January 1

Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. 

– Proverbs 8:34

January is:

Business and Reference Books Month

Born on this Day

• 1449: Lorenzo de Medici
  

• 1484: Huldrych Zwingli, Swiss Protestant reformer
  

• 1511: Prince Henry of England, who survives no more than six weeks
  

• 1618: BartolomÇ Esteban Murillo, Spanish Baroque artist (baptized)
  

• 1735: Paul Revere
  

• 1752: Betsy Ross, who, according to legend, made the first American flag.
  

• 1879: English novelist E.M. Forster
  

• 1895: J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Dircetor.
  

• 1900: Xavier Cugat (Francisco Deulogeo) Composer, band leader (The Lady in Red, Perfidia, Brazil, Begin the Beguine)
  

• 1909: Actor Dana Andrews (State Fair, The Best Years of Our Lives, A Walk in the Sun, Battle of the Bulge, Airport '75)
  

• 1909: Barry Goldwater the 1964 Republican candidate for president
  

• 1912: British-born Soviet master spy Harold "Kim" Philby
  

• 1919: J. D. Salinger, author of 'Catcher in the Rye'.
  

• 1921: Champion prize fighter Rocky Graziano (Rocco Barbella)
  

• 1923: Jazz musician Milt Jackson
  

• 1940: Actor Frank Langella
  

• 1942: Rock singer-musician Country Joe McDonald
  

• 1943: Writer-comedian Don Novello
  

• 1950: Country singer Steve Ripley (The Tractors)
  

• 1958: Rapper Grandmaster Flash.
  

• 1964: Actress Dedee Pfeiffer ("Cybill")
  

• 1969: Actor Verne Troyer ("Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me")
  

• 1970: Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights"; "Magnolia")

Events in History on this day
  

• 0045: BC Julian Calendar introduced
  

• 0379: Death of St. Basil
  

• 0533: Death of St. Fulgentius
  

• 0898: Death of Odo, King of the Franks; Charles "the Simple" becomes King
  

• 1189: Saladin abandons his siege of Tyre
  

• 1356: The Pope publishes the "Golden Bull"
  

• 1387: Death of Charles II, "The Bad", King of Navarre
  

• 1391: Jean Gerson preaches against warfare to the King of France
  

• 1500 :Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovers the coast of Brazil
  

• 1515: Death of Louis XII, King of France
  

• 1531: Rio de Janerio, Brazil, discovered
  

• 1559: Death of Christian III, King of Denmark and Norway
  

• 1562: Huguenots abolish Catholicism in Castres, France
  

• 1651: King Charles II crowned King of Scotland, the last King crowned at Scone
  

• 1766: Old Pretender, son of James III dies.
  

• 1782: "The English Bach "John Christian Bach died. He composed operas in the Italian style but also played organ like his dad.
  

• 1797: Albany became the capital of New York state, replacing New York City.
  

• 1804: Haiti gains it's independence
  

• 1863: The Emancipation Proclamation, declared the previous September by Abraham Lincoln, took effect. It declared freedom for slaves in all areas of the Confederacy that were still in rebellion against the Union.
  

• 1879: The Brahms Violin Concerto was premiered in Leipzig on this day, with Brahms' close friend Joseph Joachim in the solo spotlight. Virtually no previous violin concerto had been so thickly orchestrated and symphonic in its mood.
  

• 1892: The Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.
  

• 1900: Musical Records, W.J. Henderson wrote "No gentleman would have written that thing. There are places for such music, but surely not before miscellaneous assemblages of ladies and gentlemen." It was the work of Strauss that he was offending, "Till Eulenspiegel."
  

• 1901: The Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed.
  

• 1902: 1st Rose Bowl game held in Pasadena, California.
  

• 1906: British Parliament curtails immigration for the insane, impoverished, criminal and diseased.
  

• 1907: he Pure Food and Drug Act becomes law in the U.S.
  

• 1909: London astronomers hint of sightings of a planet beyond Neptune.
  

• 1923: Sadi Lecointe sets a new aviation speed record flying an average of 208 mph at Istres.
  

• 1927: Massachusetts becomes the first state to require automobile insurance.
  

• 1934: Alcatraz officially becomes a Federal Prison.
  

• 1945: France was admitted to the United Nations.
  

• 1953: Country singer Hank Williams Senior, 29, died of a drug and alcohol overdose while en route to a concert date in Canton, Ohio.
  

• 1956: Sudan gains it's independence
  

• 1958: Treaties establishing the European Economic Community went into effect.
  

• 1959: Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista.
  

• 1975: A jury convicted former Attorney General John Mitchell and former White House aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman on all counts in the Watergate cover-up case.
  

