In Ancient Rome, January 24 was the first day of the
Sementivae. The
Sementivae, also known as
Feriae Sementivae, was a festival of sowing. It was held in honor of Ceres (the goddess of agriculture) and Tellus (Mother Earth). The initial half of the event was a festival in honor of Tellus that ran through January 26. The festival honoring Ceres occurred one week later, starting February 2.
3 BC. Roman Emperor Galba is born. He was emperor for seven months from 68 to 69. Galba was the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, and made a bid for the throne during the rebellion of Julius Vindex. He was the first emperor of the Year of the Four Emperors.
AD 41. Roman Emperor Gaius "Caligula" Caesar is assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. He is succeeded by his uncle Claudius. ("Caligula" -- "Little Boots" -- was a nickname given to him in childhood; he reputedly disliked it but hated Gaius even more.)
Caligula was the third Roman Emperor and a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruling from 37 to 41. Known for his extreme extravagance, eccentricity, depravity and cruelty, he is remembered as a despot.
The Roman historian Suetonius referred to Caligula as a "monster," and the surviving sources are universal in their condemnation. One popular tale, often cited as an example of his insanity and tyranny, is that Caligula appointed his favorite horse, Incitatus, to a seat on the Senate and attempted to appoint it to the position of consul. Although an affront to the ruling classes, that was the least of his misdeeds.
Whatever else is said about him, there is no denying that Caligula was the life of the party. During sexual orgies he would auction to the highest bidder the wives of high-ranking Senate members. More often, he would enjoy the women himself. He opened a brothel in his palace and had a habit of taking Senate members' wives with him to his private bedroom during social functions, while the husbands could merely look on as they left together, then he would recount the sexual acts he performed with the wives for all to hear, including their husbands.
Caligula is often alleged to have had incestuous relationships with his sisters, most notably his younger sister Drusilla. However, the surviving sources are filled with anecdotes of Caligula's cruelty and insanity rather than an actual account of his reign, making any reconstruction of his time as Princeps nearly impossible. What does survive is the picture of a depraved, hedonistic ruler, an image that has made Caligula one of the most widely recognizable, if poorly documented, of all the Roman Emperors; the name "Caligula" itself has become synonymous with wanton hedonism, cruelty, tyranny, and insanity.
76. Roman Emperor Hadrian is born. Hadrian was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. During his reign, Hadrian traveled to nearly every province of the Empire. An ardent admirer of Greece, he sought to make Athens the cultural capital of the Empire and ordered the construction of many opulent temples in the city. He was the third of the so-called Five Good Emperors.
1438. The Council of Basel suspends Pope Eugene IV. The council was convened at a period when the Conciliar movement was strong and the authority of the papacy weak.
Eugene IV had convened a rival council at Ferrara on January 8 and excommunicated the prelates assembled at Basel. The result was that the Council of Basel suspended him on, then formally deposed him as a heretic on June 25, 1439, and in the following November elected the ambitious Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy, antipope under the title of Felix V.
1679. King Charles II of England disbands the Cavalier Parliament. The Cavalier Parliament of England lasted from 8 May 1661 until 24January 1679. It was the longest English Parliament, enduring for nearly 18 years of the quarter-century reign of Charles II of England. Like its predecessor, the Convention Parliament, it was overwhelmingly Royalist and is also known as the Pensioner Parliament for the many pensions it granted to adherents of the King.
1781. In the American Revolution, Patriot commanders Lieutenant Colonel Light Horse Henry Lee and Brigadier General Francis "The Swamp Fox" Marion of the South Carolina militia combine forces and conduct a raid on Georgetown, South Carolina, which is defended by 200 British soldiers. The Patriots under Marion and Lee managed to arrive at Georgetown undetected and captured at least three officers, including the British commander.
1848. The California Gold Rush begins when James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento.
1882. Former Chicago mayor Levi Boone dies. He served as mayor of Chicago, Illinois (1855–1856) for the Native American Party (Know-Nothings). Supported by a coalition of Know Nothings and temperance advocates, Boone was elected mayor on an anti-immigrant platform, along with seven aldermen running on the same ticket.
During his only year in office, he reorganized the Chicago police, combining the Day Police and the Night Watch into a single police force with 3 eight-hour shifts and requiring the police for the first time to wear uniforms. No foreign-born police were retained in the reorganization, and all new appointments were native-born Americans. He barred all immigrants from city jobs. Levi Boone was the great-nephew of iconic American frontiersman Daniel Boone.
