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Milestones
- Thread starter admihoek
- Start date
ST-P2 kind of counts as double jeopardy...
t
t
Jan 18th: Prisca, virgin martyr (3rd cent.) Her legend says she was of a noble family. At a young age she was accused of being a Christian, and was ordered her to make a sacrifice to Apollo. When she refused she was beaten and sent to prison. When she was brought out to face the magistrate, she still held steadfastly to her faith. This time her punishment included flogging and having boiling tallow poured over her. After a second spell in prison, she was thrown to a lion, but it quietly lay down at her feet. She was starved for three days in a slaves' prison house, and then tortured upon the rack, pieces of flesh were torn from her stretched body with iron hooks, and she was thrown on a burning pyre. She miraculously still remained alive, but was beheaded at the tenth milestone on the Ostian Way.
The Christians buried her body in a catacomb at the place of her death. There is still a church of St. Prisca on the Aventine in Rome, on the site of a very early one, the Titulus Priscae, mentioned in the fifth century and probably built in the fourth
Jan 18th: Archelais, Thecla, and Susanna, virgin martyrs (293). They were natives of Romagna, but fled to Nola in Campania, in hope of escaping the persecution under Diocletian. However, they soon attracted attention by their austere lives of prayer, and Archelais especially acquired a reputation for wise counsel and her power of healing.
They were arrested and questioned by a magistrate, Leontius, with whom Archelais argued vigorously. Leontius ordered her to be exposed to lions, but the animals refused to harm her. All three were flogged, had boiling pitch poured over them, were exhausted by hunger in prison and finally beheaded in Salerno. When they were led to the scaffold, an angel appeared to them, whom some of the executioners saw and were so frightened that they could not raise their swords against the holy women. However, the virgins encouraged their executioners to carry out their duty.
The Christians buried her body in a catacomb at the place of her death. There is still a church of St. Prisca on the Aventine in Rome, on the site of a very early one, the Titulus Priscae, mentioned in the fifth century and probably built in the fourth
Jan 18th: Archelais, Thecla, and Susanna, virgin martyrs (293). They were natives of Romagna, but fled to Nola in Campania, in hope of escaping the persecution under Diocletian. However, they soon attracted attention by their austere lives of prayer, and Archelais especially acquired a reputation for wise counsel and her power of healing.
They were arrested and questioned by a magistrate, Leontius, with whom Archelais argued vigorously. Leontius ordered her to be exposed to lions, but the animals refused to harm her. All three were flogged, had boiling pitch poured over them, were exhausted by hunger in prison and finally beheaded in Salerno. When they were led to the scaffold, an angel appeared to them, whom some of the executioners saw and were so frightened that they could not raise their swords against the holy women. However, the virgins encouraged their executioners to carry out their duty.
with love...
Tree
The sky was falling on January 18 -- twice. Fortunately, it only came down a piece at a time.
AD 350. General Magentius deposes Roman Emperor Constans and proclaims himself Emperor. When the army grew dissatisfied with the behavior of Emperor Constans, it elevated Magnentius. Constans was abandoned by all except a handful of retainers, and he was slain shortly afterwards by a troop of light cavalry near the Pyrenees.
The remaining emperor of the family of Constantine I, Constantius II broke off his war in Syria with Persia, and marched west. The armies of Magnentius and Constantius met in the Battle of Mursa Major in 351; Magnentius led his troops into battle, while Constantius spent the day of battle praying in a nearby church. Despite Magnentius' heroism, his troops were defeated and forced to retreat back to Gaul. Magnentius made a final stand in 353 in the Battle of Mons Seleucus, after which he committed suicide by falling on his sword.
474. Seven-year-old Leo II briefly becomes Byzantine emperor. His reign lasts from January 18 to November 17, 474. He was the son of Zeno and Ariadne (the daughter of Leo I and Verina). As Leo's closest male relative, he was named successor upon his grandfather's death. After taking his father as colleague, he died of an unknown disease about 10 months into his reign. It was widely rumored that he might have been poisoned by his mother Ariadne in order to bring her husband Zeno to the throne. He was indeed succeeded by his father, although his grandmother Verina took advantage of his death to conspire against Zeno.
1486. King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the warring houses of York and Lancaster which had fought the Wars of the Roses. The marriage also strengthens Henry's claim to the throne and ensures that his children will be of royal blood.
Henry VII was the founder and first patriarch of the Tudor dynasty, which included his son, the much married Henry VIII, and two granddaughters, "Bloody Mary" Tudor and Elizabeth I.
1535. Lima, Peru is founded by Francisco Pizarro.
1591. King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Minchit Sra of Burma in man-to-man combat. This date is now observed as Royal Thai Armed Forces Day.
1670. Henry Morgan captures Panama. Sir Henry Morgan was a privateer of Welsh birth, who made a name in the Caribbean as a leader of sea pirates and buccaneers.
After taking a booty that exceeded a hundred thousand pounds, he burned the city and massacred all its inhabitants, the greatest atrocity perpetrated by any Welsh pirate. However, because the sack of Panama violated a peace treaty between England and Spain, Morgan was arrested and conducted to England in 1672. He was able to prove he had no knowledge of the treaty, and in 1674 Morgan was knighted before returning to Jamaica the following year to take up the post of Lieutenant Governor.
1778. Captain James Cook discovers the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands" in honor of his mentor, the Earl of Sandwich.
1788. The first 736 convicts banished from England to Australia land in Botany Bay, creating the first Australian Penal Colony.
1803. Determined to begin the American exploration of the vast mysterious regions of the Far West, President Thomas Jefferson sends a special confidential message to Congress asking for money to fund the journey of Lewis and Clark. Despite some mild resistance from Federalists who never saw any point in spending money on the West, Jefferson's carefully worded request prevailed, and Congress approved the $2,500 appropriation by a sizable margin. It no doubt seemed trivial in comparison to the $9,375,000 they had approved a week earlier for the Louisiana Purchase, which brought much of the territory Jefferson was proposing to explore under American control.
1861. Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in secession from the United States in the run-up to the American Civil War.
1862. Former U.S. President and Confederate congressman-elect John Tyler dies at age 71 in Richmond, Virginia. He felt that victory was impossible for the Confederates but nonetheless suggested that Confederate cavalry be dispatched to capture Washington, D.C., before the Union military was in place. Tyler was elected to the permanent Congress of the Confederate States of America but died before he could take his seat.
1871. Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, becomes the first German Emperor. In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, Wilhelm was proclaimed German Emperor in Versailles Palace.
The North German Confederation (1867-1871) was transformed into the German Empire (Kaiserreich. 1871-1918). This Empire was a federal state; the emperor was head of state and president (primus inter pares -- first among equals) of the federated monarchs, the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the grand dukes of Baden and Hesse, as well as the senates of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen.
1884. Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the UK.
Cremation was declared legal in England and Wales when Price was prosecuted for cremating his son; formal legislation followed later with the passing of the Cremation Act 1902 (this Act did not extend to Ireland, which imposed procedural requirements before a cremation could occur and restricted the practice to authorized places).
Some of the various Protestant churches came to accept cremation, with the rationale being, "God can resurrect a bowl of ashes just as conveniently as he can resurrect a bowl of dust." The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia was critical about these efforts, referring to them as "these sinister movements" and associating them with Freemasonry. In 1963, Pope Paul VI lifted the ban on cremation, and in 1966 allowed Catholic priests to officiate at cremation ceremonies.
1896. The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time.
1903. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt sends a message of greetings from a Marconi station built near Wellfleet, Massachusetts to King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, marking the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States.
1911. Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco harbor, marking the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
1919. President Woodrow Wilson attends the Paris Peace Conference that would formally end World War I and lay the groundwork for the formation of the League of Nations. Wilson envisioned a future in which the international community could preempt another conflict as devastating as the First World War and, to that end, he urged leaders from France, Great Britain and Italy to draft at the conference what became known as the Covenant of League of Nations. Wary of the covenant's vague language and potential impact on America's sovereignty, Congress refused to adopt the international agreement for a League of Nations.
At a stalemate with Congress, President Wilson embarked on an arduous tour across the country to sell the idea of a League of Nations directly to the American people. The tour's intense schedule cost Wilson his health. During the tour he suffered persistent headaches and, upon his return to Washington, he suffered a stroke. He recovered and continued to advocate passage of the covenant, but the stroke and Republican Warren Harding's election to the presidency in 1921 effectively ended his campaign to get the League of Nations ratified. The League was eventually created, but without the participation of the United States.
1919. Bentley Motors Limited is founded.
1939. Louis Armstrong records Jeepers Creepers. This song was featured in the 1938 film Going Places starring Dick Powell, Anita Louise, Louis Armstrong, and Ronald Reagan. Louis Armstrong plays the part of Gabriel, the trainer of a race horse named Jeepers Creepers. ("Jeepers Creepers" is a euphemism for Jesus Christ.)
1943. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is launched. The most significant portion of the rebellion took place from April 19 until May 16, 1943, and ended when the poorly armed and supplied resistance was crushed by German troops. It was the largest single revolt by the Jews during the Holocaust.
1944. Soviet forces liberate Leningrad, effectively ending the three year Nazi Siege of Leningrad during World War II.
1956. American porn actress Sharon Mitchell is born. Mitchell is the Director of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which she set up in 1998 after as a career as an erotic actress that spanned two decades. Along with with Sharon Kane, she is considered to be one of the two most prolific adult movie actresses to date. (See pictures.)
Before becoming a porn star, she was an Off-Broadway actress and dancer who toured with the Martha Graham company. Then in an "act of liberation," she turned into a hardcore movie starlet. During her career in the industry, she appeared in over 2,000 movies and directed 38. She made many appearances as a bondage model in underground magazines and, in the '90s, made the transition from sex films to bondage and S&M videos, nearly always playing the role of a tough dominatrix.
During her heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, she was distinguished by her lean, wiry physique and androgynous appearance -- angular facial features with mascara and rouge and short teased hair, which was sometimes worn in a butch mullet style -- as well as her vigorous cunnilingus technique.
Later she became addicted to heroin, a habit which she successfully overcame, and she has been drug free since the early 1990s. She subsequently refers to her 16-year addiction to heroin as her "blackout years."
On March 30, 1996, she was attacked and raped by a crazed fan who almost killed her. After that incident, she left the sex industry to go back to college. She earned a PhD in human sexuality from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco.
1958. Hockey player Willie O’Ree of the Boston Bruins takes to the ice for a game against the Montreal Canadiens, becoming the first black to play in the National Hockey League (NHL).
1967. Albert DeSalvo, the suspected "Boston Strangler," is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life in prison. None of those crimes, however, involved any of the Boston Strangler murders.
Between June 14, 1962, and Januart 4, 1964, thirteen single women (between the ages of 19 and 85) were murdered in the Boston area. All thirteen women were sexually assaulted in their apartments, then strangled with articles of clothing. Without any sign of forced entry into their dwellings, the women were assumed to either know their assailant or voluntarily allowed him into their homes.
While the police were not convinced that all of these murders were the work of a single individual, much of the public believed so. Despite police efforts to solve the case, it was DeSalvo who caused his own capture.
On October 27, 1964, a stranger entered a young woman's home posing as a detective. He tied his victim to her bed, proceeded to sexually assault her, and suddenly left, saying "I'm sorry" as he went. The woman's description led police to identify the assailant as DeSalvo and when his photo was published, many women identified him as the man who had assaulted them. Earlier on October 27, DeSalvo had posed as a motorist with car trouble and attempted to enter a home in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The homeowner, future Brockton police chief Richard Sproles, became suspicious, and eventually fired a shotgun at DeSalvo.
DeSalvo was sentenced to life in prison in 1967. In February of that year he escaped with two fellow inmates from Bridgewater State Hospital triggering a full scale manhunt. A note was found on his bunk addressed to the superintendent. In it Desalvo stated that he had escaped to focus attention on the conditions in the hospital and his own situation. The next day he gave himself up. Following the escape he was transferred to the maximum security Walpole state Prison where he was found murdered six years later in the infirmary. The killer or killers were never identified.
Lingering doubts remain as to whether DeSalvo was indeed the Boston Strangler. At the time that he confessed, people who knew him personally did not believe him capable of the vicious crimes. It was also noted that the women killed by "The Strangler" came from different age and ethnic groups, and that there were different modi operandi. Former FBI profiler Robert Ressler noted "You're putting together so many different patterns [regarding the Boston Strangler murders] that its inconceivable behaviorally that all these could fit one individual."
1969. A spate of heavy rain begins in Southern California that results in a tragic series of landslides and floods that kills nearly 100 people. This was the worst weather-related disaster in California in the 20th century.
1971. In a televised speech, Senator George S. McGovern (D-South Dakota) begins his antiwar campaign for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination by vowing to bring home all U.S. soldiers from Vietnam if he is elected. McGovern won his party's nomination, but was defeated in the general election by incumbent Richard Nixon. Nixon carried all states but Massachusetts, taking 97 percent of the electoral votes.
1974. A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War.
1985. For the first time since joining the World Court in 1946, the United States walks out of a case. The case that caused the dramatic walkout concerned U.S. paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government.
1990. Former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother Peggy McMartin Buckey are acquitted in a Los Angeles, California court of 52 child molestation charges.
1994. Witnesses report seeing a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute in Cando, Spain. Scientists theorized that this was a possible "bolide impact."
The term "bolide" can refer to either an extraterrestrial body that collides with the Earth, or to an exceptionally bright, fireball-like meteor regardless of whether it ultimately impacts the surface. The bolide may explode either on impact with the Earth's surface or at a low altitude above it, creating a large impact crater.
The Cando event was an explosion that occurred in the village of Cando, Spain, in the morning of January 18, 1994. There were no casualties in this incident, which has been described as being like a small Tunguska Event.
Witnesses claim to have seen a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute. A possible explosion site was established when a local resident called the University of Santiago de Compostela to report a mysterious gouge in a hillside close to the village. Up to 200 cubic meters of terrain was missing and trees were found displaced 100 meters down the hill.
1997. Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided.
1998. Matt Drudge breaks the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair story on his website The Drudge Report.
2000. The strange Tagish Lake meteorite impacted the Earth. Reported sightings in the Tagish Lake area in the Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia, Canada were confirmed after more than 500 fragments of the meteorite were found on the lake's frozen surface. Most of the stony, carbonaceous fragments landed on the Taku Arm of the lake, becoming encased in ice as they entered the lake's frozen surface. As the meteorite fell to Earth, it set off a wide array of satellite sensors and seismographs.
Based on eyewitness accounts of the fireball caused by the incoming meteorite and on the photographs of the track it left behind, and which was visible for about half an hour, scientists have managed to calculate the orbit it followed before it impacted with Earth. Unfortunately, none of the photographs captured the fireball directly. Although both eye-witness evidence and photographs of the track are usually not very accurate, it was found that the Tagish Lake meteorite had a pre-entry orbit that brought it from the outer reaches of the Asteroid Belt.
2007. Hurricane Kyrill, causes at least 47 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe. For the UK, it is the strongest storm in 17 years; for Germany it is the worst since 1999.
Kyrill is the name given to a low pressure area that evolved into an unusually violent European windstorm, forming an extratropical cyclone with hurricane-strength winds. It formed over Newfoundland on January 15, and moved across the Atlantic Ocean reaching Ireland and Great Britain by the evening of January 17. The storm then crossed the North Sea on January 17-18, making landfall on the German and Dutch coasts on the afternoon of January 18, before moving eastwards toward Poland and the Baltic Sea on the night from January 18 to January 19 and further on to northern Russia.
Kyrill caused widespread damage across Western Europe, especially in the United Kingdom and Germany. 47 fatalities were reported as of January 19 as well as extensive disruptions of public transport, power outages to over one hundred thousand homes, severe damage to public and private buildings and major forest damage.