• 1979: The United States and China held celebrations in Washington and Beijing to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
  

• 1984: The break-up of AT&T took place as the telecommunications giant was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.
  

• 1986: Soviet television aired a five-minute greeting from President Reagan and Americans got the same from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the first such exchange between the superpowers.
  

• 1987: More than 2,000 Chinese students, defying a government ban, held a pro-democracy rally in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
  

• 1988: President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev exchanged optimistic New Year's greetings, expressing mutual hope they would reach an arms control treaty on strategic weapons within six months.
  

• 1988: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher distanced herself from US vows to punish whoever bombed Pam Am Flight 103, saying in a TV interview that revenge "can affect innocent people."
  

• 1990: David Dinkins was sworn in as New York City's first black mayor.
  

• 1991: President Bush called top advisers to the White House for a fresh assessment of the Persian Gulf crisis. 
  

• 1992: President Bush became the first American leader to address the Australian Parliament, telling lawmakers the U.S. would continue to subsidize its agricultural exports, despite protests by Australia's farmers.
  

• 1992: Boutros Boutros-Ghali succeeded Javier Perez de Cuellar as secretary-general of the United Nations.
  

• 1993: President Bush continued to tour Somalia, greeting hundreds of cheering youngsters and foreign relief workers at an orphanage in Baidoa. Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
  

• 1994: The North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect.
  

• 1994: In Mexico, the Zapatista National Liberation Army launched a rebellion to press for better living conditions for Indian peasants in Chiapas.
  

• 1994: Actor Cesar Romero died in Santa Monica, California, at age 86.
  

• 1995: A cease-fire supposed to last four months began in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Sweden, Finland and Austria joined the European Union.
  

• 1995: Fernando Henrique Cardoso took office as Brazil's 37th president.
  

• 1996: Some 100,000 Bangladeshi women rallied to protest Islamic clerics' attacks on female education and employment. 
  

• 1996: Two buses collided in northern Mexico, killing 25 people.
  

• 1996: Retired U.S. Adm. Arleigh Burke, remembered for his World War II heroics, died at Bethesda Naval Hospital at age 94.
  

• 1997: An off-duty Israeli soldier with a history of mental problems opened fire on a crowded vegetable market in Hebron, wounding five people and touching off a stone-throwing demonstration by angry Palestinians.
  

• 1997: Kofi Annan assumed the title of United Nations secretary-general.
  

• 1998: A new anti-smoking law went into effect in California, prohibiting people from lighting up in bars.
  

• 1998: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that 2% milk no longer "low fat." Also, in a move to reduce birth defects, food manufacturers were required to add the nutrient folic acid to enriched breads, flours, corn meals, pastas, rice and other grain products.
  

• 1998: Adventurer Steve Fossett completed the first full day of a planned circumnavigation of the globe, aiming his balloon toward wind currents that will carry him over the Atlantic Ocean toward Europe. Fossett, cruising at an altitude of about 22,000 feet, was about 225 miles east of Bermuda at 9:00 p.m. CST. The adventure still remains uncompleted.
  

• 1998: A group of at least 1,000 Hutu rebel killed 150 people in an attack on a village and military camp near Bujumbura airport. Col. Jean-Bosco Daradangwe said the attack was the biggest by Hutu rebels since 1993.
  

• 1998: Mexico's majestic Popocatepetl volcano boomed out a loud eruption, spewing out a massive gas cloud and setting off a series of tremors reaching up to 3.3 on the Richter scale. Television Azteca showed video of a giant cloud extending some four miles above the peak, which is 17,992 feet above sea level.
  

• 1999: The euro, the new single currency of eleven European countries, officially came into existence with the start of the New Year.
  

• 1999: Cuban President Fidel Castro, marking the 40th anniversary of his rise to power, portrayed his socialist nation as a defender of humanity against rapacious capitalism. 
  

• 2000: The arrival of 2000 saw no terrorist attacks, Y2K meltdowns or mass suicides among doomsday cults, but instead saw seven continents stepping joyously and peacefully into the New Year. 
  

• 2000: On his first full day as acting president, Vladimir Putin assured Russians there would be no "vacuum of power" after Boris Yeltsin's surprise resignation. 
  

• 2000: Wisconsin beat Stanford, 17-to-9, to become the first Big Ten team to win consecutive Rose Bowls. 
  

• 2002: Twelve European nations adopted the euro in the most ambitious currency changeover in history.
  

• 2002: Michael Bloomberg succeeded Rudolph Giuliani as New York City's mayor. 
  

• 2002: Eduardo Duhalde was named Argentina's fifth president in two weeks. 
  

Send Mail to pbower@neo.rr.com

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