1908. Robert Baden-Powell begins the Boy Scout movement.
1915. In World War I, German naval forces under Admiral Franz von Hipper, encouraged by the success of a surprise attack on the British coastal towns of Hartlepool and Scarborough the previous month, set off toward Britain once again, only to be intercepted by a squadron of British cruisers led by Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea.
Knowing his Scouting Squadron would be overpowered by the British, Hipper turned his boats around, figuring his ships would be able to outrun the British boats in pursuit. Beatty's cruisers were faster than von Spee anticipated, however, and caught up to the Germans within an hour. At about 9 a.m., the British flagship, HMS
Lion, opened fire on the Germans from a distance of more than 20,000 yards. The lead German ship,
Seydlitz, was soon ablaze; 192 of its crew members died but the ship itself was saved despite the damage. Of the four German ships in Hipper's squadron, only the oldest and biggest, the
Blucher, was sunk, killing 782 men. The demise of the
Blucher was captured on movie film; an engraving of a still in the film, of its sailors sliding off the sinking ship into the sea, was later used to adorn silver cigarette cases sold as souvenirs in Britain.
1918. The Council of People's Commissars issues a decree introducing the Gregorian calendar in Russia, beginning February 1.
1924. St. Petersburg, Russia is renamed Leningrad.
1935. The first cans of beer are sold in the United States (Krueger's Finest Beer and Krueger's Cream Ale).
1939. An 8.3-magnitude earthquake centered in south central Chile leaves 50,000 people dead and 60,000 injured. The disaster came just 33 years after another terrible quake in Chile killed tens of thousands.
The epicenter of the massive quake was in south central Chile near the city of Chillan. The entire community was leveled, as the construction of homes and public buildings was not nearly strong enough to prevent their collapse. Approximately 10,000 of Chillan's 40,000 residents died when they were crushed by falling buildings. The town of Concepcion was also struck hard.
1942. During World War II, the Allies bombard Bangkok, leading Thailand to declare war against the United States and United Kingdom
1943. American actress and Manson murder victim Sharon Tate is born. During the 1960s she played small roles in television before starting her film career. She appeared in several films that highlighted her physical beauty, and after receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers, and earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in
Valley of the Dolls in 1967. (See pictures.)
Tate's celebrity status increased following her marriage to the film director, Roman Polański, and fashion magazines began featuring her as a model and cover girl. Tate was murdered, along with four others, by followers of Charles Manson, at her Benedict Canyon home. She was eight and a half months pregnant at the time.
1943. In World War II, German General Friedrich von Paulus, commander in chief of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, urgently requests permission from Adolf Hitler to surrender his position there, but Hitler refuses.
The Soviets had overrun Paulus' last airfield. His position was untenable and surrender was the only hope for survival. Hitler wouldn't hear of it: "The 6th Army will hold its positions to the last man and the last round." Paulus held out until January 31, when he finally surrendered. Of more than 280,000 men under Paulus' command, half were already dead or dying, about 35,000 had been evacuated from the front, and the remaining 91,000 were hauled off to Soviet POW camps. Paulus eventually sold out to the Soviets altogether, joining the National Committee for Free Germany and urging German troops to surrender. Testifying at Nuremberg for the Soviets, he was released and spent the rest of his life in East Germany.
1952. Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor-General of Canada.
The Governor General of Canada is the vice-regal representative in Canada of the Canadian Monarch, who is Canada's Head of State; Canada is one of sixteen Commonwealth realms, all of which share a single monarch (currently, Queen Elizabeth II). The 1904 Militia Act granted the Governor General the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian military in the name of the Sovereign.
The office of Governor General has occasionally been a controversial subject in Canada. The group Citizens for a Canadian Republic advocate codifying the office in preparation for what the group sees as the eventual transformation into a presidency similar to the parliamentary republics of Ireland or India, thus completely replacing the Monarchy. On the other hand, organizations such as the Monarchist League of Canada support the retention of the Governor General as the representative of the reigning monarch.
Canadian politicians have shown little appetite for opening discussions on constitutional matters, especially on a polarizing topic such as the Monarchy. There has been little public debate on the abolition of the Monarchy, especially because many Canadians find the conflict over Quebec sovereignty more pressing. Hence, the republican movement in Canada is not as strong as similar movements in some other Commonwealth Realms such as Australia.
1956. Look magazine publishes the confessions of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, two white men from Mississippi who were acquitted in the 1955 kidnapping and murder of Emmett Louis Till, an African-American teenager from Chicago. In the
Look article, titled "The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi," the men detailed how they beat Till with a gun, shot him and threw his body in the Tallahatchie River with a heavy cotton-gin fan attached with barbed wire to his neck to weigh him down. The two killers were paid a reported $4,000 for their participation in the article.