Kyrill was unusual in that its field of hurricane-force winds was very broad, affecting large areas of Germany as well as neighboring countries simultaneously. Kyrill brought wind gusts of up to 130 km/h (80 mph) even in the North German plains. German weather experts have described the storm as a "once in a decade" event.
2011. A US drone attack kills five militants in a compound in northwest Pakistan.
2012. Severed human hands and feet are found near the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, California, close to where a man's severed head was recently discovered. Los Angeles police continue their search for more body parts connected with the case.
.
AD 350. General Magentius deposes Roman Emperor Constans and proclaims himself Emperor. When the army grew dissatisfied with the behavior of Emperor Constans, it elevated Magnentius. Constans was abandoned by all except a handful of retainers, and he was slain shortly afterwards by a troop of light cavalry near the Pyrenees.
The remaining emperor of the family of Constantine I, Constantius II broke off his war in Syria with Persia, and marched west. The armies of Magnentius and Constantius met in the Battle of Mursa Major in 351; Magnentius led his troops into battle, while Constantius spent the day of battle praying in a nearby church. Despite Magnentius' heroism, his troops were defeated and forced to retreat back to Gaul. Magnentius made a final stand in 353 in the Battle of Mons Seleucus, after which he committed suicide by falling on his sword.
474. Seven-year-old Leo II briefly becomes Byzantine emperor. His reign lasts from January 18 to November 17, 474. He was the son of Zeno and Ariadne (the daughter of Leo I and Verina). As Leo's closest male relative, he was named successor upon his grandfather's death. After taking his father as colleague, he died of an unknown disease about 10 months into his reign. It was widely rumored that he might have been poisoned by his mother Ariadne in order to bring her husband Zeno to the throne. He was indeed succeeded by his father, although his grandmother Verina took advantage of his death to conspire against Zeno.
1486. King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the warring houses of York and Lancaster which had fought the Wars of the Roses. The marriage also strengthens Henry's claim to the throne and ensures that his children will be of royal blood.
Henry VII was the founder and first patriarch of the Tudor dynasty, which included his son, the much married Henry VIII, and two granddaughters, "Bloody Mary" Tudor and Elizabeth I.
1535. Lima, Peru is founded by Francisco Pizarro.
1591. King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Minchit Sra of Burma in man-to-man combat. This date is now observed as Royal Thai Armed Forces Day.
1670. Henry Morgan captures Panama. Sir Henry Morgan was a privateer of Welsh birth, who made a name in the Caribbean as a leader of sea pirates and buccaneers.
After taking a booty that exceeded a hundred thousand pounds, he burned the city and massacred all its inhabitants, the greatest atrocity perpetrated by any Welsh pirate. However, because the sack of Panama violated a peace treaty between England and Spain, Morgan was arrested and conducted to England in 1672. He was able to prove he had no knowledge of the treaty, and in 1674 Morgan was knighted before returning to Jamaica the following year to take up the post of Lieutenant Governor.
1778. Captain James Cook discovers the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands" in honor of his mentor, the Earl of Sandwich.
1788. The first 736 convicts banished from England to Australia land in Botany Bay, creating the first Australian Penal Colony.
1803. Determined to begin the American exploration of the vast mysterious regions of the Far West, President Thomas Jefferson sends a special confidential message to Congress asking for money to fund the journey of Lewis and Clark. Despite some mild resistance from Federalists who never saw any point in spending money on the West, Jefferson's carefully worded request prevailed, and Congress approved the $2,500 appropriation by a sizable margin. It no doubt seemed trivial in comparison to the $9,375,000 they had approved a week earlier for the Louisiana Purchase, which brought much of the territory Jefferson was proposing to explore under American control.
1861. Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in secession from the United States in the run-up to the American Civil War.
1862. Former U.S. President and Confederate congressman-elect John Tyler dies at age 71 in Richmond, Virginia. He felt that victory was impossible for the Confederates but nonetheless suggested that Confederate cavalry be dispatched to capture Washington, D.C., before the Union military was in place. Tyler was elected to the permanent Congress of the Confederate States of America but died before he could take his seat.
1871. Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, becomes the first German Emperor. In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, Wilhelm was proclaimed German Emperor in Versailles Palace.
The North German Confederation (1867-1871) was transformed into the German Empire (Kaiserreich. 1871-1918). This Empire was a federal state; the emperor was head of state and president (primus inter pares -- first among equals) of the federated monarchs, the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the grand dukes of Baden and Hesse, as well as the senates of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen.
1884. Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the UK.
Cremation was declared legal in England and Wales when Price was prosecuted for cremating his son; formal legislation followed later with the passing of the Cremation Act 1902 (this Act did not extend to Ireland, which imposed procedural requirements before a cremation could occur and restricted the practice to authorized places).
Some of the various Protestant churches came to accept cremation, with the rationale being, "God can resurrect a bowl of ashes just as conveniently as he can resurrect a bowl of dust." The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia was critical about these efforts, referring to them as "these sinister movements" and associating them with Freemasonry. In 1963, Pope Paul VI lifted the ban on cremation, and in 1966 allowed Catholic priests to officiate at cremation ceremonies.
1896. The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time.
1903. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt sends a message of greetings from a Marconi station built near Wellfleet, Massachusetts to King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, marking the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States.
1911. Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco harbor, marking the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
1919. President Woodrow Wilson attends the Paris Peace Conference that would formally end World War I and lay the groundwork for the formation of the League of Nations. Wilson envisioned a future in which the international community could preempt another conflict as devastating as the First World War and, to that end, he urged leaders from France, Great Britain and Italy to draft at the conference what became known as the Covenant of League of Nations. Wary of the covenant's vague language and potential impact on America's sovereignty, Congress refused to adopt the international agreement for a League of Nations.
At a stalemate with Congress, President Wilson embarked on an arduous tour across the country to sell the idea of a League of Nations directly to the American people. The tour's intense schedule cost Wilson his health. During the tour he suffered persistent headaches and, upon his return to Washington, he suffered a stroke. He recovered and continued to advocate passage of the covenant, but the stroke and Republican Warren Harding's election to the presidency in 1921 effectively ended his campaign to get the League of Nations ratified. The League was eventually created, but without the participation of the United States.
1919. Bentley Motors Limited is founded.
1939. Louis Armstrong records Jeepers Creepers. This song was featured in the 1938 film Going Places starring Dick Powell, Anita Louise, Louis Armstrong, and Ronald Reagan. Louis Armstrong plays the part of Gabriel, the trainer of a race horse named Jeepers Creepers. ("Jeepers Creepers" is a euphemism for Jesus Christ.)
1944. Soviet forces liberate Leningrad, effectively ending the three year Nazi Siege of Leningrad during World War II.
1956. American porn actress Sharon Mitchell is born. Mitchell is the Director of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which she set up in 1998 after as a career as an erotic actress that spanned two decades. Along with with Sharon Kane, she is considered to be one of the two most prolific adult movie actresses to date. (See pictures.)
Before becoming a porn star, she was an Off-Broadway actress and dancer who toured with the Martha Graham company. Then in an "act of liberation," she turned into a hardcore movie starlet. During her career in the industry, she appeared in over 2,000 movies and directed 38. She made many appearances as a bondage model in underground magazines and, in the '90s, made the transition from sex films to bondage and S&M videos, nearly always playing the role of a tough dominatrix.
During her heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, she was distinguished by her lean, wiry physique and androgynous appearance -- angular facial features with mascara and rouge and short teased hair, which was sometimes worn in a butch mullet style -- as well as her vigorous cunnilingus technique.
Later she became addicted to heroin, a habit which she successfully overcame, and she has been drug free since the early 1990s. She subsequently refers to her 16-year addiction to heroin as her "blackout years."
On March 30, 1996, she was attacked and raped by a crazed fan who almost killed her. After that incident, she left the sex industry to go back to college. She earned a PhD in human sexuality from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco.
1958. Hockey player Willie O’Ree of the Boston Bruins takes to the ice for a game against the Montreal Canadiens, becoming the first black to play in the National Hockey League (NHL).
1967. Albert DeSalvo, the suspected "Boston Strangler," is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life in prison. None of those crimes, however, involved any of the Boston Strangler murders.
Between June 14, 1962, and Januart 4, 1964, thirteen single women (between the ages of 19 and 85) were murdered in the Boston area. All thirteen women were sexually assaulted in their apartments, then strangled with articles of clothing. Without any sign of forced entry into their dwellings, the women were assumed to either know their assailant or voluntarily allowed him into their homes.
While the police were not convinced that all of these murders were the work of a single individual, much of the public believed so. Despite police efforts to solve the case, it was DeSalvo who caused his own capture.
On October 27, 1964, a stranger entered a young woman's home posing as a detective. He tied his victim to her bed, proceeded to sexually assault her, and suddenly left, saying "I'm sorry" as he went. The woman's description led police to identify the assailant as DeSalvo and when his photo was published, many women identified him as the man who had assaulted them. Earlier on October 27, DeSalvo had posed as a motorist with car trouble and attempted to enter a home in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The homeowner, future Brockton police chief Richard Sproles, became suspicious, and eventually fired a shotgun at DeSalvo.
DeSalvo was sentenced to life in prison in 1967. In February of that year he escaped with two fellow inmates from Bridgewater State Hospital triggering a full scale manhunt. A note was found on his bunk addressed to the superintendent. In it Desalvo stated that he had escaped to focus attention on the conditions in the hospital and his own situation. The next day he gave himself up. Following the escape he was transferred to the maximum security Walpole state Prison where he was found murdered six years later in the infirmary. The killer or killers were never identified.
Lingering doubts remain as to whether DeSalvo was indeed the Boston Strangler. At the time that he confessed, people who knew him personally did not believe him capable of the vicious crimes. It was also noted that the women killed by "The Strangler" came from different age and ethnic groups, and that there were different modi operandi. Former FBI profiler Robert Ressler noted "You're putting together so many different patterns [regarding the Boston Strangler murders] that its inconceivable behaviorally that all these could fit one individual."
1969. A spate of heavy rain begins in Southern California that results in a tragic series of landslides and floods that kills nearly 100 people. This was the worst weather-related disaster in California in the 20th century.
1971. In a televised speech, Senator George S. McGovern (D-South Dakota) begins his antiwar campaign for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination by vowing to bring home all U.S. soldiers from Vietnam if he is elected. McGovern won his party's nomination, but was defeated in the general election by incumbent Richard Nixon. Nixon carried all states but Massachusetts, taking 97 percent of the electoral votes.
1974. A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War.
1985. For the first time since joining the World Court in 1946, the United States walks out of a case. The case that caused the dramatic walkout concerned U.S. paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government.
1990. Former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother Peggy McMartin Buckey are acquitted in a Los Angeles, California court of 52 child molestation charges.
1994. Witnesses report seeing a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute in Cando, Spain. Scientists theorized that this was a possible "bolide impact."
The term "bolide" can refer to either an extraterrestrial body that collides with the Earth, or to an exceptionally bright, fireball-like meteor regardless of whether it ultimately impacts the surface. The bolide may explode either on impact with the Earth's surface or at a low altitude above it, creating a large impact crater.
The Cando event was an explosion that occurred in the village of Cando, Spain, in the morning of January 18, 1994. There were no casualties in this incident, which has been described as being like a small Tunguska Event.
Witnesses claim to have seen a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute. A possible explosion site was established when a local resident called the University of Santiago de Compostela to report a mysterious gouge in a hillside close to the village. Up to 200 cubic meters of terrain was missing and trees were found displaced 100 meters down the hill.
1997. Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided.
1998. Matt Drudge breaks the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair story on his website The Drudge Report.
2000. The strange Tagish Lake meteorite impacted the Earth. Reported sightings in the Tagish Lake area in the Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia, Canada were confirmed after more than 500 fragments of the meteorite were found on the lake's frozen surface. Most of the stony, carbonaceous fragments landed on the Taku Arm of the lake, becoming encased in ice as they entered the lake's frozen surface. As the meteorite fell to Earth, it set off a wide array of satellite sensors and seismographs.
Based on eyewitness accounts of the fireball caused by the incoming meteorite and on the photographs of the track it left behind, and which was visible for about half an hour, scientists have managed to calculate the orbit it followed before it impacted with Earth. Unfortunately, none of the photographs captured the fireball directly. Although both eye-witness evidence and photographs of the track are usually not very accurate, it was found that the Tagish Lake meteorite had a pre-entry orbit that brought it from the outer reaches of the Asteroid Belt.
2007. Hurricane Kyrill, causes at least 47 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe. For the UK, it is the strongest storm in 17 years; for Germany it is the worst since 1999.
Kyrill is the name given to a low pressure area that evolved into an unusually violent European windstorm, forming an extratropical cyclone with hurricane-strength winds. It formed over Newfoundland on January 15, and moved across the Atlantic Ocean reaching Ireland and Great Britain by the evening of January 17. The storm then crossed the North Sea on January 17-18, making landfall on the German and Dutch coasts on the afternoon of January 18, before moving eastwards toward Poland and the Baltic Sea on the night from January 18 to January 19 and further on to northern Russia.
Kyrill caused widespread damage across Western Europe, especially in the United Kingdom and Germany. 47 fatalities were reported as of January 19 as well as extensive disruptions of public transport, power outages to over one hundred thousand homes, severe damage to public and private buildings and major forest damage.
Kyrill was unusual in that its field of hurricane-force winds was very broad, affecting large areas of Germany as well as neighboring countries simultaneously. Kyrill brought wind gusts of up to 130 km/h (80 mph) even in the North German plains. German weather experts have described the storm as a "once in a decade" event.
2011. A US drone attack kills five militants in a compound in northwest Pakistan.
2012. Severed human hands and feet are found near the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, California, close to where a man's severed head was recently discovered. Los Angeles police continue their search for more body parts connected with the case.
.
Attachments
January 19 is Confederate Heroes Day in Texas. Confederate Memorial Day, also known as Confederate Decoration Day (Tennessee) and Confederate Heroes Day (Texas)
379. Emperor Gratian elevates Flavius Theodosius at Sirmium to Augustus, and gives him power over all the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.
From 364 to 375, the Roman Empire was governed by two co-emperors, the brothers Valentinian I and Valens; when Valentinian died in 375, his sons, Valentinian II and Gratian, succeeded him as rulers of the Western Roman Empire. In 378, after Valens was killed in the Battle of Adrianople, Gratian invited Theodosius to take command of the Illyrian army. As Valens had no successor, Gratian's appointment of Theodosius amounted to a de facto invitation for Theodosius to become co-Augustus for the East. Gratian was killed in a rebellion in 383, Theodosius then appointed his elder son, Arcadius, his co-ruler for the East. After the death in 392 of Valentinian II, whom Theodosius had supported against a variety of usurpations, Theodosius ruled as sole Emperor, appointing his younger son Honorius Augustus as his co-ruler for the West.
399. Byzantine Empress Pulcheria is born. As the elder sister of Theodosius II, she held much of the power when he came to the throne as a child in 408. She took a vow of virginity to avoid being forced into a marriage, and tended to rely on the support of the various Germanic military officers she appointed, notably Aspar.
By 416 Theodosius was capable of ruling by himself, but she remained a very strong influence, having had herself proclaimed Empress in 414. That year she had Theodosius remove all pagans from the civil service; she was a devout Christian and under her influence both Theodosius and his wife Aelia Eudocia (a former pagan) became devout Christians as well.
In 441 Chrysaphius, a eunuch, convinced Theodosius to dismiss Pulcheria, although Chrysaphius simply took her place leaving Theodosius with little power. Pulcheria became a nun, but by 450, when Theodosius died, Pulcheria had been allowed to return to court. Chrysaphius and Pulcheria struggled for control after Theodosius' death; Pulcheria allied with the Germanic military officers, and married one of Aspar's generals, Marcian, declaring that Theodosius had declared Marcian his successor. The marriage was arranged with the understanding that he respect Pulcheria's vow of chastity. Pulcheria then had Marcian execute Chrysaphius.
