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January 20 |
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January is:
Today is:
1760: Charles III, King of Spain.
1820: Anne Clough, promoter of higher
education.
1855: Composer Ernest Chausson
1876: Josef
Hofmann. This keyboard prodigy would make musical history at the age of 11 when he
would become the first pianist to be recorded on grammophone.
1889: American blues singer Leadbelly
(Huddie William
Ledbetter)
1894: Composer Walter Piston was born in
Rockland, Maine
1896: Comedian George Burns (Nathan
Birnbaum) in New York City.
1894: Harold Gray, creator of the comic
strip "Little Orphan Annie"
1899: The Russian composer Alexander
Tcherepnin
1919: Actor Lawrence Dobkin
1920: Italian film director Federico Fellini
1920: Actor DeForest Kelley ( Star Trek
series, Apache Uprising, The Law and Jake Wade, Gunfight at O.K. Corral, The Man in the
Gray Flannel Suit, Fear in the Night)
1924: Country singer Slim Whitman
1926: Actress Patricia Neal
1930: Former astronaut Edwin
"Buzz" Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon
1933: Pop singer Ron Townson (The Fifth
Dimension)
1934: Comedian Arte Johnson
1937: Actress Dorothy Provine
1945: Singer Eric Stewart
1946: Movie director David Lynch
1950: Rock musician Paul Stanley (KISS)
1952: Rock musician Ian Hill (Judas Priest)
1956: Comedian Bill Maher
1958: Actor Lorenzo Lamas
1965: Country singer John Michael Montgomery
1967: Actress Stacey Dash
("Clueless")
1968: TV personality Melissa Rivers
1968: Singer Xavier
1969: Actor Skeet Ulrich - Touch(1997), Scream(1996), Last Dance, The Craft, Boys.
0250: Martyrdom of St. Fabian,
Pope
0473: Death of St. Euthymius
the Great
0842: Death of Theophilus,
Emperor of Byzantium
1256: Death of Renaud de
Vichiers, 19th Master of the Templars
1265: 1st English Parliament
called into session by the Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort
1320: Wladislaw I, also known
as Wladislaw the Short, was crowned king of Poland. In defeating the Knights of the
Teutonic Order, he created strong foundations for one Polish nation.
1479: Death of John II, King
of Aragon
1500: Pinzon discovers Brazil
1503: An office is established
in Spain to supervise trade with the New World, and to monitor Columbus' expenses
1612: Death of Rudolph II,
Holy Roman Emperor
1615: Portuguese defeated by
the English off Swally, India
1649: British king Charles I
was brought before a high court of justice at Westminster Hall on charges of treason
following the civil war against parliamentarian forces.
1788: The British settlement
of Australia began
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 of Coney Island, NY. His coaster was 450 feet long with the
highest drop being 30 feet.
1887: The US Senate approved
an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
1892: The first officially
recognized basketball game was played at the YMCA gym in Springfield, Mass. The game was
invented by Dr. James Naismith.
1905: Troops are mobilized in
Russia to protect St. Petersburg from a brewing revolt.
1908: The Sullivan ordinance
bars women from smoking in public facilities.
1917: A London arms factory
explodes killing 80.
1930 : Charles Lindbergh
arrives in NY, setting a cross country flying record of 14.75 hours.
1932: New York bankers lend
New York City $350 million.
1936: Britain's King George
the Fifth died; he was succeeded by Edward the Eighth.
1941: President Franklin D.
Roosevelt is inaugurated for a third term.
1941: Hitler meets with
Mussolini and offers aid in Albania and Greece.
1942: Nazi officials held the
notorious Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their "final
solution" that called for exterminating Europe's Jews.
1943: Germany and Japan sign a
trade accord to exchange military supplies.
1946: President Truman creates
the Central Intelligence Group.
1946: Charles DeGaulle hands
in his resignation.
1954: Over 22,000
anti-Communist prisoners are turned over to the UN forces in Korea.
1958: Elvis Presley got a
little U.S. Mail this day with greetings from Uncle Sam. The draft board in Memphis, TN
ordered The King to report for duty; but allowed a 60-day deferment for him to finish the
film King Creole.
1961: President John F.
Kennedy is sworn in at the Capitol.
