January 11

This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
 

– Psalm 118: 24 

January is: 

National Oatmeal Month - This month long celebration is to encourage the eating of more oatmeal. Sponsor: Quaker Oats Company.

Today is: 

International Thank You Day - Thank someone today who has done you a favor in the past. Sponsor: All My Events.

Send a Dollar to the Treasury Day - On the birthday of Alexander Hamilton, the first treasurer of the U.S., send an extra dollar to the U.S. Treasury. Hamilton was born on this day in 1755, in the British West Indies. Sponsor: The Life of the Party.

Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health Day - U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government report stating that smoking may be hazardous to your health on this day in 1964.

Born on this Day

• 0347: Theodosius I, the Great, Spain, Roman emperor
  

• 1503: Francesco Parmigianino, Italian artist
  

• 1757: The first secretary of the US Treasury -- Alexander Hamilton -- He was born in the West Indies.
  

• 1807: Ezra Cornell, founder of Western Union Telegraph company and Cornell University
  

• 1815: Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, He was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
  

• 1839: Puerto Rican patriot Eugenio De Hostos
  

• 1842: Psychologist and philosopher William James
  

• 1885: Women’s rights activist Alice Paul (founder of National Women’s Party in 1913)
  

• 1890: Actor Monte Blue (Rootin’ Tootin’ Rhythm, Thunder Pass, Song of the Gringo, Wagon Wheels, So This is Paris, Orphans of the Storm)
  

• 19??: James Cooke (Singing Cookes)
  

• 1903: South African novelist Alan Paton ("Cry the Beloved Country")
  

• 1910: Baseball pitcher Schoolboy (Lynwood Thomas) Rowe
  

• 1912: Roger Lewis, aviation executive
  

• 1923: Auto racer Carroll Shelby
  

• 1924: Singer Don Cherry (Band of Gold)
  

• 1926: Producer Grant Tinker
  

• 1928: Producer David L. Wolper
  

• 1929: Actor Rod Taylor (The Birds, Masquerade, The Time Machine) some sources list 1930
  

• 1934: The prime minister of Canada, Jean Chretien
  

• 1942: Rock musician Clarence Clemons (Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band)
  

• 1943: Radio host Jim Hightower
  

• 1945: Actress Christine Kaufmann (Bagdad Cafe, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Taras Bulba, The Last Days of Pompeii)
  

• 1946: Country singer Naomi (Diane) Judd
  

• 1949: Singer Dennis (Frederick) Greene (Group: Sha-Na-Na, Rock & Roll is Here to Stay!, The Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll)
  

• 1952: Golfer Ben Crenshaw
  

• 1958: Musician Guitar Vicki Peterson (Group; The Bangles: Walk like an Egyptian, Manic Monday)
  

• 1962: Actress Kim Coles ("Living Single")
  

• 1969: Rhythm-and-blues singer Maxee Maxwell (Brownstone)
  

• 1971: Singer Mary J. Blige
  

• 1971: Musician Tom Rowlands (The Chemical Brothers)
  

• 1972: Actress Amanda Peet           

Events in History on this day
  

• 0049 BC: Julius Caesar leads his army across the Rubicon, plunging Rome into civil war.
  

• 0314: Death of St. Militiades, Pope
  

• 0529: Death of St. Theodosius
  

• 0705: Death of Pope John VI
  

• 1153: Death of David I, King of Scotland
  

• 1254: An Armenian monk attempts to baptize the KaKhan of the Mongols
  

• 1569: First lottery is held in England, at St. Paul's Cathedral
  

• 1770: The first shipment of rhubarb was sent to the United States from London. Benjamin Franklin sent the plant to his buddy, John Bartram in Philadelphia.
  

• 1785: The Continental Congress convened in New York City.
  

• 1805: The Michigan Territory was created.
  

• 1813: The first pineapples are planted in Hawaii.
  

• 1843: Francis Scott Key, poet of "The Star-Spangled Banner," dies in Baltimore.
  

• 1861: Alabama secedes from the Union.
  

• 1862: Lincoln accepts Simon Cameron’s resignation as Secretary of War.
  

• 1863: Bizet's music was first performed in public. He described it as "badly played, badly heard."
  

• 1878: Milk was delivered in glass bottles for the first time by one Alexander Campbell, in New York.
  

• 1902: "Popular Mechanics" magazine was published for the first time.
  

• 1904: British troops massacre 1,000 dervishes in Somaliland.
  

• 1913: The first sedan-type car was unveiled at the National Automobile Show in New York City. The car was manufactured by the Hudson Motor Company.
  

• 1925: Aaron Copland's jazzy, dissonant Organ Symphony was performed in New York. The Organ Symphony's outer movements are a little hard on the ears even today. But the middle movement, a scherzo, is jumpy, fun music, well worth hearing.
  

• 1929: Turkey adopts the European metric system.
  

• 1929: In the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks reduce the work day to seven hours.
  

• 1934: The German police raid the homes of dissident clergy in Berlin.
  

• 1935: Aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, California, that made her the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
  

• 1938: The first woman bank president, Frances Moulton, assumed her duties in Limerick, Maine.
  

• 1940: Charles Edison, son of the inventor, is appointed as Secretary of the Navy.
  

• 1942: Japan declared war against the Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies.
  

• 1943: The United States and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China.
  