She died in July, 453, leaving Aspar as the dominant influence on Marcian, who himself died in 457. Pulcheria is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
1419. Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England completing his conquest of Normandy in the Hundred Years War. The Hundred Years War was a conflict between England and France, lasting 116 years from 1337 to 1453. It was fought primarily over claims by the English kings to the French throne and was punctuated by several brief and two lengthy periods of peace before it finally ended in the expulsion of the English from France, with the exception of Calais.
Though primarily a dynastic conflict, the war gave impetus to ideas of both French and English nationality. Militarily, it saw the introduction of new weapons and tactics, which eroded the older system of feudal armies dominated by heavy cavalry. The first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Western Roman Empire were introduced for the war, thus changing the role of the peasantry. For all this, as well as for its long duration, it is often viewed as one of the most significant conflicts in the history of medieval warfare.
1520. Sten Sture the Younger, the Regent of Sweden, is mortally wounded at the Battle of Bogesund.
1661. Thomas Venner is hanged, drawn and quartered in London. Thomas Venner was a cooper and rebel who tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Oliver Cromwell in 1657, and subsequently led a coup in London against the newly-restored government of Charles II. This event, known as "Venner's Rising", lasted four days (1-4 January 1661) before the Royal authorities captured the rebels.
To be hanged, drawn and quartered was from 1351 a penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, although the ritual was first recorded during the reigns of King Henry III (1216–1272) and his successor, Edward I (1272–1307). Convicts were fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disemboweled, beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces). Their remains were often displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.
Welshman Dafydd ap Gruffydd became the first nobleman in England to be hanged, drawn and quartered after he turned against the king and proclaimed himself Prince of Wales and Lord of Snowdon. Dafydd's rebellion infuriated Edward so much that he demanded a novel punishment. Therefore, following his capture and trial in 1283, for his betrayal he was drawn by horse to his place of execution. For killing English nobles he was hanged alive. For killing those nobles at Easter he was eviscerated and his entrails burned. For conspiring to kill the king in various parts of the realm, his body was quartered and the parts sent across the country; his head was placed on top of the Tower of London. A similar fate was suffered by the Scottish rebel leader Sir William Wallace. Captured and tried in 1305, he was forced to wear a crown of laurel leaves and was drawn to Smithfield, where he was hanged and beheaded. His entrails were then burned and his corpse quartered. His head was set on London Bridge and the quarters sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth.
Although some reports indicate that during Mary I's reign bystanders were vocal in their support of the condemned, while in transit convicts sometimes suffered directly at the hands of the crowd. William Wallace was whipped, attacked and had rotten food and waste thrown at him, and the priest Thomas Prichard was reportedly barely alive by the time he reached the gallows in 1587.
1764. John Wilkes is expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel. He was removed because of his published attacks on the King's speech at the opening of Parliament.
Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in England at the time. He possessed an unsightly squint and protruding jaw, but had a charm that carried all before it. He boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face," though the duration required changed on the several occasions Wilkes repeated the claim. He also declared that "a month's start of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest in any love affair.
He was well known for his verbal wit and his snappy responses to insults. For instance, former friend and member of the Hellfire Club Lord Sandwich shouted to him "'Pon my soul, Wilkes, I don't know whether you'll die upon the gallows or of the pox." Wilkes responded "That depends, my Lord, whether I first embrace your Lordship's principles, or your Lordship's mistresses."
During the American War of Independence, Wilkes condemned the Government's policy towards America. Wilkes was also a passionate opponent of the harsh criminal code.
American actor and assassin John Wilkes Booth was named after and was distantly related to John Wilkes. The city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania was named for John Wilkes and Isaac Barré. Wilkes County, Georgia and Wilkes County, North Carolina were named in honor of John Wilkes.
1809. American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts. Best known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre. Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to alcohol, drugs, cholera, rabies, suicide (although likely to be mistaken with his suicide attempt in the previous year), tuberculosis, and other agents.
Poe was born Edgar Poe to a Scots-Irish family. the son of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. The second of three children, his elder brother was William Henry Leonard Poe, and younger sister, Rosalie Poe. His father abandoned their family in 1810. His mother died a year later from "consumption" (tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Although his middle name is often misspelled as "Allen" (even in encyclopedias), it is actually "Allan," after this family.
1862. The Battle of Mill Springs is fought during the American Civil War. The Confederate States of America suffers its first significant defeat in the conflict.
1883. The first electric lighting system using overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.
1883. Heavy fog in the North Sea causes the collision of two steamers and the death of 357.
The Cimbria was a 330-foot, 3,000-ton steamship built in 1867 and operated by the Hamburg-Amerika Line. It left Hamburg, Germany, on January 18 with 302 passengers and 120 crew members. Among the passengers were eastern Europeans heading to America, French sailors on their way to Le Havre and a touring group of Native Americans who were exhibiting Wild West paraphernalia.
The Sultan, a smaller Hull and Hamburg Line steamer traveling with only a crew, was also moving through the North Sea on January 19. Although there was heavy fog early that morning, neither boat took any precautionary measures, like reducing their speed, and the Sultan smashed straight into the Cimbria on the port side.
Both steamers were badly damaged and the Cimbria's lifeboats were launched. Seven were inflated, but in the confusion, they weren't filled anywhere near capacity. In addition, three lifeboats quickly disappeared in the heavy fog and were never seen again. For those people who did not make it onto a lifeboat, the cold water was deadly. Hypothermia and drowning claimed hundreds of lives within minutes.
A few nearby ships picked up a couple of lifeboats soon after but the bulk of the 65 survivors from the Cimbria were not picked up until two days later. The captain of theSultan, which had managed to stay afloat, was widely criticized for his failure to provide any assistance to the passengers and crew of the Cimbria.
1915. The first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target takes place in World War I as German zeppelins bomb the cities of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom, killing more than 20 people.
1917. German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends a telegram to Mexico, instructing the ambassador to approach the Mexican government with a proposal to form a military alliance against the United States. The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and decoded by the British who passed it along to Washington. The telegram caused the desired (by Britain) uproar and hastened the entry of the United States into World War I.
1920. The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.
1937. Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds.
1941. In World War II, British forces in East Africa, acting on information obtained by breaking the Italians' coded messages, invade Italian-occupied Eritrea -- a solid step towards victory in Africa.
1942. Japanese forces invade Burma during World War II.
1953. 68% of all United States television sets were tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth. Quite a coup in an era when the word "pregnant" was banned from American television though euphemisms like "expecting" were acceptable.
1961. Outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower cautions incoming President John F. Kennedy that Laos is "the key to the entire area of Southeast Asia," and might even require the direct intervention of U.S. combat troops.
Fearing that the fall of Laos to the communist Pathet Lao forces might have a domino effect in Southeast Asia, President Kennedy sent a carrier task force to the Gulf of Siam in April 1961. However, he decided not to intervene in Laos with U.S. troops and in June 1961, he sent representatives to Geneva to work out a solution to the crisis. In 1962, an agreement was signed that called for the neutrality of Laos and set up a coalition government to run the country.
1966. Following the death of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi becomes head of the Congress Party and thus prime minister of India. She was India's first female head of government and by the time of her assassination in 1984 was one of its most controversial.
1969. Student Jan Palach dies after setting himself on fire three days earlier in Prague's Wenceslas Square to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968. His funeral turned into another major protest.
1977. Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snowfall has occurred.
1979. Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina is born in Belgorod, Russia. She is by far Russia's most successful female gymnast since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Not only is she the winner of several world championship and Olympic medals, she is famous (or infamous) for her attitude: she posed for the Russian edition of Playboy; she rejoiced in being considered the ultimate gymnastic diva; at the 2000 Olympics she refused to re-attempt her vaults in the All-Around competition (having fallen on her first attempt) after it became clear that the apparatus had been set at the wrong height.
Khorkina is unusually tall for her sport. Known for her long, elegant lines, she was discouraged from gymnastics because of her height, but with the help of her lifelong coach Boris Pilkin, she created new moves to accommodate her height and exploit her strengths. She has an unprecedented six moves named after her in the Artistic Gymnastics Code of Points, more than any other gymnast.
Khorkina has enjoyed almost as much attention for her activities outside the gym. She caused a scandal by posing partially nude for the Russian version of Playboy in November 1997. (See pictures.) She has aspirations to become an actress, and has appeared on the American talk show The Rosie O'Donnell Show and taken to the stage as Brenda Venus, Henry Miller's last love, in a Sergei Vinogradov production. She also hopes to give something back to Russian gymnastics as a coach. However, she is currently focused on motherhood: she gave birth to her first child, a son named Svyatoslav, on July 21, 2005 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Since December 2004 she has been vice president of the Russian artistic gymnastics federation. She has been a member of the political party of United Russia since 2003.
1981. United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity. The release came the following day, just hours after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated president.
1994. Record cold temperatures across the eastern half of the United States brings temperatures below -20°F in many locations, such as Ohio and Kentucky.
1999. A mere three weeks after California passed a law against cyberstalking, Gary Dellapenta is charged with using the Internet to solicit the rape of a woman who had rejected his advances. Dellapenta terrorized a North Hollywood woman by placing ads in her name that claimed she had rape fantasies and provided her address and instructions for disarming her security system. At least six men saw the Internet ads and came to the woman's home. Many more called with obscene messages.
In April, Dellapenta pleaded guilty to one count of stalking and three counts of solicitation of sexual assault and received a six-year prison sentence.
2006. The New Horizons probe is launched by NASA on the first mission to Pluto. The probe is scheduled to reach its destination in 2015.
From its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto was considered the Solar System's ninth planet. In the late 20th and early 21st century, many similar objects were discovered in the outer solar system, most notably the trans-Neptunian object Eris which is slightly larger than Pluto.
On August 24, 2006 the IAU defined the term "planet" for the first time. This definition excluded Pluto, which was then reclassified under the new category of dwarf planet along with Eris and Ceres, the latter upgraded from its status as an asteroid. Pluto is also classified as the prototype of a family of trans-Neptunian objects called "plutoids.". After the reclassification, Pluto was added to the list of minor planets and given the number 134340.
2007. The first McDonald's drive-through opens in Beijing.
2011. President Hu Jintao of China is welcomed at an official ceremony at the White House by U.S. President Barack Obama.
2012. Five people are killed and thousands of others are affected following the first tropical storm to hit Mozambique since 1984.
Elsewhere, the FBI shuts down Megaupload. In response, hacker group Anonymous shuts down the United States Department of Justice website and many websites of the government and entertainment industry.
Meanwhile, Texas Governor Rick Perry drops out of the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries and endorses rival candidate Newt Gingrich.
379. Emperor Gratian elevates Flavius Theodosius at Sirmium to Augustus, and gives him power over all the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.
From 364 to 375, the Roman Empire was governed by two co-emperors, the brothers Valentinian I and Valens; when Valentinian died in 375, his sons, Valentinian II and Gratian, succeeded him as rulers of the Western Roman Empire. In 378, after Valens was killed in the Battle of Adrianople, Gratian invited Theodosius to take command of the Illyrian army. As Valens had no successor, Gratian's appointment of Theodosius amounted to a de facto invitation for Theodosius to become co-Augustus for the East. Gratian was killed in a rebellion in 383, Theodosius then appointed his elder son, Arcadius, his co-ruler for the East. After the death in 392 of Valentinian II, whom Theodosius had supported against a variety of usurpations, Theodosius ruled as sole Emperor, appointing his younger son Honorius Augustus as his co-ruler for the West.
399. Byzantine Empress Pulcheria is born. As the elder sister of Theodosius II, she held much of the power when he came to the throne as a child in 408. She took a vow of virginity to avoid being forced into a marriage, and tended to rely on the support of the various Germanic military officers she appointed, notably Aspar.
By 416 Theodosius was capable of ruling by himself, but she remained a very strong influence, having had herself proclaimed Empress in 414. That year she had Theodosius remove all pagans from the civil service; she was a devout Christian and under her influence both Theodosius and his wife Aelia Eudocia (a former pagan) became devout Christians as well.
In 441 Chrysaphius, a eunuch, convinced Theodosius to dismiss Pulcheria, although Chrysaphius simply took her place leaving Theodosius with little power. Pulcheria became a nun, but by 450, when Theodosius died, Pulcheria had been allowed to return to court. Chrysaphius and Pulcheria struggled for control after Theodosius' death; Pulcheria allied with the Germanic military officers, and married one of Aspar's generals, Marcian, declaring that Theodosius had declared Marcian his successor. The marriage was arranged with the understanding that he respect Pulcheria's vow of chastity. Pulcheria then had Marcian execute Chrysaphius.
She died in July, 453, leaving Aspar as the dominant influence on Marcian, who himself died in 457. Pulcheria is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
1419. Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England completing his conquest of Normandy in the Hundred Years War. The Hundred Years War was a conflict between England and France, lasting 116 years from 1337 to 1453. It was fought primarily over claims by the English kings to the French throne and was punctuated by several brief and two lengthy periods of peace before it finally ended in the expulsion of the English from France, with the exception of Calais.
Though primarily a dynastic conflict, the war gave impetus to ideas of both French and English nationality. Militarily, it saw the introduction of new weapons and tactics, which eroded the older system of feudal armies dominated by heavy cavalry. The first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Western Roman Empire were introduced for the war, thus changing the role of the peasantry. For all this, as well as for its long duration, it is often viewed as one of the most significant conflicts in the history of medieval warfare.
1520. Sten Sture the Younger, the Regent of Sweden, is mortally wounded at the Battle of Bogesund.
1661. Thomas Venner is hanged, drawn and quartered in London. Thomas Venner was a cooper and rebel who tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Oliver Cromwell in 1657, and subsequently led a coup in London against the newly-restored government of Charles II. This event, known as "Venner's Rising", lasted four days (1-4 January 1661) before the Royal authorities captured the rebels.
To be hanged, drawn and quartered was from 1351 a penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, although the ritual was first recorded during the reigns of King Henry III (1216–1272) and his successor, Edward I (1272–1307). Convicts were fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disemboweled, beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces). Their remains were often displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.
Welshman Dafydd ap Gruffydd became the first nobleman in England to be hanged, drawn and quartered after he turned against the king and proclaimed himself Prince of Wales and Lord of Snowdon. Dafydd's rebellion infuriated Edward so much that he demanded a novel punishment. Therefore, following his capture and trial in 1283, for his betrayal he was drawn by horse to his place of execution. For killing English nobles he was hanged alive. For killing those nobles at Easter he was eviscerated and his entrails burned. For conspiring to kill the king in various parts of the realm, his body was quartered and the parts sent across the country; his head was placed on top of the Tower of London. A similar fate was suffered by the Scottish rebel leader Sir William Wallace. Captured and tried in 1305, he was forced to wear a crown of laurel leaves and was drawn to Smithfield, where he was hanged and beheaded. His entrails were then burned and his corpse quartered. His head was set on London Bridge and the quarters sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth.
Although some reports indicate that during Mary I's reign bystanders were vocal in their support of the condemned, while in transit convicts sometimes suffered directly at the hands of the crowd. William Wallace was whipped, attacked and had rotten food and waste thrown at him, and the priest Thomas Prichard was reportedly barely alive by the time he reached the gallows in 1587.
1764. John Wilkes is expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel. He was removed because of his published attacks on the King's speech at the opening of Parliament.
Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in England at the time. He possessed an unsightly squint and protruding jaw, but had a charm that carried all before it. He boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face," though the duration required changed on the several occasions Wilkes repeated the claim. He also declared that "a month's start of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest in any love affair.
He was well known for his verbal wit and his snappy responses to insults. For instance, former friend and member of the Hellfire Club Lord Sandwich shouted to him "'Pon my soul, Wilkes, I don't know whether you'll die upon the gallows or of the pox." Wilkes responded "That depends, my Lord, whether I first embrace your Lordship's principles, or your Lordship's mistresses."
