January 16
|
January 16
|
|
|
January is:
Today is:
Born on this Day
1409: Rene I, King of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem
1757: Samuel McIntire, architect of Salem, Massachusetts.
1838: German philosopher Franz
Brentano
1853: Andre Michelin, the French industrialist who first mass-produced
rubber automobile tires.
1864: Frank Bacon actor/author (Lightnin)
1874: Robert Service, Canadian poet (Cremation of Sam McGee)
1894: Guy Chamberlin early NFL end/coach
19??: Tammy Belcher Underwood (Perry Sisters)
1901: Fulgencio Batista president/dictator of Cuba (1933-44, 1952-59)
1907: Alexander Knox, actor (Gorky Park, 2 of a Kind)
1909: Ethel
Merman (Ethel Zimmerman). She was famous for her stage personality and the signature
tune "There's no business like show business." (some sources 1908)
1911: Eduardo Frei (Christian Democrat), president of Chile (1964-70)
1911: Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean HOF baseball pitcher (St Louis
Cardinals)
1917: Buddy Lester, actor (Nick-Phil Silvers Show)
1920: Actor Elliott (Edgeworth) Reid (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, A
Woman’s World, Follow Me Boys)
1927: Actress Katy Jurado (High Noon, One-Eyed Jacks, Trapeze)
1928: Author William Kennedy
1929: Jazz drummer G.T. (Granville) Hogan
1930: Author-editor Norman Podhoretz (Making It, Breaking Ranks)
1932: American zoologist Dian Fossey. She was the world's leading
authority on the mountain gorilla.
1933: American writer Susan Sontag. She is best known best known for her
essays on modern culture.
1934: American mezzo-soprano opera singer Marilyn Horne. She is noted
for the seamless quality and the exceptional range and flexibility of her voice. Her
talent is exceptionally displayed in coloratura roles by Gioacchino Rossini and George
Frideric Handel.
1935: Auto racer A. J. (Anthony Joseph) Foyt. He was the first 4 time
winner of the Indianapolis 500, winning in 1961, 1964, 1967, and 1977.
1942: Singer Barbara Lynn
1944: Country singer Jim Stafford
1948: Movie director John Carpenter (Escape from L.A., Village of the
Damned, Body Bags, Prince of Darkness, Starman, The Thing, Escape from New York,
Halloween)
1950: Actress-dancer-choreographer Debbie Allen (Fame, Ragtime, The Fish
that Saved Pittsburgh)
1951: Football player Chuck Crist
1959: Singer (Helen Folasade Adu) Sade
1962: Rock musician Paul Webb (Talk Talk)
1966: Rhythm-and-blues singer Maxine Jones (En Vogue)
1968: Actor David Chokachi ("Baywatch")
1974: Model Kate Moss
1979: Singer Aaliyah
1989: Actress Yvonne Zima ("ER")
0027: BC Roman Senate bestows the title
"Augustus" on Octavian
0309: Death of St. Marcellus, Pope
0429: Death of St. Honaratus of Arles
0648: Death of St. Fursey, whose writings inspired Dante's
"Divine Comedy"
1153: Death of St. Bernard
1439: The church council is transferred from Ferrara to
Florence
1543: Parliament (England) passes an Act forbidding Women,
apprentices, journeymen, servingmen of the degree of yeomen, underhusbandmen or laborers
to read the New Testament in English
1547: Ivan IV, "the Terrible," crowned Czar of
all the Russias.
1556: Abdication of Charles V, King of Spain and Holy
Roman Emperor
1599: Death of Edmund Spenser, poet
1605: Charles I made Duke of York
1710: Handel, not yet 25 years old, became Kapellmeister
to the Elector of Hanover. After just a few weeks, Handel took a leave of absence to visit
London, and stayed for months.
1865: General Sherman begins a march through the
Carolinas.
1883: The US Civil Service Commission was established.
1866: Mr. Everett Barney patented the metal screw, clamp
skate.
1888: Faure's Requiem was premiered in suburban Paris with
the composer conducting. The Requiem was something of a lark for Faure, who did not have a
commission for it.
1896: The first five-player college basketball game was
played at Iowa City, Iowa. The University of Chicago defeated the University of Iowa by
the low score of only 15-12.
1918: President Wilson orders all industries not involved
in food production to close on Mondays.
1919: Nebraska, Wyoming and Missouri became the 36th, 37th
and 38th states to ratify Prohibition, which went into effect a year later.
1920: The League of Nations holds its first meeting in
Paris.
1920: Allies lift the blockade on trade with Russia.
1920: The United States went legally "dry" as
prohibition of alcoholic beverages took effect under the 18th amendment to the
Constitution. The amendment was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment.
1925: Leon Trotsky was dismissed as chairman of the
Russian Revolution Military Council.
1938: Forty-eight U.S. publishers reject an invitation to
the International Congress in Germany.
1939: Franklin D. Roosevelt asks for an extension of the
Social Security Act to more women and children.
1940: Hitler cancels an attack in the West due to bad
weather and the capture of German attack plans in Belgium.
1942: Screen star Carole Lombard, her mother and 20 other
people were killed in a commercial airliner crash near Las Vegas, Nev. Lombard was the
wife of actor Clark Gable.
1944: Eisenhower assumes supreme command of the Allied
Expeditionary Force in Europe. General Eisenhower was in charge of D-Day operations.
1956: The Egyptian government makes Islam the state
religion.
1957: Three B-52s took off from Castle Air Force Base in
California on the first non-stop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, which lasted 45
hours and 19 minutes.
