." Sergei Diaghilev had the idea of basing a ballet on Baroque music. Stravinsky didn't like Pergolesi's music but warmed to it later.
  

• 1785: Folklore and fairy tale collector Jakob Grimm
  

• 1809: Louis Braille, inventor of a reading system for the blind, was born in Coupvray, France.
  

• 1813: Shorthand writing system inventor Isaac Pitman
  

• 1838: Charles Stratton, the midget known as Gen. Tom Thumb
  

• 1896: Sen. Everett Dirksen
  

• 1914: Actress Jane Wyman
  

• 1927: Actress Barbara Rush
  

• 1930: Football coach Don Shula
  

• 1935: Former heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson
  

• 1937: Actress Dyan Cannon
  

• 1937: Opera singer Grace Bumbry
  

• 1941: Maureen Reagan
  

• 1955: Country singer Kathy Forester (The Forester Sisters)
  

• 1956: Rock musician Bernard Sumner (New Order)
  

• 1956: Actress Ann Magnuson
  

• 1956: Rock musician Bernard Sumner (New Order)
  

• 1957: Country singer Patty Loveless
  

• 1960: Rock singer Michael Stipe (R.E.M.)
  

• 1963: Actor Dave Foley ("News Radio")
  

• 1965: Tennis player Guy Forget
  

• 1965: Actress Julia Ormond
  

• 1966: Country singer Deana Carter
  

• 1967: Rock musician Benjamin Darvill (Crash Test Dummies)
  

• 1971: Actor Jeremy Licht (''Valerie'')

Events in History on this day
  

• 0275: St. Eutychian becomes Pope
  

• 0536: Two monks return to Constantinople with the secret of the manufacture of silk
  

• 0838: Babak executed at Samarra
  

• 1254: William of Rubrick is granted an audience with the KaKhan of the Mongols
  

• 1399: Death of Nicholas Eymeric, theologian and inquisitor
  

• 1493: Christopher Columbus returned to Europe from the New World with six Native Americans he believed were from India, hence he called them "Indians."
  

• 1604: Death of Ferenc Nadasdy, the "Black Knight of Hungary"
  

• 1642: Charles I invades Parliament, to arrest the members indicted for Treason
  

• 1644: The House of Lords assents to the Bill of Attainder against Archbishop Laud
  

• 1648: The English House of Commons declares itself Sovereign
  

• 1717: In the Seven Years War, England declared war on Spain and Naples.
  

• 1821: The first native-born American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, died in Emmitsburg, Md.
  

• 1863: Four-wheeled roller skates were patented by James Plimpton of New York.
  

• 1885: Dr. William W. Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performed what's believed to have been the first appendectomy. The patient was 22-year-old Mary Gartside.
  

• 1896: Utah became the 45th U.S. state.
  

• 1908: Mulai Hafid was proclaimed sultan of Morocco at Fez.
  

• 1919: Vilna (now Vilnius), which had been proclaimed capital of independent Lithuania, was captured by Soviet troops. The occupation lasted only until April.
  

• 1932 The British Indian government was granted emergency powers to deal with a campaign of nationalist civil disobedience. The National Congress party was declared illegal and Mahatma Gandhi was arrested.
  

• 1946: The cartoon characters Heckle and Jeckle debuted.
  

• 1948: The British governor of Burma formerly handed over power, and the Union of Burma was proclaimed as an independent republic with Thakin Nu as first prime minister.
  

• 1951: In the Korean War, the North Koreans and Chinese communists captured the Southern capital of Seoul.
  

• 1958: Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite launched in October 1957 by the Soviet Union, fell to Earth.
  

• 1960: French author Albert Camus died in an automobile accident at age 46.
  

• 1965: President Johnson outlined the goals of his ''Great Society'' in his State of the Union Address.
  

• 1965: Poet T.S. Eliot died in London at age 76.
  

• 1967: Donald Campbell, British car and speedboat racer, was killed on Coniston Water in England during an attempt to break the world water speed record.
  

• 1969: George Jones and Dolly Parton joined the Grand Ole Opry.
  

• 1974: Burma inaugurated a new constitution providing for a Peoples Assembly.
  

• 1975: LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS peaked at #1 on the pop singles chart.
  

• 1976: CBS aired the final episode of CHER.
  