1964: A big day in U.S. record
stores this day as the first album by The Beatles was released. The LP, Meet the Beatles,
became a huge success -- and was #1 on the charts by February 15, 1964.
1965: Alan Freed, the
Father of Rock n Roll, died in Palm Springs, California.
1973: Jerry Lee Lewis debuted
at the Grand Ole Opry. He played ``Great Balls of Fire'' and other rock tunes over the
objections of Opry officials.
1977: President Jimmy Carter
is sworn in and then surprises everyone as he walks home to the White House.
1981: Iran released 52
Americans it had held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from
Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.
1982: Ozzy Osbourne was
hospitalized after biting the head off a bat someone had thrown on stage during a concert.
After undergoing rabies shots, the rocker said he thought the bat was plastic.
1986: The United States
observed the first federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther
King Junior.
1986: Britain and France
announced plans to build the Channel Tunnel.
1987: Anglican Church envoy
Terry Waite disappeared in Beirut, Lebanon, while attempting to negotiate the release of
Western hostages (he was finally freed in November 1991).
1988: An Arizona House
committee opened hearings on the possible impeachment of Governor Evan Mecham
1989: George Bush was sworn in
as the 41st president of the United States; Dan Quayle was sworn in as vice president.
1990: Soviet troops stormed
the capital of the republic of Azerbaijan, the scene of ethnic unrest, leaving dozens dead
and wounded.
1990: The space shuttle
"Columbia" returned from an eleven-day mission. Actress Barbara Stanwyck died in
Santa Monica, California, at age 82.
1991: Seven men identified as
allied airmen captured during the Persian Gulf War were put on Iraqi television in
Baghdad.
1991: During the Gulf War, Iraqi missiles were shot down by U.S. Patriot rockets as they approached Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
1991: In Latvia, "black beret" commandos of the Soviet Interior Ministry attacked the republic's Interior Ministry headquarters, killing five people.
1992: A French Airbus A-320
crashed near Strasbourg, killing 87 people.
1993: Bill Clinton was sworn
in as the 42nd president of the United States; Al Gore was sworn in as vice president.
1993: The Senate confirmed
Lloyd Bentsen as treasury secretary, Les Aspin as defense secretary and Warren Christopher
as secretary of state.
1993: Actress Audrey Hepburn
died in Switzerland at age 63.
1993: President Clinton picked
up a saxophone and jammed at five of the 12 inaugural balls he and his wife, Hillary,
attended.
1993: The quartet star Robert
Mann composed two pieces which were performed in New York. Mann himself performed the
works in the middle of a concert bracketed by Bach, Bartok and Brahms.
1994: Robert B. Fiske Junior
was appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate President and Mrs. Clinton's
Arkansas land deals.
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, citing isolation and
stress from the legal battle.)
1995: The United States
announced it was easing the trade embargo in effect against North Korea since the Korean
War.
1995: The Japanese government,
criticized for being slow to respond to Kobe's devastating earthquake, admitted its
initial reaction might have been "confused."
1995: A strike-shortened
National Hockey League season opened, with teams playing a 48-game schedule instead of the
usual 84.
1996: Palestinians voted for
the first time in elections that consolidated PLO chief Yasser Arafat's rule of the West
Bank and Gaza under a peace deal with Israel. He became the first democratically-elected
leader of the Palestinian people with 88.1 percent of the vote.
1996: The space shuttle Endeavour landed after a nine-day mission that included snaring a Japanese satellite.
1997: President Clinton and
Vice President Gore were sworn in for second terms of office. his inaugural address,
Clinton called for an end to "the politics of petty bickering and extreme
partisanship."
1998: A jury was selected in
Amarillo, Texas, to hear a multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed by Texas cattlemen against
talk show host Oprah Winfery over comments made on her program concerning beef safety.
1999: For a second day,
President Clinton's legal team argued its case before the Senate, saying that House-passed
articles of impeachment (while true) were "flawed and unfair."
2000: The Clinton administration issued visas to the grandmothers of Elian Gonzalez, enabling them to visit the United States to make their case for the 6-year-old's return to Cuba.
2000: Census 2000 officially got under way as Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt knocked on the door of a small wood-frame house in
Unalakleet, Alaska, to begin the nationwide head count.
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