• 1948: Truman proposes free, two-year community colleges for all who want an education.
  

• 1958: Lloyd Bridges starred as Mike Nelson, an ex-Navy frogman who became an underwater trouble shooter in "Seahunt" on CBS-TV. The show remained on the network for four years.
  

• 1964: US Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government report saying smoking may be hazardous to one's health.
  

• 1964: Some Picasso works that have never been seen before go on exhibit in Toronto.
  

• 1965: The Interagency Council on Smoking Health says 125,000 Americans will die from cigarettes in 1965 alone.
  

• 1973: Owners of American League baseball teams voted to adopt the designated-hitter rule on a trial basis.
  

• 1977: France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
  

• 1978: Two Soviet cosmonauts aboard the "Soyuz 27" capsule linked up with the "Salyut Six" orbiting space station, where the "Soyuz 26" capsule was already docked.
  

• 1979: Surgeon general’s report leaves no doubt that smoking causes lung cancer.
  

• 1980: Honda to build Japan’s first U.S. passenger-car assembly plant in Ohio.
  

• 1987: The Denver Broncos edged the Cleveland Browns 23-to-20 in overtime and the New York Giants trounced the Washington Redskins 17-0, sending the two winning teams to the Super Bowl.
  

• 1988: Vice President George Bush met with representatives of independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh to answer questions about the Iran-Contra affair.
  

• 1988: The Soviet Union announced it would participate in the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics.
  

• 1988: World War Two flying ace Gregory "Pappy" Boyington died in Fresno, California, at age 75.
  

• 1989: President Reagan bade the nation farewell in an address from the Oval Office.
  

• 1990: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev visited Lithuania, where he sought to assure supporters of independence that they would have a say in their republic's future.
  

• 1990: Martial law, imposed during the June 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, was lifted in Beijing.
  

• 1991: The United States and Iraq intensified their rhetoric, with Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third telling Air Force pilots in Saudi Arabia, "We pass the brink at midnight January 15," and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein boasting of his army's readiness. 
  

• 1992: The president of Algeria (Chadli Bendjedid) resigned, two weeks after Muslim fundamentalists had defeated his ruling party in legislative elections.
  

• 1993: Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic recorded a whole bunch of brief Delius pieces for Teldec. It included a piece called "Paris" and another called "Walk to the Paradise Garden."
  

• 1993: Former independent presidential candidate Ross Perot publicly returned to politics, recruiting Americans for a watchdog group which, he told CNN, would counter special interests that were preventing government reform and deficit reduction.
  

• 1994: NATO leaders concluded a two-day summit in Belgium by warning Bosnian Serbs of their willingness to order bombing raids in former Yugoslavia to relieve embattled Muslim enclaves. President Clinton, who attended the summit, then traveled to the Czech Republic for a short visit.
  

• 1995: 52 people were killed when a Colombian airliner crashed as it was preparing to land near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena;
  a nine-year-old girl survived.
  

• 1995: Fifty-two people were killed when a Colombian airliner crashed as it was preparing to land near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena; a nine-year-old girl survived.
  

• 1995: Sleaseball President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama held a low-key summit in Washington, playing down differences over trade
  

• 1996: Addressing pointed questions about the first lady, President Clinton offered a rousing defense of his wife, Hillary, during a news conference.
  

• 1996: The space shuttle "Endeavour" blasted off on a nine-day mission.
  

• 1996: Ryutaro Hashimoto was chosen the new prime minister of Japan.
  

• 1996: Funeral services were held for former French president Francois Mitterrand.
  

• 1997: President Clinton summoned top administration officials to a daylong planning session for his second term.
  

• 1997: An earthquake of magnitude seven-point-three shook Mexico City and the southern part of Mexico, but no deaths were reported.
  

• 1998: The Denver Broncos beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 24-to-21, to win the American Football Conference Championship; the Green Bay Packers defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 23-to-10, to claim the National Football Conference Championship.
  

• 1998: Utility workers and the National Guard struggled to clear roads and restore electric power to thousands of people in New England and New York state as cold weather descended on the battered region. Storms blamed on El Nino hammered the area with three days of freezing rain.
  

• 1988: At the 24th Annual People's Choice Awards "ER" was chosen favorite TV drama series for the fourth straight year and Seinfeld was chosen the favorite comedy for the third year running.
  

• 1998: Hundreds of prisoners rioted at a jail in southwest Colombia and by nightfall they were still holding 567 visitors hostage, most of them women, after freeing 18 hostages earlier in the day. The prisoners were calling for improvements in squalid jail conditions.
  

• 1998: Two Spanish lovers were literally caught with their pants down at church Sunday when members of a stunned congregation surprised them in the throes of passion. "They weren't actually having sex but the girl's trousers were down around her ankles and they were very touchy-feely," a police spokesman in the northern Spanish city of Valladolid said. The man was detained when he resisted police efforts to stop what the spokesman called "obscene acts."
  

• 1999: President Clinton and House Republicans clashed in impeachment trial papers, with the White House claiming the perjury and obstruction allegations fell short of high crimes and misdemeanors and GOP lawmakers rebutting: "If this is not enough, what is?"

• 2000: Whittling away more of the federal government's power over states, the US Supreme Court ruled, 5-to-4, that state employees cannot go into federal court to sue over age bias. 
  

• 2000: Carlton Fisk and Tony Perez were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  

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