1957: Toscanini died, he was 89. Arturo Toscanini was
considered in his day to be the greatest conductor on the planet. He was the father of the
movement toward strict interpretation of composers' wishes.
1961: Mickey Mantle signed a contract which made him the
highest paid baseball player in the American League. His contract was for $75,000 for the
1961 season. Willie Mays (the National League), was making more money than any baseball
player with his contract for $85,000.
1964: The musical "Hello, Dolly!," starring
Carol Channing, opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,844 performances.
1965: Eighteen are arrested in Mississippi for the murder
of three civil rights workers.
1965: The Soviet Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 linked up to become
the first manned spacecraft to dock in Earth's orbit.
1965: Willie Mays's new contract for the year was reported
to be for $105,000 a year.
1967: Alan S. Boyd was sworn in as the first secretary of
transportation.
1972: David Seville (Ross Bagdasarian) died in Beverly
Hills. He was the force, and artist, behind the Alvin and the Chipmunks novelty songs of
the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.
1973: This is National Nothing Day, set aside each year
for people to sit around for the entire day and just hang out. No celebrating, observing
or honoring anything.
1975: The Irish Republican Army calls an end to a 25-day
cease fire in Belfast.
1978: NASA named 35 candidates to fly on the space
shuttle, including Sally K. Ride, who became America's first woman in space, and Guion S.
Bluford Junior, who became America's first black astronaut in space.
1979: Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi departed Iran for Egypt;
he never returned being forced into exile by Ayatollah Khomeini.
1981: In Northern Ireland, Protestant gunmen shot and
wounded Irish nationalist leader Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and her husband.
1984: President Reagan called for "peaceful
competition" with Moscow. He authorized research and development on space-age weapons
capable of destroying incoming nuclear missiles, the program was known as "Star
Wars."
1984: Michael Jackson received eight awards at the
American Music Awards.
1986: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Libya would
train, arm and protect Arab guerrillas for Palestinian suicide and terrorist missions, his
first explicit endorsement of terrorism.
1986: President Reagan, responding to Soviet leader
Mikhail S. Gorbachev's proposal to eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2000, said,
"We're grateful for the offer," and said it was being studied "with great
care."
1987: China's number-two leader, Hu Yaobang, 71, was
forced to resign as Communist Party chief for failing to curb student demonstrations for
more democracy.
1988: Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder was fired as a
CBS Sports commentator, one day after telling a Washington DC TV station that, during the
era of slavery, blacks had been bred to produce stronger offspring.
1988: NFL St Louis Cardinals announce move to Phoenix
1989: Three days of rioting erupted in Miami when a police
officer fatally shot a black motorcyclist, causing a crash that also claimed the life of a
passenger.
1990: Moscow rushed 11,000 more troops to Azerbaijan and
Armenia to reinforce soldiers trying to quell deadly ethnic violence.
1991: The White House announced the start of Operation
Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. President Bush said in a nationally
broadcast address "the battle has been joined" as fighter bombers pounded Iraqi
targets. (Because of the time difference, it was early January 17 in the Persian Gulf when
the attack began.)
1992: Officials of the government of El Salvador and rebel
leaders signed a pact in Mexico City ending 12 years of civil war that had left at least
75,000 people dead.
1993: Attorney General-designate Zoe Baird and her husband
paid a $2,900 fine for employing illegal aliens in their home; however, controversy over
the hirings still derailed Baird's nomination.
1994: At a joint news conference in Geneva with President
Clinton, Syrian President Hafez Assad indicated a willingness to negotiate a peace treaty
with Israel.
1994: In Moscow, Yegor Gaidar, first deputy prime minister
and architect of Russia's market reforms, announced his resignation.
1995: In Union, S.C., a prosecutor announced he would seek
the death penalty for Susan Smith, the woman accused of drowning her two young sons,
3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex. (Smith was convicted of murder, but was
sentenced to life in prison.)
1996: Gunmen in Trabzon, Turkey, hijacked a Black Sea ferry with more than 200 people on board, and demanded that Russian troops stop fighting Chechen rebels in Pervomayskaya. (The hostages were released three days later).
1997: Entertainer Bill Cosby's only son, Ennis, was shot
to death in Los Angeles in an apparent roadside robbery attempt.
1997: In Atlanta, two bomb blasts an hour apart rocked a
building containing an abortion clinic, injuring six people.
1997: Israeli soldiers dismantled their military
headquarters in Hebron, marking the beginning of the end of Israel's 30-year-old rule in
the West Bank city.
1998: The tobacco industry reached a $15.3 billion
settlement with the state of Texas.
1998: Ten people were injured by an ammonia leak in
southeastern Mexico near a petrochemical complex run by state oil monopoly Petroleos
Mexicanos. The leak was near the village of Zacatal Victoria.
1998: Heirs to William Randolph Hearst lost a bid to
develop a $120 million resort on the California coast. The California Coastal Commission
voted unanimously to reject changes to San Luis Obispo County zoning regulations that
would have allowed the Hearst Corporation to build a 650-room golf complex. The vote was
hailed by environmentalists who said it saved 1 of the last stretches of undeveloped
coastline between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
1999: Forty-five ethnic Albanians were found slain near
the southern Kosovo village of Racak.
1999: Closing three days of opening arguments, House
prosecutors demanded President Clinton's removal from office, telling a hushed Senate that
otherwise the presidency itself may be "deeply and perhaps permanently damaged."
2000: Ricardo Lagos was elected Chile's first socialist president since Salvador Allende.
|
|
Send Mail to pbower@neo.rr.com
Looking for more quotations?
Past quotes from the Daily
Miscellany can be found here!