During the American War of Independence, Wilkes condemned the Government's policy towards America. Wilkes was also a passionate opponent of the harsh criminal code.
American actor and assassin John Wilkes Booth was named after and was distantly related to John Wilkes. The city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania was named for John Wilkes and Isaac Barré. Wilkes County, Georgia and Wilkes County, North Carolina were named in honor of John Wilkes.
1809. American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts. Best known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre. Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to alcohol, drugs, cholera, rabies, suicide (although likely to be mistaken with his suicide attempt in the previous year), tuberculosis, and other agents.
Poe was born Edgar Poe to a Scots-Irish family. the son of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. The second of three children, his elder brother was William Henry Leonard Poe, and younger sister, Rosalie Poe. His father abandoned their family in 1810. His mother died a year later from "consumption" (tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Although his middle name is often misspelled as "Allen" (even in encyclopedias), it is actually "Allan," after this family.
1862. The Battle of Mill Springs is fought during the American Civil War. The Confederate States of America suffers its first significant defeat in the conflict.
1883. The first electric lighting system using overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.
1883. Heavy fog in the North Sea causes the collision of two steamers and the death of 357.
The Cimbria was a 330-foot, 3,000-ton steamship built in 1867 and operated by the Hamburg-Amerika Line. It left Hamburg, Germany, on January 18 with 302 passengers and 120 crew members. Among the passengers were eastern Europeans heading to America, French sailors on their way to Le Havre and a touring group of Native Americans who were exhibiting Wild West paraphernalia.
The Sultan, a smaller Hull and Hamburg Line steamer traveling with only a crew, was also moving through the North Sea on January 19. Although there was heavy fog early that morning, neither boat took any precautionary measures, like reducing their speed, and the Sultan smashed straight into the Cimbria on the port side.
Both steamers were badly damaged and the Cimbria's lifeboats were launched. Seven were inflated, but in the confusion, they weren't filled anywhere near capacity. In addition, three lifeboats quickly disappeared in the heavy fog and were never seen again. For those people who did not make it onto a lifeboat, the cold water was deadly. Hypothermia and drowning claimed hundreds of lives within minutes.
A few nearby ships picked up a couple of lifeboats soon after but the bulk of the 65 survivors from the Cimbria were not picked up until two days later. The captain of theSultan, which had managed to stay afloat, was widely criticized for his failure to provide any assistance to the passengers and crew of the Cimbria.
1915. The first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target takes place in World War I as German zeppelins bomb the cities of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom, killing more than 20 people.
1917. German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends a telegram to Mexico, instructing the ambassador to approach the Mexican government with a proposal to form a military alliance against the United States. The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and decoded by the British who passed it along to Washington. The telegram caused the desired (by Britain) uproar and hastened the entry of the United States into World War I.
1920. The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.
1937. Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds.
1941. In World War II, British forces in East Africa, acting on information obtained by breaking the Italians' coded messages, invade Italian-occupied Eritrea -- a solid step towards victory in Africa.
1942. Japanese forces invade Burma during World War II.
1953. 68% of all United States television sets were tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth. Quite a coup in an era when the word "pregnant" was banned from American television though euphemisms like "expecting" were acceptable.
1961. Outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower cautions incoming President John F. Kennedy that Laos is "the key to the entire area of Southeast Asia," and might even require the direct intervention of U.S. combat troops.
Fearing that the fall of Laos to the communist Pathet Lao forces might have a domino effect in Southeast Asia, President Kennedy sent a carrier task force to the Gulf of Siam in April 1961. However, he decided not to intervene in Laos with U.S. troops and in June 1961, he sent representatives to Geneva to work out a solution to the crisis. In 1962, an agreement was signed that called for the neutrality of Laos and set up a coalition government to run the country.
1966. Following the death of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi becomes head of the Congress Party and thus prime minister of India. She was India's first female head of government and by the time of her assassination in 1984 was one of its most controversial.
1969. Student Jan Palach dies after setting himself on fire three days earlier in Prague's Wenceslas Square to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968. His funeral turned into another major protest.
1977. Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snowfall has occurred.
1979. Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina is born in Belgorod, Russia. She is by far Russia's most successful female gymnast since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Not only is she the winner of several world championship and Olympic medals, she is famous (or infamous) for her attitude: she posed for the Russian edition of Playboy; she rejoiced in being considered the ultimate gymnastic diva; at the 2000 Olympics she refused to re-attempt her vaults in the All-Around competition (having fallen on her first attempt) after it became clear that the apparatus had been set at the wrong height.
Khorkina is unusually tall for her sport. Known for her long, elegant lines, she was discouraged from gymnastics because of her height, but with the help of her lifelong coach Boris Pilkin, she created new moves to accommodate her height and exploit her strengths. She has an unprecedented six moves named after her in the Artistic Gymnastics Code of Points, more than any other gymnast.
Khorkina has enjoyed almost as much attention for her activities outside the gym. She caused a scandal by posing partially nude for the Russian version of Playboy in November 1997. (See pictures.) She has aspirations to become an actress, and has appeared on the American talk show The Rosie O'Donnell Show and taken to the stage as Brenda Venus, Henry Miller's last love, in a Sergei Vinogradov production. She also hopes to give something back to Russian gymnastics as a coach. However, she is currently focused on motherhood: she gave birth to her first child, a son named Svyatoslav, on July 21, 2005 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Since December 2004 she has been vice president of the Russian artistic gymnastics federation. She has been a member of the political party of United Russia since 2003.
1981. United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity. The release came the following day, just hours after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated president.
1994. Record cold temperatures across the eastern half of the United States brings temperatures below -20°F in many locations, such as Ohio and Kentucky.
1999. A mere three weeks after California passed a law against cyberstalking, Gary Dellapenta is charged with using the Internet to solicit the rape of a woman who had rejected his advances. Dellapenta terrorized a North Hollywood woman by placing ads in her name that claimed she had rape fantasies and provided her address and instructions for disarming her security system. At least six men saw the Internet ads and came to the woman's home. Many more called with obscene messages.
In April, Dellapenta pleaded guilty to one count of stalking and three counts of solicitation of sexual assault and received a six-year prison sentence.
2006. The New Horizons probe is launched by NASA on the first mission to Pluto. The probe is scheduled to reach its destination in 2015.
From its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto was considered the Solar System's ninth planet. In the late 20th and early 21st century, many similar objects were discovered in the outer solar system, most notably the trans-Neptunian object Eris which is slightly larger than Pluto.
On August 24, 2006 the IAU defined the term "planet" for the first time. This definition excluded Pluto, which was then reclassified under the new category of dwarf planet along with Eris and Ceres, the latter upgraded from its status as an asteroid. Pluto is also classified as the prototype of a family of trans-Neptunian objects called "plutoids.". After the reclassification, Pluto was added to the list of minor planets and given the number 134340.
2007. The first McDonald's drive-through opens in Beijing.
2011. President Hu Jintao of China is welcomed at an official ceremony at the White House by U.S. President Barack Obama.
2012. Five people are killed and thousands of others are affected following the first tropical storm to hit Mozambique since 1984.
Elsewhere, the FBI shuts down Megaupload. In response, hacker group Anonymous shuts down the United States Department of Justice website and many websites of the government and entertainment industry.
Meanwhile, Texas Governor Rick Perry drops out of the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries and endorses rival candidate Newt Gingrich.
Attachments
January 20 is Inauguration Day in the United States but only once every four years. This year it falls on a Sunday so Obama will be sworn in at the White House and the public ceremonies, including the parade, will be held on the 21st. January 20 is also when the Sun enters Aquarius, which happens every year. The sign was immortalized in the 1960s, when the counter-culture proclaimed the Age of Aquarius. However, there is no standard definition for astrological ages, so the age of Aquarius could begin in 2150 or even 2660, depending on the preferred definition.
AD 250. Emperor Decius begins a widespread persecution of Christians in Rome, during which Pope Fabian is martyred. Decius issues the edict for the suppression of Christianity as a disruptive force and exploiting popular hostility as a means of unifying the Empire.
Just at this time there was a second outbreak of the Antonine Plague, which at its height in 251 to 266 was taking the lives of 5,000 a day in Rome. This outbreak is referred to as the "Plague of Cyprian" (the bishop of Carthage), where both the plague and the persecution of Christians were especially severe. As Jews paid with their lives during the 14th century's Black Death, so in Carthage the "Decian persecution" unleashed at the onset of the plague sought out Christian scapegoats. Decius' edicts were renewed under Valerius in 253 and repealed under his son, Gallienus, in 260-261.
1265. The first English parliament meets in the Palace of Westminster. The archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and barons were summoned, as were two knights from each shire and two burgesses from each borough. Knights had been summoned to previous councils, but the representation of the boroughs was unprecedented. Their process of selection varied from borough to borough, but there is little doubt that some form of democratic election was used in many cases.
1320. Duke Wladyslaw Lokietek becomes king of Poland.
1649. Charles I of England goes on trial for treason and other "high crimes." Charles' reign was marked by the English Civil War, in which he fought the forces of the English and Scottish Parliaments, which challenged the king's attempts to overrule and negate Parliamentary authority, while simultaneously using his position as head of the English Church to pursue religious policies which generated the antipathy of reformed groups such as the Puritans. Charles was defeated in the First Civil War (1642–45), after which Parliament expected him to accept its demands for a constitutional monarchy. He instead remained defiant by attempting to forge an alliance with Scotland and escaping to the Isle of Wight. This provoked the Second Civil War (1648–49) and a second defeat for Charles, who was subsequently captured, tried, convicted, and executed for high treason.
1777. Brigadier General Philemon Dickinson leads 400 raw men from the New Jersey militia and 50 Pennsylvania riflemen under Captain Robert Durkee in an attack against a group of 500 British soldiers foraging for food led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Abercromby near Van Nest's Mills in Millstone, New Jersey.
The British, who were stealing flour and supplies from Van Nest's Mills with which to supply their troops in New Brunswick, had set up small cannon defenses at a bridge crossing the Millstone River. The Patriots caught the British forces by surprise when they, avoiding the cannons, forded the deep and icy water.
In the ensuing 20-minute battle, Dickinson reported that the Patriots captured 107 horses, 49 wagons, 115 cattle, 70 sheep, 40 barrels of flour, 106 bags and many other things. They also took 49 prisoners. General Washington reported to John Hancock that the British removed a good many dead and wounded, estimated to be 24 or 25 in total compared to the 4 or 5 losses sustained by the Patriots.
1783. The Kingdom of Great Britain signs a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the American Revolutionary War
1801. John Marshall is appointed the Chief Justice of the United States. The longest-serving Chief Justice in Supreme Court history, Marshall dominated the Court for over three decades and played a significant role in the development of the American legal system. Most notably, he established that the courts are entitled to exercise judicial review, i.e., the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. Thus, Marshall has been credited with cementing the position of the judiciary as an independent and influential branch of government.
1841. Hong Kong Island is occupied by the British.
1863. In the American Civil War, Union General Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac begins an offensive against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia that quickly bogs down as several days of heavy rain turn the roads of Virginia into a muddy quagmire. The campaign was abandoned three days later.
Burnside tried to lift spirits by issuing liquor to the soldiers on January 22, but this only compounded the problems. Drunken troops began brawling, and entire regiments fought one another. The operation was a complete fiasco, and on January 23 Burnside gave up his attempt to, in his words, "strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion." The campaign was considered so disastrous that Burnside was removed as commander of the army on January 25.
1885. L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster.
1887. The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
1892. The first official basketball game is played at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.
1918. British and German forces clash in the Aegean Sea when the German battleships Goeben and Breslau attempt a surprise raid on Allied forces off the Dardanelle Straits in World War I.
The Goeben and Breslau had attempted to leave the Dardanelles and head towards Salonika, Greece, when they encountered the British fleet. Just after sunrise they fired upon and sank two British monitors, the HMS Raglan and the M28, leaving 127 sailors dead.
1920. The American Civil Liberties Union is founded.
1929. In Old Arizona, the first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, is released.
1936. Edward VIII becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, George V. Only months into his reign, Edward caused a constitutional crisis by proposing marriage to the American socialite Wallis Simpson, who had divorced her first husband and was seeking a divorce from her second. The prime ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions opposed the marriage, arguing that the people would never accept a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands as queen. Additionally, such a marriage would have conflicted with Edward's status as head of the Church of England, which opposed the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouses were still alive.
Rather than end his relationship with Simpson, Edward abdicated. He was succeeded by his younger brother Albert, who chose the regnal name George VI. With a reign of 326 days, Edward was one of the shortest-reigning monarchs in British and Commonwealth history. He was never crowned.
1937. Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. This is the first inauguration scheduled on January 20, following adoption of the 20th Amendment. Previous inaugurations were held on March 4.
1942. Nazi officials meet to discuss the details of the "Final Solution" of the "Jewish question." Although the word "extermination" was never uttered during the meeting, the implication was clear: anyone who survived the egregious conditions of a work camp would be "treated accordingly." The minutes of this conference were kept with meticulous care, which later provided key evidence during the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
1945. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to three terms in office, is inaugurated to his fourth term. Three months after his inauguration, he died. Roosevelt's unparalleled 13 years as president led to the 1947 passing of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, limiting future presidents to a maximum of two elected terms in office, or one elected term if the president already served more than two years of another president's elected term.
1953. Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated as the first Republican President in twenty years.
1961. John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the youngest man, and first-ever Roman Catholic, to become elected President of the United States.
1964. Meet the Beatles, the first Beatles album in the United States, is released.
1969. Richard Nixon is inaugurated as president of the United States. Eight years after losing to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, Nixon had defeated Hubert H. Humphrey for the presidency.
Although Nixon and Humphrey each gained about 43 percent of the popular vote, the distribution of Nixon's nearly 32 million votes gave him a clear majority in the electoral college.
1974. Rae Carruth, the pro football player convicted of hiring someone to kill his pregnant girlfriend, is born on in Sacramento, California.
1977. Jimmy Carter is inaugurated as the 39th President of the United States. He is the last President inaugurated at the east front of the Capitol, which had been the traditional site for Presidential inaugurations since 1829.
1980. Bleachers at a bullring in Sincelejo, Colombia, collapse, resulting in the deaths of 222 people. The collapse at Sincelejo, the deadliest tragedy at a sporting event in Colombia's history, was the result of overcrowding and poor construction. In addition to the 222 spectators killed, hundreds more were injured.
1981. Iran releases 52 American hostages twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as U.S. President. At age 69, Reagan is the oldest president ever inaugurated.
Although he had been a liberal New Deal Democrat as a young man, by the 1950s, Reagan had become a hard-line conservative. As president of the Screen Actor's Guild (1947-52, 1959-60), he won national attention as an outspoken anticommunist, and he began to view even the mild federal socialism of the New Deal as destructive to individual initiative and freedom. Switching his allegiance to the Republican Party, Reagan won two terms as governor of California (1967-75), where he gained a devoted national following that helped him win the presidency. During his eight years as president of the United States (1981-89), Reagan redefined the center in American politics, moving it away from the liberal Democrats and towards the conservative Republicans.
1981. Canadian model and actress Crystal Lowe is born in Vancouver, British Columbia. At a young age, Crystal and her family moved to Hong Kong where she grew up and is now fluent in Cantonese. Crystal started out modeling. (See photos.) She was awarded Miss Teen Oriental, despite other girls' dismay because she was only half Asian. After modeling, Crystal started acting. Her first big break was a sequel to Children Of The Corn.
1991. Sudan's government imposes Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country's Muslim north and Christian south.
1999. The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet bars.
2001. Bill Clinton pardons 140 people in one of his final acts as president. The list includes fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose wife was a major Democratic donor.
On the same day, George W. Bush takes the oath of office as the 43rd president of the United States.
2006. Witnesses report seeing a bottlenose whale swimming in the River Thames, the first time the species had been seen in the Thames since records began in 1913.
