Today's Highlight in History:
On Jan. 15, 2009, US Airways Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger ditched his Airbus 320 in the Hudson River after a flock of birds disabled both the plane's engines; all 155 people aboard survived.
In 1559, England's Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
In 1759, the British Museum opened.
In 1777, the people of New Connecticut declared their independence. (The tiny republic later became the state of Vermont.)
In 1844, the University of Notre Dame received its charter from the state of Indiana.
In 1850, pioneering Russian mathematician Sonya Kovalevsky was born in Moscow.
In 1870, the Democratic Party was represented as a donkey in a cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly.
In 1892, the rules of basketball were published for the first time, in Springfield, Mass.
In 1908, nuclear physicist Edward Teller was born in Budapest.
In 1919, 21 people were killed and scores injured when a vat holding 2.3 million gallons of molasses exploded and sent torrents of molasses into the streets of Boston. The event is known as the Boston Molasses Disaster.
In 1922, the Irish Free State was formed.
In 1929, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta.
In 1943, work was completed on the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of War (now Defense).
In 1947, the mutilated remains of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, who came to be known as the "Black Dahlia," were found in a vacant Los Angeles lot; her slaying remains unsolved.
In 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League 35-10 in the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, retroactively known as Super Bowl I.
In 1976, Sara Jane Moore was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Gerald Ford in San Francisco.
In 1978, serial killer Ted Bundy murdered two students in a sorority house at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
In 1989, NATO, the Warsaw Pact and 12 other European countries adopted a human rights and security agreement in Vienna, Austria.
In 1992, the Yugoslav federation effectively collapsed as the European Community recognized the republics of Croatia and Slovenia.
In 1999, House prosecutors prodded senators at President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial to summon Monica Lewinsky and others for testimony and "invite the president" to appear as well.
In 2000, masked gunmen opened fire in a hotel lobby in Belgrade, killing Serbian warlord Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as Arkan, who had been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for alleged atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia.
In 2002, John Walker Lindh, a 20-year-old American seized with the Taliban in Afghanistan in December, was charged with conspiring to kill U.S. citizens and abetting terrorist groups.
In 2004, the NASA Spirit rover rolled onto the surface of Mars for the first time since the vehicle bounced to a landing nearly two weeks earlier. Fourteen-year-old golfer Michelle Wie shot a 2-over 72 in the first round at the PGA Sony Open in Honolulu. "First Wives Club" novelist Olivia Goldsmith died in New York at age 54.
In 2005, Wilbert Rideau, an award-winning black journalist who'd spent nearly 44 years in Louisiana prisons for the 1961 death of a white bank teller, Julia Ferguson, was found guilty of manslaughter in a fourth trial by a racially mixed jury and set free. Mahmoud Abbas was sworn in as Palestinian president. Michelle Kwan won her ninth title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Portland, Ore.; earlier, Johnny Weir won his second straight men's title. A military court at Fort Hood, Texas, sentenced Army Specialist Charles Graner Jr. to 10 years behind bars for physically and sexually mistreating Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison. Opera singer Victoria de los Angeles died in Barcelona, Spain, at 81.
In 2008, Mitt Romney scored his first major primary victory in his native Michigan. During a visit to Saudi Arabia, President George W. Bush warned that surging oil prices threatened the U.S. economy and he urged OPEC nations to boost their output.
In 2009, in a farewell address to the nation, President George W. Bush said while his policies were unpopular, there could be little debate about the results: "America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil." Congress cleared the release of the final $350 billion in bailout funds for the financial industry. After a wave of controversy, Roland Burris was sworn in as a U.S. senator from Illinois. Israeli artillery shells struck the U.N. headquarters in the Gaza Strip, drawing a sharp rebuke from the visiting U.N. chief, Ban Ki-moon.
Today's Birthdays: Actress Margaret O'Brien is 73. Singer Don Van Vliet (aka "Captain Beefheart") is 69. Actress Andrea Martin is 63. Actor-director Mario Van Peebles is 53. Actor James Nesbitt is 45. Singer Lisa Lisa (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam) is 43. Actor Chad Lowe is 42. Alt-country singer Will Oldham (aka "Bonnie Prince Billy") is 40. Actress Regina King is 39. Actor Eddie Cahill is 32. Rapper/reggaeton artist Pitbull is 29.
Those Born On This Date Include: French playwright Moliere (born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) (1622); outlaw Cole Younger (1844); Greek businessman Aristotle Onassis (1906); nuclear physicist Edward Teller (1908); drummer Gene Krupa (1909); actor Lloyd Bridges (1913); Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918); rock musician Ronnie Van Zant (1948).
Today In Entertainment History January 15
In 1954, Marilyn Monroe married Joe DiMaggio in San Francisco. They split after nine months.
In 1964, Johnny Rivers began a year-long stint as the spotlight artist at the Whisky A Go-Go in Los Angeles. He helped turn the club into a hot spot, and about six weeks later his hit album "Johnny Rivers At The Whisky A Go-Go" would be recorded.
In 1967, the Rolling Stones appeared on the "Ed Sullivan Show" to sing "Let's Spend The Night Together." To satisfy censors, Mick Jagger sang "Let's spend some TIME together."
In 1974, the TV sitcom "Happy Days" premiered on ABC. Also in 1974, Brownsville Station got a gold record for their only hit, "Smokin' in the Boys' Room."
In 1982, singer Harry Wayne Casey of KC and the Sunshine Band was seriously injured in a car accident in Miami. He spent most of the year recovering.
In 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a sweeping arms control plan to eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2000 and rid "mankind of the fear of nuclear catastrophe."
In 1987, actor Ray Bolger died. He was 83. He's probably best known for playing the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz."
In 1991, Sean Lennon's remake of his father's "Give Peace A Chance" was released to coincide with the United Nations' midnight deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. The lyrics were updated to reflect concerns of the 1990s.
In 1992, Johnny Cash, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Isley Brothers were among those inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1993, four-time Oscar-winning songwriter Sammy Cahn, who wrote such hits as "Fly Me to the Moon" and "Three Coins in the Fountain," died of heart failure at age 79.
In 1994, singer Harry Nilsson died of heart disease in Agoura Hills, California. He was 52.
In 2005, NBC held an all-star telethon to raise money for victims of a tsunami in south Asia. Performers included Madonna, Elton John, Brian Wilson, Lenny Kravitz, John Mayer, Nelly and Eric Clapton. Actress Ruth Warrick died in New York at 88.
In 2008, actor Brad Renfro, who as a youngster had played the title role in "The Client," was found dead in his Los Angeles home; he was 25.
Thought for Today: "A man can't ride your back unless it's bent." — Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968).
Bonus Thought for Today: "One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means." — Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968).
No comments:
Post a Comment