January 23

Every day I will bless Thee, And I will praise Thy name forever and ever.


– Psalm 145:2 

January is:

• National Soup Month - This month encourage the eating of more soup. Its just the ticket for the cold winter months. Sponsor: Campbell's Soup Company.
  
• National Volunteer Blood Donor Month - Recognizes those who donate blood on a regular basis. Sponsor: American Association of Blood Banks. 
  
• National Yours, Mine and Ours Month

Today is:

• Barney's Birthday - This is a monthly event. Since no one knows the birthday of the purple dinosaur, his birthday is celebrated on the 23rd of each month.  Sponsor: Lyons Group.
  
• National Handwriting Day - Celebrated on the birthday of John Hancock (1773), the first signer of the Declaration of Independence. !!!! ATTENTION DOCTORS !!!! Celebrate good handwriting. Write neatly so that others can easily read it. Also known as Practice Your Penmanship Day. 
  
• National Pie Day - Celebrate the joys of baking and eating pies. The best way to round out a good meal is with a triangle of pie. Sponsor: Charlie Papazian.

Born on this Day

• 1737: Statesman and patriot John Hancock - Most major sources list his birthday as January 12, 1737, some felt so strongly that the 23'd is the date that set this day as National Handwriting Day in his honor.
  

• 1752: Clementi, better known to piano students than to concert-goers was born. He wrote some very nice pieces, but they are rarely performed in public. The reason is that his music works well for piano instruction, and when pianists mature they tend to avoid the music of their lessons.
  

• 1832: Edouard Manet, the French painter, was born. His "Dejeuner sur l'herbe" scandalized the critics but won him the enthusiasm of a group of young painters who became the forerunners of the Impressionists.
  

• 1898: Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, the Russian film director, was born. His films include "The Battleship Potemkin" and "Ten Days that Shook the World."
  

• 1899: Actor Humphrey Bogart
  

• 1899: Historian Joseph Nathan Kane
  

• 1903: Actor Randolph Scott (Last of the Mohicans, The Nevadan, Ride the High Country, To the Shores of Tripoli, Man in the Saddle, Go West Young Man, Bombardier)
  

• 1907: Actor Dan Duryea (The Flight of the Phoenix, Five Golden Dragons)
  

• 1915: Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Potter Stewart
  

• 1916: Photojournalist and author David Duncan
  

• 1919: Ernie Kovacs His 1950s television shows are funny and original even today. Most of the tricks you can play with television as a medium, he thought of first.
  

• 1920: Jazz saxophonist Ray Abrams
  

• 1925: Pianist and composer Marty Paich
  

• 1928: Actress Jeanne Moreau (The Summer House, La Femme Nikita, The Last Tycoon, The Bride Wore Black, Jules et Jim, Viva Maria, Dangerous Liaisons)
  

• 1933: Actress and singer (Conchita del Rivero) Chita Rivera (Sweet Charity, Pippin, Mayflower Madam)
  

• 1934: Actor Lou Antonio (Mayflower Madam, A Real American Hero, A Taste for Killing)
  

• 1964: Actor-director Lou Antonio
  

• 1940: Country singer Johnny Russell
  

• 1943: Actor Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Sidekicks, Hooch, Soldier’s Fortune)
  

• 1944: Actor Rutger Hauer (Lady Hawke, Nighthawks, Blade Runner, Beyond Justice, Forbidden Choices)
  

• 1944: Rhythm-and-blues singer Jerry Lawson (The Persuasions)
  

• 1948: Singer Anita Pointer (The Pointer Sisters: Fairy Tale, Fire, He’s So Shy, Slow Hand, Jump [For My Love], Automatic, Neutron Dance, I’m So Excited, Dare Me)
  

• 1950: Actor Richard Dean Anderson (Legend, MacGyver, Emerald Point N.A.S., Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, General Hospital)
  

• 1949: Rock musician Bill Cunningham
  

• 1950: Rock singer-musician Patrick Simmons (The Doobie Brothers)
  

• 1950: Rock musician Danny Federici (Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band) .
  

• 1953: Rock singer Robin Zander (Group: Cheap Trick I Want You to Want Me, Ain’t That a Shame, Voices, Dream Police)
  

• 1957: Princess Caroline of Monaco
  

• 1958: Singer Anita Baker
  

• 1959: Reggae musician Earl Falconer (UB40)
  

• 1963: Actress Gail O’Grady (N.Y.P.D. Blue)
  

• 1964: Actress Mariska Hargitay ("Can't Hurry Love")
  

• 1971: Rhythm-and-blues singer Marc Nelson
  

• 1974: Actress Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (Beverly Hills 90210, Saved by the Bell, Son in Law)  
  

• 1974: Rebekah Elmaloglou

Events in History on this day
  

 

• 0667: Death of St. Ildefonsus
  

• 1002: Death of Otto III, Emperor of the West
  

• 1264: Annullment of the Provisions of Oxford
  

• 1275: Death of St. Raymond of Penafort
  

• 1295: Coronation of Pope Boniface VIII
  

• 1516: Ferdinand II of Aragon died and was succeeded as king of Spain by his grandson Charles V.
  