2009. Barack Obama is inaugurated as the first African American president of the United States.
2011. At least 50 people are killed and more than 150 others are injured in two bomb attacks near Karbala, Iraq.
2012. An Indonesian man is charged with blasphemy after saying that God does not exist on his Facebook page. Meanwhile writer Salman Rushdie withdraws from the Jaipur Literature Festival in India due to new concerns about his possible assassination.
Elsewhere, around 2,000 women in Malawi stage a protest against attacks on women wearing trousers, who were stripped in the streets by unemployed youths and street vendors.
.
AD 250. Emperor Decius begins a widespread persecution of Christians in Rome, during which Pope Fabian is martyred. Decius issues the edict for the suppression of Christianity as a disruptive force and exploiting popular hostility as a means of unifying the Empire.
Just at this time there was a second outbreak of the Antonine Plague, which at its height in 251 to 266 was taking the lives of 5,000 a day in Rome. This outbreak is referred to as the "Plague of Cyprian" (the bishop of Carthage), where both the plague and the persecution of Christians were especially severe. As Jews paid with their lives during the 14th century's Black Death, so in Carthage the "Decian persecution" unleashed at the onset of the plague sought out Christian scapegoats. Decius' edicts were renewed under Valerius in 253 and repealed under his son, Gallienus, in 260-261.
1265. The first English parliament meets in the Palace of Westminster. The archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and barons were summoned, as were two knights from each shire and two burgesses from each borough. Knights had been summoned to previous councils, but the representation of the boroughs was unprecedented. Their process of selection varied from borough to borough, but there is little doubt that some form of democratic election was used in many cases.
1320. Duke Wladyslaw Lokietek becomes king of Poland.
1649. Charles I of England goes on trial for treason and other "high crimes." Charles' reign was marked by the English Civil War, in which he fought the forces of the English and Scottish Parliaments, which challenged the king's attempts to overrule and negate Parliamentary authority, while simultaneously using his position as head of the English Church to pursue religious policies which generated the antipathy of reformed groups such as the Puritans. Charles was defeated in the First Civil War (1642–45), after which Parliament expected him to accept its demands for a constitutional monarchy. He instead remained defiant by attempting to forge an alliance with Scotland and escaping to the Isle of Wight. This provoked the Second Civil War (1648–49) and a second defeat for Charles, who was subsequently captured, tried, convicted, and executed for high treason.
1777. Brigadier General Philemon Dickinson leads 400 raw men from the New Jersey militia and 50 Pennsylvania riflemen under Captain Robert Durkee in an attack against a group of 500 British soldiers foraging for food led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Abercromby near Van Nest's Mills in Millstone, New Jersey.
The British, who were stealing flour and supplies from Van Nest's Mills with which to supply their troops in New Brunswick, had set up small cannon defenses at a bridge crossing the Millstone River. The Patriots caught the British forces by surprise when they, avoiding the cannons, forded the deep and icy water.
In the ensuing 20-minute battle, Dickinson reported that the Patriots captured 107 horses, 49 wagons, 115 cattle, 70 sheep, 40 barrels of flour, 106 bags and many other things. They also took 49 prisoners. General Washington reported to John Hancock that the British removed a good many dead and wounded, estimated to be 24 or 25 in total compared to the 4 or 5 losses sustained by the Patriots.
1783. The Kingdom of Great Britain signs a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the American Revolutionary War
1801. John Marshall is appointed the Chief Justice of the United States. The longest-serving Chief Justice in Supreme Court history, Marshall dominated the Court for over three decades and played a significant role in the development of the American legal system. Most notably, he established that the courts are entitled to exercise judicial review, i.e., the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. Thus, Marshall has been credited with cementing the position of the judiciary as an independent and influential branch of government.
1841. Hong Kong Island is occupied by the British.
1863. In the American Civil War, Union General Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac begins an offensive against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia that quickly bogs down as several days of heavy rain turn the roads of Virginia into a muddy quagmire. The campaign was abandoned three days later.
Burnside tried to lift spirits by issuing liquor to the soldiers on January 22, but this only compounded the problems. Drunken troops began brawling, and entire regiments fought one another. The operation was a complete fiasco, and on January 23 Burnside gave up his attempt to, in his words, "strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion." The campaign was considered so disastrous that Burnside was removed as commander of the army on January 25.
1885. L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster.
1887. The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
1892. The first official basketball game is played at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.
1918. British and German forces clash in the Aegean Sea when the German battleships Goeben and Breslau attempt a surprise raid on Allied forces off the Dardanelle Straits in World War I.
The Goeben and Breslau had attempted to leave the Dardanelles and head towards Salonika, Greece, when they encountered the British fleet. Just after sunrise they fired upon and sank two British monitors, the HMS Raglan and the M28, leaving 127 sailors dead.
1920. The American Civil Liberties Union is founded.
1929. In Old Arizona, the first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, is released.
1936. Edward VIII becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, George V. Only months into his reign, Edward caused a constitutional crisis by proposing marriage to the American socialite Wallis Simpson, who had divorced her first husband and was seeking a divorce from her second. The prime ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions opposed the marriage, arguing that the people would never accept a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands as queen. Additionally, such a marriage would have conflicted with Edward's status as head of the Church of England, which opposed the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouses were still alive.
Rather than end his relationship with Simpson, Edward abdicated. He was succeeded by his younger brother Albert, who chose the regnal name George VI. With a reign of 326 days, Edward was one of the shortest-reigning monarchs in British and Commonwealth history. He was never crowned.
1937. Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. This is the first inauguration scheduled on January 20, following adoption of the 20th Amendment. Previous inaugurations were held on March 4.
1942. Nazi officials meet to discuss the details of the "Final Solution" of the "Jewish question." Although the word "extermination" was never uttered during the meeting, the implication was clear: anyone who survived the egregious conditions of a work camp would be "treated accordingly." The minutes of this conference were kept with meticulous care, which later provided key evidence during the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
1945. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to three terms in office, is inaugurated to his fourth term. Three months after his inauguration, he died. Roosevelt's unparalleled 13 years as president led to the 1947 passing of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, limiting future presidents to a maximum of two elected terms in office, or one elected term if the president already served more than two years of another president's elected term.
1953. Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated as the first Republican President in twenty years.
1961. John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the youngest man, and first-ever Roman Catholic, to become elected President of the United States.
1964. Meet the Beatles, the first Beatles album in the United States, is released.
1969. Richard Nixon is inaugurated as president of the United States. Eight years after losing to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, Nixon had defeated Hubert H. Humphrey for the presidency.
Although Nixon and Humphrey each gained about 43 percent of the popular vote, the distribution of Nixon's nearly 32 million votes gave him a clear majority in the electoral college.
1974. Rae Carruth, the pro football player convicted of hiring someone to kill his pregnant girlfriend, is born on in Sacramento, California.
1977. Jimmy Carter is inaugurated as the 39th President of the United States. He is the last President inaugurated at the east front of the Capitol, which had been the traditional site for Presidential inaugurations since 1829.
1980. Bleachers at a bullring in Sincelejo, Colombia, collapse, resulting in the deaths of 222 people. The collapse at Sincelejo, the deadliest tragedy at a sporting event in Colombia's history, was the result of overcrowding and poor construction. In addition to the 222 spectators killed, hundreds more were injured.
1981. Iran releases 52 American hostages twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as U.S. President. At age 69, Reagan is the oldest president ever inaugurated.
Although he had been a liberal New Deal Democrat as a young man, by the 1950s, Reagan had become a hard-line conservative. As president of the Screen Actor's Guild (1947-52, 1959-60), he won national attention as an outspoken anticommunist, and he began to view even the mild federal socialism of the New Deal as destructive to individual initiative and freedom. Switching his allegiance to the Republican Party, Reagan won two terms as governor of California (1967-75), where he gained a devoted national following that helped him win the presidency. During his eight years as president of the United States (1981-89), Reagan redefined the center in American politics, moving it away from the liberal Democrats and towards the conservative Republicans.
1981. Canadian model and actress Crystal Lowe is born in Vancouver, British Columbia. At a young age, Crystal and her family moved to Hong Kong where she grew up and is now fluent in Cantonese. Crystal started out modeling. (See photos.) She was awarded Miss Teen Oriental, despite other girls' dismay because she was only half Asian. After modeling, Crystal started acting. Her first big break was a sequel to Children Of The Corn.
1991. Sudan's government imposes Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country's Muslim north and Christian south.
1999. The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet bars.
2001. Bill Clinton pardons 140 people in one of his final acts as president. The list includes fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose wife was a major Democratic donor.
On the same day, George W. Bush takes the oath of office as the 43rd president of the United States.
2006. Witnesses report seeing a bottlenose whale swimming in the River Thames, the first time the species had been seen in the Thames since records began in 1913.
2009. Barack Obama is inaugurated as the first African American president of the United States.
2011. At least 50 people are killed and more than 150 others are injured in two bomb attacks near Karbala, Iraq.
2012. An Indonesian man is charged with blasphemy after saying that God does not exist on his Facebook page. Meanwhile writer Salman Rushdie withdraws from the Jaipur Literature Festival in India due to new concerns about his possible assassination.
Elsewhere, around 2,000 women in Malawi stage a protest against attacks on women wearing trousers, who were stripped in the streets by unemployed youths and street vendors.
.
Attachments
2006. Witnesses report seeing a bottlenose whale swimming in the River Thames, the first time the species had been seen in the Thames since records began in 1913.- Admi
I misread this at first and thought it said bluenose whale and thought that's no way to talk about Admi!!!!!
Tree
I misread this at first and thought it said bluenose whale and thought that's no way to talk about Admi!!!!!
Tree
thx old chap......................much2006. Witnesses report seeing a bottlenose whale swimming in the River Thames, the first time the species had been seen in the Thames since records began in 1913.- Admi
I misread this at first and thought it said bluenose whale and thought that's no way to talk about Admi!!!!!
Tree
There are pics on the internet (via Flickr) that claim to be of a blue-nosed whale, but it seems doubtful whether that's the correct name, what seem to be reliable sources don't recognise any such species - more likely a blue whale or a bottlenosed one (whose sad last journey up the Thames brought the entire nation to a standstill as we watched on News24!)
Jan 20th: Sebastian, male martyr!
The Love Song of St. Sebastian
T.S. Eliot (one of his earliest works, aged 26)
I would come in a shirt of hair
I would come with a lamp in the night
And sit at the foot of your stair;
I would flog myself until I bled,
And after hour on hour of prayer
And torture and delight
Until my blood should ring the lamp
And glisten in the light;
I should arise your neophyte
And then put out the light
To follow where you lead,
To follow where your feet are white
In the darkness toward your bed
And where your gown is white
And against your gown your braided hair.
Then you would take me in
Because I was hideous in your sight
You would take me in without shame
Because I should be dead
And when the morning came
Between your breasts should lie my head.
I would come with a towel in my hand
And bend your head beneath my knees;
Your earls curl back in a certain way
Like no one’s else in all the world.
When all the world shall melt in the sun,
Melt or freeze,
I shall remember how your ears were curled.
I should for a moment linger
And follow the curve with my finger
And your head beneath my knees---
I think that at last you would understand.
There would be nothing more to say.
You would love me because I should have strangled you
And because of my infamy;
And I should love you the more because I mangled you
And because you were no longer beautiful
To anyone but me.
The Love Song of St. Sebastian
T.S. Eliot (one of his earliest works, aged 26)
I would come in a shirt of hair
I would come with a lamp in the night
And sit at the foot of your stair;
I would flog myself until I bled,
And after hour on hour of prayer
And torture and delight
Until my blood should ring the lamp
And glisten in the light;
I should arise your neophyte
And then put out the light
To follow where you lead,
To follow where your feet are white
In the darkness toward your bed
And where your gown is white
And against your gown your braided hair.
Then you would take me in
Because I was hideous in your sight
You would take me in without shame
Because I should be dead
And when the morning came
Between your breasts should lie my head.
I would come with a towel in my hand
And bend your head beneath my knees;
Your earls curl back in a certain way
Like no one’s else in all the world.
When all the world shall melt in the sun,
Melt or freeze,
I shall remember how your ears were curled.
I should for a moment linger
And follow the curve with my finger
And your head beneath my knees---
I think that at last you would understand.
There would be nothing more to say.
You would love me because I should have strangled you
And because of my infamy;
And I should love you the more because I mangled you
And because you were no longer beautiful
To anyone but me.
21st Jan: Agnes of Rome, virgin martyr (304). According to tradition, Saint Agnes was born in. 291 or 2, in a patrician Christian family. She suffered martyrdom during the reign of Diocletian.
The Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son, and on Agnes' refusal he condemned her to death. As Roman Law did not permit the execution of virgins, Sempronius had Agnes dragged naked through the streets to a brothel. Various versions of the legend give different methods of escape from this predicament. In one, as she prayed, her hair grew and covered her body. It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind. In another the son of the prefect is struck dead, but revived after Agnes prayed for him, causing her release. There is then a trial from which Sempronius excuses himself, and another figure presides, sentencing her to death. When led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn, or the flames parted away from her, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and beheaded her, or, in some other texts, stabbed her in the throat. It is also said that the blood of Agnes poured to the stadium floor where other Christians soaked up the blood with cloths.
Agnes' bones are conserved beneath the high altar in the church of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, built over the catacomb that housed Agnes' tomb. Her skull is preserved in a separate chapel in the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone in the Piazza Novona.
On her feast day, two lambs are brought from the Trappist abbey of Tre Fontane in Rome to the Pope to be blessed. On Holy Thursday they are shorn, and from the wool is woven the pallium which the Pope gives to any newly consecrated metropolitan archbishop as a sign of his jurisdiction and his union with the pope.
Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls. Folk custom called for them to practice rituals on Saint Agnes' Eve (20–21 January, traditionally - and this year quite probably - the coldest night of the year) with a view to discovering their future husbands. This belief was immortalized in John Keats' poem, 'The Eve of St Agnes'
She is represented in art as a young girl in robes, holding a palm branch in her hand and a lamb at her feet or in her arms. There are innumerable paintings and other portrayals of her, here are just a few:
The Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son, and on Agnes' refusal he condemned her to death. As Roman Law did not permit the execution of virgins, Sempronius had Agnes dragged naked through the streets to a brothel. Various versions of the legend give different methods of escape from this predicament. In one, as she prayed, her hair grew and covered her body. It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind. In another the son of the prefect is struck dead, but revived after Agnes prayed for him, causing her release. There is then a trial from which Sempronius excuses himself, and another figure presides, sentencing her to death. When led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn, or the flames parted away from her, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and beheaded her, or, in some other texts, stabbed her in the throat. It is also said that the blood of Agnes poured to the stadium floor where other Christians soaked up the blood with cloths.
Agnes' bones are conserved beneath the high altar in the church of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, built over the catacomb that housed Agnes' tomb. Her skull is preserved in a separate chapel in the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone in the Piazza Novona.
On her feast day, two lambs are brought from the Trappist abbey of Tre Fontane in Rome to the Pope to be blessed. On Holy Thursday they are shorn, and from the wool is woven the pallium which the Pope gives to any newly consecrated metropolitan archbishop as a sign of his jurisdiction and his union with the pope.
Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls. Folk custom called for them to practice rituals on Saint Agnes' Eve (20–21 January, traditionally - and this year quite probably - the coldest night of the year) with a view to discovering their future husbands. This belief was immortalized in John Keats' poem, 'The Eve of St Agnes'
She is represented in art as a young girl in robes, holding a palm branch in her hand and a lamb at her feet or in her arms. There are innumerable paintings and other portrayals of her, here are just a few:
It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind- Eul
That would not stop Tree as he is versed in the braille method of rape...
Tree
That would not stop Tree as he is versed in the braille method of rape...
Tree
It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind- Eul
That would not stop Tree as he is versed in the braille method of rape...