• 1980: President Jimmy Carter announced curtailment of U.S. grain sales to the Soviet Union because of the invasion of Afghanistan.
  

• 1985: Israel confirmed that 10,000 Ethiopian Jews had been flown to Israel. Ethiopia termed the operation "a gross interference" in its affairs.
  

• 1989: Two US Navy F-14 fighters shot down a pair of Libyan MiG-23 fighters in a clash over international waters off the Libyan coast.
  

• 1990: Charles Stuart, who claimed to have been wounded and his wife shot dead by a black robber, leapt to his death off a Boston Harbor bridge after he himself became a suspect.
  

• 1990: Deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was arraigned in federal district court in Miami on drug-trafficking charges.
  

• 1991: With a week and a-half left before a U-N deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, Iraq agreed to hold its first high-level talks with the United States since the start of the Persian Gulf crisis. 
  

• 1992: President Bush, visiting Singapore as part of a Pacific trade tour, announced plans to shift the Navy logistics command that was being evicted from the Philippines to Singapore.
  

• 1993: Berlin's other philharmonic, the German Symphony of Berlin, recorded the piano concertos of Stravinsky for Decca. Olli Mustonen soloed; Vladimir Askkenazy conducted; and Dmitri Ashkenazy soloed in Stravinsky's "Ebony Concerto."
  

• 1994: Nine people were killed and at least 48 wounded as the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo shuddered under heavy shelling from its Serb besiegers.
  

• 1994: Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen announced a plan to drive most gun dealers out of business by proposing sharp increases in the licensing fee and stricter controls on people who buy and sell weapons.
  

• 1995: Bosnian government troops began a belated withdrawal from a demilitarized mountain zone overlooking Sarajevo in keeping with a four-month truce accord.
  

• 1995: The 104th Congress convened, the first entirely under Republican control since Eisenhower era.
  

• 1995: Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia was formally elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the first Republican to hold the post in 40 years.
  

• 1996: Poland's counter-intelligence chief, Colonel Konstanty Miodowicz, announced his resignation in an apparent protest against allegations that the secret services had stepped out of line in accusing Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy of spying.
  

• 1996: Bowing to pressure from NATO and the United States, Bosnian Serbs freed 16 civilians who had entered Serb-held territory after NATO forces had declared roads in Bosnia open to all.
  

• 1998: Foreign Minister David Levy resigned in a move that left Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clinging tenuously to power and may complicate U.S.-led efforts to revive Middle East peacemaking. Netanyahu, facing his worst crisis in 19 months in office, urged Levy to reconsider but declared his right-wing government would remain in office with or without him and lead the Jewish state into the 21st century.
  

• 1998: Adventurer Steve Fossett was trying to decide whether to land his problem-plagued hot-air balloon but his spokesman said it was doubtful he will be able to make it around the world nonstop. Maneuvers over Eastern Europe had shifted his course away from favorable air currents and cost the balloonist precious fuel. And a malfunctioning remote control for one of the propane burners heating his balloon was forcing him to climb out of a hatch to turn the burner on and off.
  

• 1998: Administration officials said President Clinton would ask Congress to help him overhaul the Social Security old age pension system by the end of 1999. Clinton wanted to move on the issue quickly, expecting once the presidential election got into full swing there will be little chance to pass legislation to save the system.
  

• 1998: Gale force winds ripped across Europe over the weekend, causing several deaths and cutting power to tens of thousands of homes in Britain and France.
  

• 1998: Russia's Mir space station was back to normal after the crew replaced part of a computer that malfunctioned December 31, making the vessel go into a spin and lose power, Mission Control said. The gyrodines were fully operational and temperature, orientation and air pressure were normal.

• 1999: Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura took the oath of office as Minnesota's 37th governor.
  

• 1999: Europe's new currency, the euro, got off to a strong start on its first trading day, rising against the dollar on world currency markets.

• 2000: Former presidential rival Elizabeth Dole endorsed fellow Republican George W. Bush. 
  

• 2000: Israel and the Palestinians reached agreement on an Israeli troop pullback from five percent of the West Bank. 
  
  

• 2002: Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Ross Chapman, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, was killed by small-arms fire during an ambush in eastern Afghanistan; he was the first American military death from enemy fire in the war against terrorism. 
  

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