• 1556: A deadly earthquake kills 830,000 in Shensi Province, China
  

• 1570: Assassination of James Stewart, the Earl of Moray
  

• 1622: William Baffin, the British navigator and explorer who gave his name to Baffin Island, dies at about 38.
  

• 1668: Holland, Britain and Sweden signed the Alliance of the Hague, known as the Triple Alliance, under which they agreed to aid one another if attacked.
  

• 1789: Georgetown College was founded by Father John Carroll, 54, in Washington, D.C. It was the first Roman Catholic college established in America.
  

• 1790: The real-life mutineers of the real-life ship, the Bounty, burned their ship at Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific ``Mutiny on the 'Bounty'!''
  

• 1806: William Pitt the Younger, British prime minister, died. At the age of 24, he became Britain's youngest prime minister.
  

• 1845: Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
  

• 1874: A playwright commissioned a composer to write music to go with his new play. The playwright was Ibsen, the composer Grieg, the play "Peer Gynt."
  

• 1901: A great fire ravages Montreal, resulting in $2.5 million in property lost.
  

• 1901: First female intern is accepted at a Paris hospital. Women’s History.
  

• 1905: General strike is called in Moscow.
  

• 1906: Igor Stravinsky married Katerina Nossenko in a secret ceremony near St. Petersburg. It was secret because marriage among first cousins was illegal.
  

• 1907: Charles Curtis, of Kansas, began serving in the United States Senate. He was the first Native American to become a U.S. Senator. He resigned in March of 1929 to become U.S. President Herbert Hoover’s Vice President.
  

• 1910: A Chicago grand jury begins an inquiry into the high price of meat. A boycott on meat has attracted one million participants.
  

• 1920: The Dutch government refused demands from the victorious Allies to hand over the ex-kaiser of Germany.
  

• 1922: Arthur Nikisch died at 66 in Leipzig. He was the first conductor to record a complete symphony Beethoven's 5th.
  

• 1931: Anna Pavlova, the Russian dancer and one of the most celebrated prima ballerinas of her time, died.
  

• 1932: New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
  

• 1934: President Roosevelt grants recognition to the Cuban government.
  

• 1937: 17 people went on trial in Moscow during Josef Stalin's "Great Purge."
  

• 1943: After nine days of talks in Casablanca, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to put an invasion of Italy ahead of opening a second front in northwestern Europe.
  

• 1943: Critic Alexander Woollcott suffered a fatal heart attack during a live broadcast of the CBS radio program "People's Platform."
  

• 1944: Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter, died. His most notable work is "The Scream."
  

• 1948: Gen. Eisenhower said he could not accept a presidential nomination from either party; four years later, he ran as a Republican and was elected 34th president of the United States.
  

• 1948: The Soviets refuse UN entry into North Korea to administer elections.
  

• 1949: The Communists begin their advance on Nanking.
  

• 1950: The Israeli Knesset approved a resolution proclaiming Jerusalem the capital of Israel. s
  

• 1951: President Truman creates the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, to monitor the anti-Communist campaign.
  

• 1960: The U.S. Navy bathyscaphe Trieste dived to a record depth of 10,916 meters (35,810 feet) in the Pacific Ocean.
  

• 1963: Harold "Kim" Philby, British journalist in Beirut, disappeared. Later in the year it was revealed that he was the third man in the Burgess-Maclean espionage affair and had been granted asylum in Moscow.
  

• 1964: The 24th amendment to the Constitution, eliminating the poll tax in federal elections, was ratified.
  

• 1964: The Milwaukee Braves’ legendary pitcher, Warren Spahn, signed a contract worth $85,000, making him the highest paid pitcher in baseball.
  

• 1965: One-hundred Cadets are charged in the Air Academy cheating scandal.
  

• 1968: North Korea seized the US Navy ship "Pueblo," charging it had intruded into the communist nation's territorial waters on a spying mission. (The crew was released eleven months later.)
  

• 1969: NASA unveils moon-landing craft.
  

• 1971: The temperature at Prospect Creek, Alaska, dropped to 80 degrees below zero, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the United States. (Duh - A sure sign of global warning)
  

• 1973: President Nixon claims that Vietnam peace has been reached in Paris and that the POWs would be home in 60 days.
  

• 1973: George Foreman took the heavyweight boxing title away from ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica.
  

• 1974: The song "Tubular Bells" received a gold record. Mike Oldfield’s song opened the credits of the movie, "The Exorcist", based on the book by William Peter Blatty.
  

• 1975: "Barney Miller" made his debut on ABC-TV. The talented cast made the show a hit for eight seasons.
  

• 1977: The TV mini-series "Roots," based on the Alex Haley novel, began airing on ABC.
  

• 1977: Carole King’s landmark album, "Tapestry", became the longest-running album to hit the charts, as it reached its 302nd week on the album lists.
  