Tree
yes, I can't see why that particular affliction would be much of an inconvenience!
I suspect that (as in the Oedipus story), blinding is a euphemism for castration
21st Jan: Agnes of Rome, virgin martyr (304). According to tradition, Saint Agnes was born in. 291 or 2, in a patrician Christian family. She suffered martyrdom during the reign of Diocletian.
It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind- Eul
That would not stop Tree as he is versed in the braille method of rape...
Tree
It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind. In another the son of the prefect is struck dead, but revived after Agnes prayed for him, causing her release. There is then a trial from which Sempronius excuses himself, and another figure presides, sentencing her to death. When led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn, or the flames parted away from her, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and beheaded her, or, in some other texts, stabbed her in the throat. It is also said that the blood of Agnes poured to the stadium floor where other Christians soaked up the blood with cloths.
/quote]
January 21 is the date for nutty holidays, not the least of which is Squirrel Appreciation Day (around here we call them tree rats). It is also National Hugging Day, celebrated in a number of nations, such as the United States, Canada, England, Australia, Germany and Russia. It was founded in 1986 by Reverend Kevin Zaborney.
304. Saint Agnes is martyred. According to tradition, Saint Agnes was a member of the Roman nobility born and raised in a Christian family. She suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve or thirteen during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.
The Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son, and on Agnes' refusal he condemned her to death. As Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, Sempronius had a naked Agnes dragged through the streets to a brothel. Various versions of the legend give different methods of escape from this predicament. In one, as she prayed, her hair grew and covered her body. It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind. In another the son of the Prefect is struck dead, but revived after Agnes prayed for him, causing her release. There is then a trial from which Sempronius excuses himself, and another figure presides, sentencing her to death. When led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn, or the flames parted away from her, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and beheaded her, or, in some other texts, stabbed her in the throat.
SEE EULALIA’S CONTRIBUTION
1189. Philip II of France and Richard I of England begin to assemble troops to wage the Third Crusade. The Third Crusade (1189–1192), also known as the King's Crusade, was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin.
After some military successes, the Christian powers argued over the spoils of war; frustrated with Richard, Leopold V of Austria and Philip left the Holy Land in August 1191. On September 2, 1192, Richard and Saladin finalized a treaty by which Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control, but which also allowed unarmed Christian pilgrims to visit the city. Richard departed the Holy Land on October 9. The failure of the Third Crusade would lead to the call for a Fourth Crusade six years later.
1525. The Swiss Anabaptist Movement is born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptize each other in the home of Manz's mother in Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union.
Anabaptists are Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, considered Protestant by some, although some consider Anabaptism to be a distinct movement from Protestantism. The Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites are direct descendants of the movement. The name Anabaptist is derived from the Greek term anabaptista, or "one who baptizes over again." This name was given them by their enemies in reference to the practice of "re-baptizing" converts who "already had been baptized" (or sprinkled) as infants. As a result of their views on the nature of baptism and other issues, Anabaptists were heavily persecuted during the 16th century and into the 17th by both Magisterial Protestants and Roman Catholics.
1643. Abel Tasman becomes the first European to reach Tonga. Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over 700,000 square kilometers (270,000 sq mi) of ocean in the South Pacific
1738. Ethan Allen, future Revolutionary War hero and key founder of the Republic of Vermont, is born in Litchfield, Connecticut.
1789. The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts. Despite that title, the novel is steamy for the time, revolving around incest and adultery. It was considered unfit reading for women.
1793. One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris. As Louis mounted the scaffold he appeared dignified and resigned. He delivered a short speech in which he reasserted his innocence, “I die perfectly innocent of the so-called crimes of which I am accused. I pardon those who are the cause of my misfortunes....” He declared himself willing to die and prayed that the people of France would be spared a similar fate. Many accounts suggest Louis XVI’s desire to say more to his people, but Antoine-Joseph Santerre, a general in the National Guard, halted the speech by ordering a drum roll. The former King was then quickly beheaded. Some accounts of Louis's beheading indicate that the blade did not sever his neck entirely the first time. While Louis's blood dripped to the ground many members of the crowd ran forward to dip their handkerchiefs in it
1840. Jules Dumont d'Urville discovers Adélie Land, Antarctica.
1861. Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate as the country draws closer to civil war. Davis would become the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.
1863. In the American Civil War, two Confederate ships drive away two Union ships as the Rebels recapture Sabine Pass, Texas, and open an important port for the Confederacy.
Sabine Pass lay at the mouth of the Sabine River along the gulf coast of Texas. The Confederates constructed a major fort there in 1861. In September 1862, a Union force captured the fort and, shortly after, the port of Galveston to the southwest. The Yankees now controlled much of the Texas coast. In November, Confederate General John Bankhead Magruder arrived to change Southern fortunes in the area.
He recaptured Galveston and then turned his attention to Sabine Pass. The decks of the two Rebel ships, the Bell and the Uncle Ben, were stacked with cotton bales. Sharpshooters were placed behind the bales and the ships steamed towards the two Union ships, theMorning Light and the Velocity. The Confederates chased the Yankee ships into open water, and the sharpshooters injured many Union gunners. Both Union ships soon surrendered. Magruder's victory reopened the Texas coast for Confederate shipping.
1887. Brisbane is deluged by a one-day rainfall of 465 millimetres (18.3 inches), a record for any Australian capital city.
1899. Opel manufactures its first automobile.
1908. New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only to have the measure vetoed by the mayor.
1915. Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit, Michigan.
1924. Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins to purge his rivals to clear way for his leadership.
1924. British actor and comedian Benny Hill is born as Alfred Hawthorn Hill. Benny Hill was best known for his television program, The Benny Hill Show. Since its debut in 1969 his television show has been sold to over 140 countries worldwide, with viewership in the millions.
The Benny Hill Show featured him in innumerable mostly short sketches (often portraying a leering, lecherous, never quite succeeding yet charming protagonist). The show was first broadcast in the United States in January 1979 and screened there with a series of re-edited half-hour programs culled from the ITV specials. The US versions of his show have far less risque material than those which were aired in the UK but the original, uncensored versions have been shown on HBO.
1931. Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.
1941. Australian and British forces attack Tobruk, Libya, during World War II.
1950. In the conclusion to one of the most spectacular trials in U.S. history, former State Department official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury. He was convicted of having perjured himself in regards to testimony about his alleged involvement in a Soviet spy ring before and during World War II. Hiss served nearly four years in jail, but steadfastly protested his innocence during and after his incarceration.
The case against Hiss began in 1948, when Whittaker Chambers, an admitted ex-communist and an editor with Time magazine, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and charged that Hiss was a communist in the 1930s and 1940s. Chambers also declared that Hiss, during his work in the Department of State during the 1930s, had passed him top secret reports.
Hiss appeared before HUAC and vehemently denied the charges, stating that he did not even know Chambers. Later, after confronting Chambers face to face, Hiss admitted that he knew him, but that Chambers had been using another name at the time. In short order, Chambers produced the famous "Pumpkin Papers" -- copies of the documents he said Hiss passed him during the 1930s. They were dubbed the "Pumpkin Papers" because Chambers kept them hidden in a pumpkin in his pumpkin patch.
Because the statute of limitations had run out, he was not tried for treason. Instead, he was charged with two counts of perjury -- for lying about passing government documents to Chambers and for denying that he had seen Chambers since 1937. In 1949, the first trial for perjury ended in a deadlocked jury. The second trial ended in January 1950 with a guilty verdict on both counts.
1954. The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, then the First Lady of the United States.
1959. Carl Dean Switzer, the actor who as a child played "Alfalfa" in the Our Gang comedy film series, dies at age 31 in a fight, allegedly about money, in a Mission Hills, California, home. Alfalfa, the freckle-faced boy with a warbling singing voice and a cowlick protruding from the top of his head, was Switzer's best-known role.
Our Gang revolved around a group of ragtag children and their adventures. Along with Alfalfa, other popular characters included Spanky, Buckwheat and Darla. Our Gang was considered groundbreaking in that it featured white and black child actors interacting equally. Switzer played Alfalfa from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s. In 1955, the Our Gang films were turned into a hugely popular TV series called The Little Rascals; however, Switzer never received any royalties from the show.
After Our Gang, Switzer found small roles in movies and on television, but his most successful days in Hollywood were behind him. He made money working odd jobs, including stints as a hunting guide and bartender, and had several run-ins with the police.
On January 21, 1959, Switzer and a friend went to the Mission Hills home of Moses "Bud" Stiltz, to collect a debt Switzer believed he was owed. A fight broke out, during which Stiltz shot and killed Switzer. A jury later ruled the incident justifiable homicide.
1960. Avianca Flight 671 crashes and burns upon landing at Montego Bay, Jamaica, killing 37. It is the worst air disaster in Jamaica's history and the first for Avianca.
1968. Simon & Garfunkel release the Original Soundtrack to The Graduate, which quickly goes to #1 on the pop charts and which will bring Simon a Grammy for Best Original Score.
1968. American actress Charlotte Ross is born. She starred in NYPD Blue as Detective Connie McDowell from 2001 to 2004. She also appeared on Days of Our Lives as Eve Donovan from 1987 to 1991. Some of her other television credits include The Heights, The Five Mrs. Buchanans, Drexel's Class, Married... with Children, Pauly, Trinity, Beggars and Choosers, Frasier, and Jake in Progress.
Charlotte Ross has supported PETA's campaign for "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" by posing naked, exposing her buttocks under the title "I'd Rather Show My Buns Than Wear Fur." (See pictures.)
1976. Commercial service of Concorde begins with the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.
1977. President Jimmy Carter pardons nearly all American Vietnam War draft evaders, some of whom had emigrated to Canada.
1981. Production of the iconic DeLorean DMC-12 sports car begins in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. Most commonly known as theDeLorean, it was the only model produced by the company which would go into liquidation as the U.S. car market went through its largest slump since the 1930s.
1985. Because January 20 had fallen on a Sunday, Ronald Reagan's public inaugural ceremony for his second term as President was moved to Monday, January 21. Due to bad weather, the ceremony was held indoors in the United States Capital Rotunda. He had already been sworn in privately the day before as mandated by the U.S. Constitution.
1994. A jury in Manassas, Virginia, acquits Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding her husband, John, whom she had accused of sexually assaulting her. After cutting off her husband's penis, Lorena became a feminist heroine but was later convicted of assaulting her mother.
1997. Newt Gingrich becomes the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives to be internally disciplined for ethical misconduct.
1999. In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 4,300 kilograms (9,500 lb) of cocaine on board.
2003. A 7.6 magnitude earthquake strikes the Mexican state of Colima, killing 29 and leaving approximately 10,000 people homeless.
2009. After more than seven decades as the world's largest automaker, General Motors (GM) officially loses the title when it announces worldwide sales of 8.36 million cars and trucks in 2008, compared with Toyota's 8.97 million vehicle sales that same year. In 2011, however, GM sales surpassed Toyota's.
2011. The South Korean navy directs an operation against Somali pirates who hijacked a South Korean ship, rescuing all 21 hostages, while eight pirates are killed and five are captured.
2012. The death toll of a series of co-ordinated bombing attacks in Kano, Nigeria, rises to more than 140. The attacks, which targeted police stations across the city, are attributed to Islamist group Boko Haram. Meanwhile, leading international virologists agree to temporarily halt work on a more virulent strain of the H5N1 influenza virus, due to fears that an airborne strain of the lethal virus could be used by bioterrorists.
Elsewhere, a Republican Party primary election takes place in the U.S. state of South Carolina, with Newt Gingrich being declared the winner and Mitt Romney coming in second.
304. Saint Agnes is martyred. According to tradition, Saint Agnes was a member of the Roman nobility born and raised in a Christian family. She suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve or thirteen during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.
The Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son, and on Agnes' refusal he condemned her to death. As Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, Sempronius had a naked Agnes dragged through the streets to a brothel. Various versions of the legend give different methods of escape from this predicament. In one, as she prayed, her hair grew and covered her body. It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind. In another the son of the Prefect is struck dead, but revived after Agnes prayed for him, causing her release. There is then a trial from which Sempronius excuses himself, and another figure presides, sentencing her to death. When led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn, or the flames parted away from her, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and beheaded her, or, in some other texts, stabbed her in the throat.
SEE EULALIA’S CONTRIBUTION
1189. Philip II of France and Richard I of England begin to assemble troops to wage the Third Crusade. The Third Crusade (1189–1192), also known as the King's Crusade, was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin.
After some military successes, the Christian powers argued over the spoils of war; frustrated with Richard, Leopold V of Austria and Philip left the Holy Land in August 1191. On September 2, 1192, Richard and Saladin finalized a treaty by which Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control, but which also allowed unarmed Christian pilgrims to visit the city. Richard departed the Holy Land on October 9. The failure of the Third Crusade would lead to the call for a Fourth Crusade six years later.
1525. The Swiss Anabaptist Movement is born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptize each other in the home of Manz's mother in Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union.
Anabaptists are Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, considered Protestant by some, although some consider Anabaptism to be a distinct movement from Protestantism. The Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites are direct descendants of the movement. The name Anabaptist is derived from the Greek term anabaptista, or "one who baptizes over again." This name was given them by their enemies in reference to the practice of "re-baptizing" converts who "already had been baptized" (or sprinkled) as infants. As a result of their views on the nature of baptism and other issues, Anabaptists were heavily persecuted during the 16th century and into the 17th by both Magisterial Protestants and Roman Catholics.
1643. Abel Tasman becomes the first European to reach Tonga. Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over 700,000 square kilometers (270,000 sq mi) of ocean in the South Pacific
1738. Ethan Allen, future Revolutionary War hero and key founder of the Republic of Vermont, is born in Litchfield, Connecticut.
1789. The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts. Despite that title, the novel is steamy for the time, revolving around incest and adultery. It was considered unfit reading for women.
1793. One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris. As Louis mounted the scaffold he appeared dignified and resigned. He delivered a short speech in which he reasserted his innocence, “I die perfectly innocent of the so-called crimes of which I am accused. I pardon those who are the cause of my misfortunes....” He declared himself willing to die and prayed that the people of France would be spared a similar fate. Many accounts suggest Louis XVI’s desire to say more to his people, but Antoine-Joseph Santerre, a general in the National Guard, halted the speech by ordering a drum roll. The former King was then quickly beheaded. Some accounts of Louis's beheading indicate that the blade did not sever his neck entirely the first time. While Louis's blood dripped to the ground many members of the crowd ran forward to dip their handkerchiefs in it
1840. Jules Dumont d'Urville discovers Adélie Land, Antarctica.
1861. Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate as the country draws closer to civil war. Davis would become the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.
1863. In the American Civil War, two Confederate ships drive away two Union ships as the Rebels recapture Sabine Pass, Texas, and open an important port for the Confederacy.
Sabine Pass lay at the mouth of the Sabine River along the gulf coast of Texas. The Confederates constructed a major fort there in 1861. In September 1862, a Union force captured the fort and, shortly after, the port of Galveston to the southwest. The Yankees now controlled much of the Texas coast. In November, Confederate General John Bankhead Magruder arrived to change Southern fortunes in the area.
He recaptured Galveston and then turned his attention to Sabine Pass. The decks of the two Rebel ships, the Bell and the Uncle Ben, were stacked with cotton bales. Sharpshooters were placed behind the bales and the ships steamed towards the two Union ships, theMorning Light and the Velocity. The Confederates chased the Yankee ships into open water, and the sharpshooters injured many Union gunners. Both Union ships soon surrendered. Magruder's victory reopened the Texas coast for Confederate shipping.
1887. Brisbane is deluged by a one-day rainfall of 465 millimetres (18.3 inches), a record for any Australian capital city.
1899. Opel manufactures its first automobile.
1908. New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only to have the measure vetoed by the mayor.
1915. Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit, Michigan.
1924. Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins to purge his rivals to clear way for his leadership.