In August 1955, 14-year-old Till, whose nickname was Bobo, traveled to Mississippi to visit relatives and stay at the home of his great-uncle, Moses Wright. On August 24, Till went into Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Mississippi, to buy candy. At some point, he allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who ran the store with her husband Roy, who was away at the time. Till's seemingly harmless actions carried weight in an era when prejudice and discrimination against blacks was persistent throughout the segregated South. In the early hours of August 28, Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, abducted Emmett Till from his great-uncle's home. On August 31, Till's decomposed body was found in the Tallahatchie River.
On September 19, the kidnapping and murder trial of Bryant and Milam began in Sumner, Mississippi. Five days later, on September 23, the all-white, all-male jury acquitted the two men of murder. The acquittal caused international outrage and helped spark the American civil rights movement.
1958. At The Hop by Danny & The Juniors is the number-one selling record in the U.S. There was no unified hit record list in those days but this song led on two of them.
April Love by Pat Boone topped the third list, i.e., most played by disk jockeys.
1960. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain and the Allies through the crisis of World War II, dies in London at the age of 90.
1961. A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. One weapon nearly detonates; its uranium core has never been found.
1966. An Air India Boeing 707 jet crashes on Mont Blanc, on the border between France and Italy, killing 117.
1972. Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been in hiding since 1944, when U.S. forces liberated the island during World War II.
1978. Soviet satellite Cosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor onboard, burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered.
1980. In an action obviously designed as another in a series of very strong reactions to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. officials announce that America is ready to sell military equipment (excluding weapons) to communist China. The surprise statement was part of the U.S. effort to build a closer relationship with the People's Republic of China for use as leverage against possible Soviet aggression.
1980. American model and
Playboy centerfold Nicole Marie Lenz is born. (See pictures.) Nicole was discovered by a local Cleveland modeling agency. After that, she won third place in a contest to become one of
Playboy Magazine's Millennium Search Playmates. Since then she has moved to Los Angeles and received an international modeling contract from Elite Model Management.
1984. The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale.
1986. Voyager 2 passes within 81,500 km (50,680 miles) of Uranus. Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third-largest and fourth-most massive planet in the solar system. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky (Uranus), the father of Kronos (Saturn) and grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter). Uranus was the first planet discovered in modern times.
Like the other giant planets, Uranus has a ring system, a magnetosphere, and numerous moons. The Uranian system has a unique configuration among the planets because its axis of rotation is tilted sideways, nearly into the plane of its revolution about the Sun; its north and south poles lie where most other planets have their equators.
Uranus revolves around the Sun once every 84 Earth years. The rotational period of the interior of Uranus is 17 hours, 14 minutes. However, as on all giant planets, its upper atmosphere experiences very strong winds in the direction of rotation. At some latitudes visible features of the atmosphere move much faster, making a full rotation in as little as 14 hours.
1989. Serial killer Ted Bundy is electrocuted by the state of Florida at 7:06 a.m.. Bundy was a serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women during the 1970s, and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed shortly before his execution to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978; the true total remains unknown, and could be much higher. He once called himself "...the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you'll ever meet." Attorney Polly Nelson, a member of his last defense team, agreed. "Ted," she wrote, "was the very definition of heartless evil."
1993. Turkish journalist and writer Ugur Mumcu is assassinated by a car bomb in Ankara.
1996. Polish Premier Jozef Oleksy resigns amid charges he spied for Moscow.
2003. The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation.
2009. The storm Klaus makes landfall near Bordeaux, France. It subsequently would cause 26 deaths as well as extensive disruptions to public transport and power supplies. The effects of the storm were felt from the Channel Islands south to Barcelona. The most damaging effects of the storm's rain and heavy winds were located in the southwest of France. The storm originated in the Bay of Biscay and tracked southeastward through southern France during the evening of 24 January towards towards northern Italy and the Adriatic, where minimal damage was caused.
2011. South Korean media report that two North Koreans have been executed in front of 500 spectators for handling propaganda leaflets floated across the border from South Korea, apparently as part of a campaign by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to tighten ideological control as he grooms his youngest son as eventual successor.
2012. Fifty-two civilians are killed by Syrian security forces, 39 of whom were killed in the city of Hama alone.
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who indicted the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, is put on trial for supposedly overstepping his powers after he tried to investigate the disappearance of 114,000 people between 1936 and 1975 during the reign of Francisco Franco.
United States President Barack Obama presents his 2012 State of the Union Address to the United States Congress. In his speech, he focused on education reform, repairing America's infrastructure with money not used on the Iraq War, and creating new energy sources in America.
.