• 1978: Baron Edouard-Jean Empain, one of Europe's most powerful industrialists, was kidnapped in Paris. He was freed on March 26.
  

• 1978: Chicago guitarist Terry Kath accidentally shot himself to death during a party in Los Angeles. He was 31.
  

• 1981: Under international pressure, opposition leader Kim Dae Jung’s death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment in Seoul.
  

• 1982: Daryl Hall and John Oates collected their first platinum album for "Private Eyes."
  

• 1985: O.J. Simpson became the first Heisman Trophy winner to be elected to pro football’s Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Roger Staubach, of the Dallas Cowboys, another Heisman winner, was also elected; but ‘the Juice’ went in first because his name comes before Staubach’s, alphabetically.
  

• 1986: U.S. begins maneuvers off the Libyan coast.
  

• 1988: More than 50,00 Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv to protest the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
  

• 1989: The Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali died. He was buried in a crypt under a glass dome in the Dali museum in Figueras, in Catalonia.
  

• 1990: The 101st Congress convened its second session, facing an agenda that included clean air legislation and deficit reduction.
  

• 1991: Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady asked Congress for another $80 billion toward the bailout of the nation's troubled savings and loan industry.
  

• 1991: After some 12,000 sorties in the Gulf War, Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said allied forces had achieved air superiority, and would focus air fire on Iraqi ground forces around Kuwait.
  

• 1991: The IRS began auctioning off Willie Nelson's property to satisfy the 16-point-seven-Million dollars in back taxes owed by the country singer. 
  

• 1993: convicted "diet doc" killer Jean Harris was freed, discharged from a New York state hospital after heart surgery and with a grant of clemency from the governor.
  

• 1993: FBI Director William S. Sessions dismissed a Justice Department report accusing him of ethical abuses, accusing former Attorney General William P. Barr of a "crassly calculated attack."
  

• 1994: Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, visiting Japan, met with Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, who promised to go through with a scheduled summit with President Clinton.
  

• 1994: The Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills won their respective NFL conference playoffs to set up a Super Bowl rematch.
  

• 1995: The Supreme Court ruled that companies accused of illegally firing employees could not escape liability by later finding a lawful reason to justify the dismissal.
  

• 1995: William Horton...lead singer of the 1950's R-and-B group the Silhouettes...died at the age of 65.
  

• 1995: The Supreme Court ruled that companies accused of illegally firing employees could not escape liability by later finding a lawful reason to justify the dismissal.
  

• 1996: Delivering his whimpy State of the Union address to a wisely skeptical Republican Congress, President Clinton traced the themes of his re-election campaign and confronted GOP lawmakers on the budget, demanding they "never — ever" shut down the government again. 
  

• 1997: Cancer experts who were supposed to settle a furious controversy over whether women should start having mammograms at age 40 or age 50 decided instead to leave the decision up to patients.
  
  

• 1998: Fighting scandal allegations involving Monica Lewinsky, President Clinton lied and assured his Cabinet during a meeting that he was innocent and urged them to concentrate on their jobs.
  
  

• 1998: A judge in Fairfax, Virginia, sentenced Mir Aimal Kasi to death for an assault rifle attack outside CIA headquarters in 1993 that killed two men and wounded three other people. Kasi, 33, told the court he was not proud of the shooting but described it as retaliation for U.S. policies that he said hurt Islamic nations.
  
  

• 1998: A government advisory panel urged the U.S. to do more to promote religious freedom worldwide, including making it a criteria for arms sales, aid and granting asylum to refugees.
  
  

• 1998: Antonay Williams, 27, the husband of the woman claiming to be Bill Cosby's illegitimate daughter, was sentenced to five years of probation for his role in a scheme to extort $40 million from the performer.
  
  

• 1998: Twelve or more people died and as many as five were missing after an avalanche swept away a group of teen-agers and their guides trekking near the ski resort of Les Orres in the southern French Alps. A further 23 people were injured, six seriously, in the worst avalanche disaster in France in years. The trekkers were hit by a fast-moving, 1,000-foot wall of snow, which was apparently triggered by people skiing further up the mountain outside authorized runs.
  

• 1999: During his visit to Mexico, Pope John Paul the Second urged his flock in the Americas to make the region a "continent of life."
  

• 1999: A federal judge ordered Monica Lewinsky to submit to an interview sought by House prosecutors in President Clinton's impeachment trial.

• 2000: The dark satire "American Beauty" won the Golden Globe for best film drama, while "The Sopranos" won best television drama. 
  

• 2000: The Tennessee Titans advanced to the Super Bowl by beating the Jacksonville Jaguars 33-to-14 in the AFC Championship game. The St. Louis Rams defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 11-to-6 to win the NFC Championship. 
  

• 2000: NFL star Derrick Thomas was injured when the sport utility vehicle he was driving overturned on an icy road in Missouri; Thomas died February eighth. (The crash also claimed the life of Thomas' friend, Michael Tellis.) 
  
  

 

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