1924. British actor and comedian Benny Hill is born as Alfred Hawthorn Hill. Benny Hill was best known for his television program, The Benny Hill Show. Since its debut in 1969 his television show has been sold to over 140 countries worldwide, with viewership in the millions.
The Benny Hill Show featured him in innumerable mostly short sketches (often portraying a leering, lecherous, never quite succeeding yet charming protagonist). The show was first broadcast in the United States in January 1979 and screened there with a series of re-edited half-hour programs culled from the ITV specials. The US versions of his show have far less risque material than those which were aired in the UK but the original, uncensored versions have been shown on HBO.
1941. Australian and British forces attack Tobruk, Libya, during World War II.
1950. In the conclusion to one of the most spectacular trials in U.S. history, former State Department official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury. He was convicted of having perjured himself in regards to testimony about his alleged involvement in a Soviet spy ring before and during World War II. Hiss served nearly four years in jail, but steadfastly protested his innocence during and after his incarceration.
The case against Hiss began in 1948, when Whittaker Chambers, an admitted ex-communist and an editor with Time magazine, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and charged that Hiss was a communist in the 1930s and 1940s. Chambers also declared that Hiss, during his work in the Department of State during the 1930s, had passed him top secret reports.
Hiss appeared before HUAC and vehemently denied the charges, stating that he did not even know Chambers. Later, after confronting Chambers face to face, Hiss admitted that he knew him, but that Chambers had been using another name at the time. In short order, Chambers produced the famous "Pumpkin Papers" -- copies of the documents he said Hiss passed him during the 1930s. They were dubbed the "Pumpkin Papers" because Chambers kept them hidden in a pumpkin in his pumpkin patch.
Because the statute of limitations had run out, he was not tried for treason. Instead, he was charged with two counts of perjury -- for lying about passing government documents to Chambers and for denying that he had seen Chambers since 1937. In 1949, the first trial for perjury ended in a deadlocked jury. The second trial ended in January 1950 with a guilty verdict on both counts.
1954. The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, then the First Lady of the United States.
1959. Carl Dean Switzer, the actor who as a child played "Alfalfa" in the Our Gang comedy film series, dies at age 31 in a fight, allegedly about money, in a Mission Hills, California, home. Alfalfa, the freckle-faced boy with a warbling singing voice and a cowlick protruding from the top of his head, was Switzer's best-known role.
Our Gang revolved around a group of ragtag children and their adventures. Along with Alfalfa, other popular characters included Spanky, Buckwheat and Darla. Our Gang was considered groundbreaking in that it featured white and black child actors interacting equally. Switzer played Alfalfa from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s. In 1955, the Our Gang films were turned into a hugely popular TV series called The Little Rascals; however, Switzer never received any royalties from the show.
After Our Gang, Switzer found small roles in movies and on television, but his most successful days in Hollywood were behind him. He made money working odd jobs, including stints as a hunting guide and bartender, and had several run-ins with the police.
On January 21, 1959, Switzer and a friend went to the Mission Hills home of Moses "Bud" Stiltz, to collect a debt Switzer believed he was owed. A fight broke out, during which Stiltz shot and killed Switzer. A jury later ruled the incident justifiable homicide.
1960. Avianca Flight 671 crashes and burns upon landing at Montego Bay, Jamaica, killing 37. It is the worst air disaster in Jamaica's history and the first for Avianca.
1968. Simon & Garfunkel release the Original Soundtrack to The Graduate, which quickly goes to #1 on the pop charts and which will bring Simon a Grammy for Best Original Score.
1968. American actress Charlotte Ross is born. She starred in NYPD Blue as Detective Connie McDowell from 2001 to 2004. She also appeared on Days of Our Lives as Eve Donovan from 1987 to 1991. Some of her other television credits include The Heights, The Five Mrs. Buchanans, Drexel's Class, Married... with Children, Pauly, Trinity, Beggars and Choosers, Frasier, and Jake in Progress.
Charlotte Ross has supported PETA's campaign for "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" by posing naked, exposing her buttocks under the title "I'd Rather Show My Buns Than Wear Fur." (See pictures.)
1976. Commercial service of Concorde begins with the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.
1977. President Jimmy Carter pardons nearly all American Vietnam War draft evaders, some of whom had emigrated to Canada.
1981. Production of the iconic DeLorean DMC-12 sports car begins in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. Most commonly known as theDeLorean, it was the only model produced by the company which would go into liquidation as the U.S. car market went through its largest slump since the 1930s.
1985. Because January 20 had fallen on a Sunday, Ronald Reagan's public inaugural ceremony for his second term as President was moved to Monday, January 21. Due to bad weather, the ceremony was held indoors in the United States Capital Rotunda. He had already been sworn in privately the day before as mandated by the U.S. Constitution.
1994. A jury in Manassas, Virginia, acquits Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding her husband, John, whom she had accused of sexually assaulting her. After cutting off her husband's penis, Lorena became a feminist heroine but was later convicted of assaulting her mother.
1997. Newt Gingrich becomes the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives to be internally disciplined for ethical misconduct.
1999. In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 4,300 kilograms (9,500 lb) of cocaine on board.
2003. A 7.6 magnitude earthquake strikes the Mexican state of Colima, killing 29 and leaving approximately 10,000 people homeless.
2009. After more than seven decades as the world's largest automaker, General Motors (GM) officially loses the title when it announces worldwide sales of 8.36 million cars and trucks in 2008, compared with Toyota's 8.97 million vehicle sales that same year. In 2011, however, GM sales surpassed Toyota's.
2011. The South Korean navy directs an operation against Somali pirates who hijacked a South Korean ship, rescuing all 21 hostages, while eight pirates are killed and five are captured.
2012. The death toll of a series of co-ordinated bombing attacks in Kano, Nigeria, rises to more than 140. The attacks, which targeted police stations across the city, are attributed to Islamist group Boko Haram. Meanwhile, leading international virologists agree to temporarily halt work on a more virulent strain of the H5N1 influenza virus, due to fears that an airborne strain of the lethal virus could be used by bioterrorists.
Elsewhere, a Republican Party primary election takes place in the U.S. state of South Carolina, with Newt Gingrich being declared the winner and Mitt Romney coming in second.
Attachments
January 22 is the anniversary of a precedent-setting Supreme Court decision and the introduction of new technology that has affected everyone reading this.
393. Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor.
Also called Theodosius the Great, he was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. After his death, the two parts split permanently.
1368. In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
1506. The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrives at the Vatican. Swiss Guards are Swiss mercenary soldiers who have served as bodyguards, ceremonial guards and palace guards at foreign European courts from the late 15th century until the present day (in the form of the Papal Swiss Guard). They have generally had a high reputation for discipline and loyalty to their employers. Some of these units have also served as fighting troops in the field. There were also regular Swiss mercenary regiments serving as line troops in various armies, notably those of France, Spain and Naples until the 19th century who were not household or guard units.
Various "Swiss Guards" have existed. The earliest such detachment was the Guard of the Hundred Swiss at the French court (1497 - 1830). This small force was complemented in 1567 by a Swiss Guard regiment. The Papal Swiss Guard in the Vatican was founded in 1506 and is the only Swiss Guard that still exists. In the 18th century several other Swiss Guards existed for periods in various European courts.
1521. Emperor Charles V opens the Diet of Worms. This was not some fad diet but a general assembly (a Diet) of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire that took place in Worms, a small town on the Rhine river located in what is now Germany. Although other issues were dealt with at the Diet of Worms, it is most memorable for addressing Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation.
1536. German Anabaptist leader Benhard Knipperdolling and two compatriots are publicly tortured and executed in Münster. Their corpses were suspended in a cage from the Lambertuskirche (St. Lambert's Church), which had been the initial focus of the Anabaptist revolution.
1689. The Convention Parliament convenes to determine if James II, the last Roman Catholic king of England, had vacated the throne when he fled to France in 1688. Members of Britain's political and religious elite increasingly opposed him for being pro-French and pro-Catholic, and for his designs on becoming an absolute monarch. When he produced a Catholic heir, the tension exploded, and leading nobles called on William III of Orange (his son-in-law and nephew) to land an invasion army from the Netherlands, which he did. James fled England (and thus was held to have abdicated) in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
He was replaced by William of Orange who became king as William III, ruling jointly with his wife (James's daughter) Mary II. Thus William and Mary, both Protestants, became joint rulers in 1689. James made one serious attempt to recover his crowns, when he landed in Ireland in 1689 but, after the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the Williamite forces at the Battle of the Boyne in the summer of 1690, James returned to France. He lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis XIV.
1771. Spain cedes Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands to England.
1779. In the American Revolution, famed Tory outlaw Claudius Smith meets his end on the gallows in Goshen, New York. In the wake of his death, Patriot civilians hope for relief from guerilla warfare in upstate New York.
Born in Brookhaven, New York, in 1736, Smith moved with his family to Orange County, New York, in 1741. Thought to have fought with Mohawk leader Joseph Brandt as a Tory defender of the crown during the New York campaign of 1777, Smith earned the label "Cowboy of the Ramapos" for his use of guerrilla tactics against Patriot civilians. Smith and his cohorts stole livestock and ambushed travelers on the Orange Turnpike between Canada and New York from the cave now memorialized as "Claudius Smith's Den" in Orange County's Harriman State Park.
Smith managed to escape justice until his gang murdered Patriot Major Nathaniel Strong in the course of a robbery. Patriot Governor George Clinton then issued a warrant for his arrest, offering a $1,200 reward for the capture of Smith, who was described as "7 feet tall" in his wanted poster. Captured on British-controlled Long Island by vigilantes in October, he and other members of his gang, including one of his sons, were returned to Patriot territory and hanged near their home turf in Goshen.
Despite his less than savory exploits, Smith earned a reputation as a "robin hood" because he targeted the wealthy but was said to be generous with the poor. Because his mother reputedly warned him that, unless he reformed, he would "die with his boots on," Smith removed his footwear before he was hanged. Two of Smith's three sons belonged to his gang -- one was hanged with his father; another took over the gang upon his death.
Legend has it that Claudius Smith's skull was filled with mortar and included in the edifice of the Goshen Court House.
1863. The January Uprising breaks out in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. The aim of the national movement is to regain Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth from occupation of Russia.
1877. Arthur Tooth, an Anglican clergyman is taken into custody after being prosecuted for using ritualist practices. When the Public Worship Regulation Act was passed in 1874, those who disapproved of his ritualist liturgical practices set a prosecution in motion. He was charged with (among other things) the use of incense, vestments, and altar candles.
Eventually, on January 22, 1877, as a result of his repeatedly ignoring the decisions of the Court of Arches, he was taken into custody for contempt of court and imprisoned at London's Horsemonger Lane Gaol. This action immediately transformed him in the eyes of Anglo-Catholics from a rebel into a Christian martyr. (The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, groups, ideas, customs and practices within Anglicanism that emphasise continuity with Catholic tradition.)
The agitations that resulted from his arrest and imprisonment played a central role in bring the Public Worship Regulation Act into disrepute. His conviction was quashed on a technicality.
1879. During the Anglo-Zulu War, 139 British soldiers successfully defend their garrison against an intense assault by four to five thousand Zulu warriors in the Battle of Rorke's Drift
The defense of the mission station of Rorke's Drift, under the command of Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers, immediately followed the British Army's defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January, and continued into the following day, 23 January. Just over 150 British and colonial troops successfully defended the garrison against an intense assault by 3,000 to 4,000 Zulu warriors. The massive, but piecemeal, Zulu attacks on Rorke's Drift came very close to defeating the tiny garrison but were ultimately repelled. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to the defenders, along with a number of other decorations and honors.
1901. Edward VII becomes King after his mother, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, dies.
1905. Bloody Sunday erupts in St. Petersburg, beginning the 1905 revolution in Russia. Bloody Sunday was an incident where unarmed, peaceful demonstrators marching to present a petition to Czar Nicholas II were gunned down by the Imperial Guard.
The event was organized by Father Gapon, who was paid by the Okhrana, the Czarist secret police, and thus considered to be its agent provocateur. Bloody Sunday was a serious blunder on the part of the Okhrana, and an event with grave consequences for the Czarist regime, as the blatant disregard for ordinary people shown by the massacre undermined support for the state. Despite the consequences of this action, the Czar was never fully blamed because he was not in the city at the time of protest. Father Gapon, however. was later assassinated in retaliation.
1915. Over 600 people are killed in Guadalajara, Mexico, when a train plunges off the tracks into a deep canyon.
1917. During World War I, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe.
1924. Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1938. Thornton Wilder's play Our Town premieres in Princeton, New Jersey.
1941. The United Kingdom captures Tobruk from Nazi forces during World War II.
1947. KTLA, the first U.S. commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, begins operation in Hollywood, California.
1952. The first commercial jet plane, BOAC's Comet, is put into service.
1959. American actress Linda Blair is born as Linda Denise Blair in St. Louis, Missouri. She is most famous for her role as the possessed child in the 1973 film The Exorcist and the sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic.
Blair gave a strong, credible performance as the young girl possessed by the devil, and was an integral part of the film's phenomenal success. The Exorcist opened in December of 1973 and soon was more than a hit film -- it was a media phenomenon. Lines at theaters went around the block, and people stood on line for hours to see the film if they didn't pass out or faint during the screenings.
Following the success of The Exorcist, Blair appeared in numerous controversial television films, including Born Innocent (in which she was raped with a broom handle) and Sarah T...Portrait Of A Teenage Alcoholic . She was featured in Airport 1975. Soon after, her appearance in Exorcist II: The Heretic, the failed sequel to the successful original film that made her a household name, nearly cost her career.
Throughout the 1980s, Blair's career fell into decline, and she appeared in many minor films, often with a horror or slapstick comedy theme. Meanwhile, she returned to her first love of riding and showing horses, where she competed under pseudonyms in showjumping events and won numerous equestrian events.
In 1990, she reprised her Exorcist character in the spoof film Repossessed, in addition to reducing her appearances in lower budget movies and concentrating on TV work, including a guest spot on the 1992/1993 season opener of the FOX series Married... with Children, making it the highest watched episode of that series. In 1996, Blair had a brief uncredited cameo appearance in the box office smash Scream, in addition to winning wide acclaim for her performance in the 1997 stage revival of Grease.
Blair has long been active in charities involving prevention of cruelty to animals with her own Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, and is a committed vegan. (See pictures.)
1962. The Organization of American States (OAS) suspends Cuba's membership.
1967. English actress Olivia d'Abo is born as Olivia Jane d'Abo in London, England. She is a former child actress and sometime singer, whose career has continued into her adulthood. She has had numerous supporting roles, especially in science fiction, fantasy, and horror TV programs and movies, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation (1992), The Twilight Zone (2002), and Conan the Destroyer (1984).
As a teenager, d'Abo had the misfortune in 1984 of being given a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for "Worst New Star" for her work in both Conan the Destroyer and in Bolero, in which she did a controversial nude scene still while very young.
To date, she has made four appearances on the TV crime drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent as Nicole Wallace, lead character Robert Goren's nemesis. (See pictures.)
1969. A gunman attempts to assassinate Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
1970. The Boeing 747, the world's first "jumbo jet", enters commercial service for launch customer Pan American Airways with its maiden voyage from John F Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport.
1973. The Supreme Court of the United States delivers its decision in Roe v. Wade striking down state laws restricting abortion during the first six months of pregnancy.
1973. Former President Lyndon Baines Johnson dies in Johnson City, Texas, at the age of 64. On the day of Tichard Nixon's second inaugural celebration, Johnson watched sullenly as Nixon announced the dismantling of many of Johnson's Great Society social programs and, the next day, that he had achieved the ceasefire in Vietnam that had eluded Johnson. Johnson had reportedly predicted that [when the Great Society] dies, I, too, will die. The following day, while his wife Ladybird and their daughters were in Austin, Johnson suffered a fatal heart attack at his ranch in Johnson City.
1981. American singer Willa Ford is born as Amanda Lee Williford. She is a dance-pop singer-songwriter, producer, and occasional television personality and host.
She first became popular in 2001 as the self-proclaimed "Bad Girl of Pop," when she released her debut album, Willa Was Here. Aside from her music career, Ford has hosted several reality television shows, posed for Playboy, and competed on ABC's top-rated Dancing with the Stars. (See pictures.)
1984. The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, is introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with its famous "1984" television commercial.
1987. Pennsylvania politician R. Budd Dwyer shoots and kills himself at a press conference on live national television, leading to debates on boundaries in journalism.
1990. Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet worm. Morris created the worm while he was a graduate student at Cornell University. The original intent, according to him, was to gauge the size of the Internet. He released the worm from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to conceal the fact that it actually originated from Cornell.
Unknown to Morris, the worm had a design flaw. The worm was programmed to check each computer it found to determine if the infection was already present. However, Morris believed that some administrators might try to defeat his worm by instructing the computer to report a false positive. To compensate for this possibility, Morris directed the worm to copy itself anyway, fourteen percent of the time, no matter the response to the infection-status interrogation. This level of replication proved excessive and the worm spread rapidly, infecting several thousand computers. It was estimated that the cost of repair for the damage caused by the worm at each system ranged from $200 to more than $53,000.
His "penalty" for all this amounted to a judicial slap on the wrist -- he was sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, a fine of $10,050 and the cost of his supervision.
1997. Madeleine Albright becomes the first female secretary of state after confirmation by the United States Senate.
2002. AOL Time Warner brings a federal suit against Microsoft alleging that the market for AOL's Netscape Navigator Internet browser was harmed when Microsoft started to give away a competing browser.
2003. The last successful contact is made with the spacecraft Pioneer 10, one of the most distant man-made objects. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt, and was the first spacecraft to make direct observations of Jupiter. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on March 2, 1972. By some definitions, Pioneer 10 has become the first artificial object to leave the solar system.
Pioneer 10 was fitted with a plaque to serve as a message for extraterrestrial life, in the event of its discovery by an alien civilization. That might have been unwise. Pioneer 10 was mentioned in L. Ron Hubbard's novel Battlefield Earth. The race that invaded earth, the Psychlos, found the plaque on board the spacecraft, guiding them to Earth. Apparently the plaque was made of a metal that was very valuable on the galactic commodity market; the pioneer plaque is, in fact, made of gold-anodized aluminium. The novel begins in the year 3000, a millennium after finding Pioneer 10 and the subsequent invasion of Earth.
Pioneer 10 is heading in the direction of the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus at roughly 2.6 AUs per year. If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would take Pioneer about 2 million years to reach it.
2011. The death toll from flooding in South Africa rises to 70 and more than 8,000 families are homeless. Five other nearby countries -- Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe -- are threatened by killer heavy rains.
2012. China reports the death of a second person this month to H5N1 bird flu.
In the United States, former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno dies from complications associated with lung cancer.
and
393. Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor.
Also called Theodosius the Great, he was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. After his death, the two parts split permanently.
1368. In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
1506. The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrives at the Vatican. Swiss Guards are Swiss mercenary soldiers who have served as bodyguards, ceremonial guards and palace guards at foreign European courts from the late 15th century until the present day (in the form of the Papal Swiss Guard). They have generally had a high reputation for discipline and loyalty to their employers. Some of these units have also served as fighting troops in the field. There were also regular Swiss mercenary regiments serving as line troops in various armies, notably those of France, Spain and Naples until the 19th century who were not household or guard units.
Various "Swiss Guards" have existed. The earliest such detachment was the Guard of the Hundred Swiss at the French court (1497 - 1830). This small force was complemented in 1567 by a Swiss Guard regiment. The Papal Swiss Guard in the Vatican was founded in 1506 and is the only Swiss Guard that still exists. In the 18th century several other Swiss Guards existed for periods in various European courts.
1521. Emperor Charles V opens the Diet of Worms. This was not some fad diet but a general assembly (a Diet) of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire that took place in Worms, a small town on the Rhine river located in what is now Germany. Although other issues were dealt with at the Diet of Worms, it is most memorable for addressing Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation.
1536. German Anabaptist leader Benhard Knipperdolling and two compatriots are publicly tortured and executed in Münster. Their corpses were suspended in a cage from the Lambertuskirche (St. Lambert's Church), which had been the initial focus of the Anabaptist revolution.
1689. The Convention Parliament convenes to determine if James II, the last Roman Catholic king of England, had vacated the throne when he fled to France in 1688. Members of Britain's political and religious elite increasingly opposed him for being pro-French and pro-Catholic, and for his designs on becoming an absolute monarch. When he produced a Catholic heir, the tension exploded, and leading nobles called on William III of Orange (his son-in-law and nephew) to land an invasion army from the Netherlands, which he did. James fled England (and thus was held to have abdicated) in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
He was replaced by William of Orange who became king as William III, ruling jointly with his wife (James's daughter) Mary II. Thus William and Mary, both Protestants, became joint rulers in 1689. James made one serious attempt to recover his crowns, when he landed in Ireland in 1689 but, after the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the Williamite forces at the Battle of the Boyne in the summer of 1690, James returned to France. He lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis XIV.
1771. Spain cedes Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands to England.
1779. In the American Revolution, famed Tory outlaw Claudius Smith meets his end on the gallows in Goshen, New York. In the wake of his death, Patriot civilians hope for relief from guerilla warfare in upstate New York.
Born in Brookhaven, New York, in 1736, Smith moved with his family to Orange County, New York, in 1741. Thought to have fought with Mohawk leader Joseph Brandt as a Tory defender of the crown during the New York campaign of 1777, Smith earned the label "Cowboy of the Ramapos" for his use of guerrilla tactics against Patriot civilians. Smith and his cohorts stole livestock and ambushed travelers on the Orange Turnpike between Canada and New York from the cave now memorialized as "Claudius Smith's Den" in Orange County's Harriman State Park.
Smith managed to escape justice until his gang murdered Patriot Major Nathaniel Strong in the course of a robbery. Patriot Governor George Clinton then issued a warrant for his arrest, offering a $1,200 reward for the capture of Smith, who was described as "7 feet tall" in his wanted poster. Captured on British-controlled Long Island by vigilantes in October, he and other members of his gang, including one of his sons, were returned to Patriot territory and hanged near their home turf in Goshen.
Despite his less than savory exploits, Smith earned a reputation as a "robin hood" because he targeted the wealthy but was said to be generous with the poor. Because his mother reputedly warned him that, unless he reformed, he would "die with his boots on," Smith removed his footwear before he was hanged. Two of Smith's three sons belonged to his gang -- one was hanged with his father; another took over the gang upon his death.
Legend has it that Claudius Smith's skull was filled with mortar and included in the edifice of the Goshen Court House.
1863. The January Uprising breaks out in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. The aim of the national movement is to regain Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth from occupation of Russia.
1877. Arthur Tooth, an Anglican clergyman is taken into custody after being prosecuted for using ritualist practices. When the Public Worship Regulation Act was passed in 1874, those who disapproved of his ritualist liturgical practices set a prosecution in motion. He was charged with (among other things) the use of incense, vestments, and altar candles.
Eventually, on January 22, 1877, as a result of his repeatedly ignoring the decisions of the Court of Arches, he was taken into custody for contempt of court and imprisoned at London's Horsemonger Lane Gaol. This action immediately transformed him in the eyes of Anglo-Catholics from a rebel into a Christian martyr. (The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, groups, ideas, customs and practices within Anglicanism that emphasise continuity with Catholic tradition.)
The agitations that resulted from his arrest and imprisonment played a central role in bring the Public Worship Regulation Act into disrepute. His conviction was quashed on a technicality.
1879. During the Anglo-Zulu War, 139 British soldiers successfully defend their garrison against an intense assault by four to five thousand Zulu warriors in the Battle of Rorke's Drift
The defense of the mission station of Rorke's Drift, under the command of Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers, immediately followed the British Army's defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January, and continued into the following day, 23 January. Just over 150 British and colonial troops successfully defended the garrison against an intense assault by 3,000 to 4,000 Zulu warriors. The massive, but piecemeal, Zulu attacks on Rorke's Drift came very close to defeating the tiny garrison but were ultimately repelled. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to the defenders, along with a number of other decorations and honors.
1901. Edward VII becomes King after his mother, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, dies.
1905. Bloody Sunday erupts in St. Petersburg, beginning the 1905 revolution in Russia. Bloody Sunday was an incident where unarmed, peaceful demonstrators marching to present a petition to Czar Nicholas II were gunned down by the Imperial Guard.
The event was organized by Father Gapon, who was paid by the Okhrana, the Czarist secret police, and thus considered to be its agent provocateur. Bloody Sunday was a serious blunder on the part of the Okhrana, and an event with grave consequences for the Czarist regime, as the blatant disregard for ordinary people shown by the massacre undermined support for the state. Despite the consequences of this action, the Czar was never fully blamed because he was not in the city at the time of protest. Father Gapon, however. was later assassinated in retaliation.
1915. Over 600 people are killed in Guadalajara, Mexico, when a train plunges off the tracks into a deep canyon.
1917. During World War I, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe.
1924. Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1938. Thornton Wilder's play Our Town premieres in Princeton, New Jersey.
1941. The United Kingdom captures Tobruk from Nazi forces during World War II.
1947. KTLA, the first U.S. commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, begins operation in Hollywood, California.
1952. The first commercial jet plane, BOAC's Comet, is put into service.
1959. American actress Linda Blair is born as Linda Denise Blair in St. Louis, Missouri. She is most famous for her role as the possessed child in the 1973 film The Exorcist and the sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic.
Blair gave a strong, credible performance as the young girl possessed by the devil, and was an integral part of the film's phenomenal success. The Exorcist opened in December of 1973 and soon was more than a hit film -- it was a media phenomenon. Lines at theaters went around the block, and people stood on line for hours to see the film if they didn't pass out or faint during the screenings.
Following the success of The Exorcist, Blair appeared in numerous controversial television films, including Born Innocent (in which she was raped with a broom handle) and Sarah T...Portrait Of A Teenage Alcoholic . She was featured in Airport 1975. Soon after, her appearance in Exorcist II: The Heretic, the failed sequel to the successful original film that made her a household name, nearly cost her career.
Throughout the 1980s, Blair's career fell into decline, and she appeared in many minor films, often with a horror or slapstick comedy theme. Meanwhile, she returned to her first love of riding and showing horses, where she competed under pseudonyms in showjumping events and won numerous equestrian events.
In 1990, she reprised her Exorcist character in the spoof film Repossessed, in addition to reducing her appearances in lower budget movies and concentrating on TV work, including a guest spot on the 1992/1993 season opener of the FOX series Married... with Children, making it the highest watched episode of that series. In 1996, Blair had a brief uncredited cameo appearance in the box office smash Scream, in addition to winning wide acclaim for her performance in the 1997 stage revival of Grease.
Blair has long been active in charities involving prevention of cruelty to animals with her own Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, and is a committed vegan. (See pictures.)
1962. The Organization of American States (OAS) suspends Cuba's membership.
1967. English actress Olivia d'Abo is born as Olivia Jane d'Abo in London, England. She is a former child actress and sometime singer, whose career has continued into her adulthood. She has had numerous supporting roles, especially in science fiction, fantasy, and horror TV programs and movies, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation (1992), The Twilight Zone (2002), and Conan the Destroyer (1984).
As a teenager, d'Abo had the misfortune in 1984 of being given a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for "Worst New Star" for her work in both Conan the Destroyer and in Bolero, in which she did a controversial nude scene still while very young.
To date, she has made four appearances on the TV crime drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent as Nicole Wallace, lead character Robert Goren's nemesis. (See pictures.)
1969. A gunman attempts to assassinate Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
1970. The Boeing 747, the world's first "jumbo jet", enters commercial service for launch customer Pan American Airways with its maiden voyage from John F Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport.
1973. The Supreme Court of the United States delivers its decision in Roe v. Wade striking down state laws restricting abortion during the first six months of pregnancy.
1973. Former President Lyndon Baines Johnson dies in Johnson City, Texas, at the age of 64. On the day of Tichard Nixon's second inaugural celebration, Johnson watched sullenly as Nixon announced the dismantling of many of Johnson's Great Society social programs and, the next day, that he had achieved the ceasefire in Vietnam that had eluded Johnson. Johnson had reportedly predicted that [when the Great Society] dies, I, too, will die. The following day, while his wife Ladybird and their daughters were in Austin, Johnson suffered a fatal heart attack at his ranch in Johnson City.
1981. American singer Willa Ford is born as Amanda Lee Williford. She is a dance-pop singer-songwriter, producer, and occasional television personality and host.
She first became popular in 2001 as the self-proclaimed "Bad Girl of Pop," when she released her debut album, Willa Was Here. Aside from her music career, Ford has hosted several reality television shows, posed for Playboy, and competed on ABC's top-rated Dancing with the Stars. (See pictures.)
1984. The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, is introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with its famous "1984" television commercial.
1987. Pennsylvania politician R. Budd Dwyer shoots and kills himself at a press conference on live national television, leading to debates on boundaries in journalism.
1990. Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet worm. Morris created the worm while he was a graduate student at Cornell University. The original intent, according to him, was to gauge the size of the Internet. He released the worm from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to conceal the fact that it actually originated from Cornell.
Unknown to Morris, the worm had a design flaw. The worm was programmed to check each computer it found to determine if the infection was already present. However, Morris believed that some administrators might try to defeat his worm by instructing the computer to report a false positive. To compensate for this possibility, Morris directed the worm to copy itself anyway, fourteen percent of the time, no matter the response to the infection-status interrogation. This level of replication proved excessive and the worm spread rapidly, infecting several thousand computers. It was estimated that the cost of repair for the damage caused by the worm at each system ranged from $200 to more than $53,000.
His "penalty" for all this amounted to a judicial slap on the wrist -- he was sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, a fine of $10,050 and the cost of his supervision.
1997. Madeleine Albright becomes the first female secretary of state after confirmation by the United States Senate.
2002. AOL Time Warner brings a federal suit against Microsoft alleging that the market for AOL's Netscape Navigator Internet browser was harmed when Microsoft started to give away a competing browser.
2003. The last successful contact is made with the spacecraft Pioneer 10, one of the most distant man-made objects. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt, and was the first spacecraft to make direct observations of Jupiter. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on March 2, 1972. By some definitions, Pioneer 10 has become the first artificial object to leave the solar system.
Pioneer 10 was fitted with a plaque to serve as a message for extraterrestrial life, in the event of its discovery by an alien civilization. That might have been unwise. Pioneer 10 was mentioned in L. Ron Hubbard's novel Battlefield Earth. The race that invaded earth, the Psychlos, found the plaque on board the spacecraft, guiding them to Earth. Apparently the plaque was made of a metal that was very valuable on the galactic commodity market; the pioneer plaque is, in fact, made of gold-anodized aluminium. The novel begins in the year 3000, a millennium after finding Pioneer 10 and the subsequent invasion of Earth.
Pioneer 10 is heading in the direction of the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus at roughly 2.6 AUs per year. If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would take Pioneer about 2 million years to reach it.
2011. The death toll from flooding in South Africa rises to 70 and more than 8,000 families are homeless. Five other nearby countries -- Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe -- are threatened by killer heavy rains.
2012. China reports the death of a second person this month to H5N1 bird flu.
In the United States, former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno dies from complications associated with lung cancer.
and
Attachments
Blair appeared in numerous controversial television films, including Born Innocent (in which she was raped with a broom handle Tree would never do this unless he was sober and pissed off...
Blair has long been active in charities involving prevention of cruelty to animals with her own Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, and is a committed vegan Oral sex with a vegan does not count for eating your vegitables...
T
Blair has long been active in charities involving prevention of cruelty to animals with her own Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, and is a committed vegan Oral sex with a vegan does not count for eating your vegitables...
T