This Day in History

[Gravdigr]

December 29

There are 2 days remaining in 2016.


Events

875 – Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, is crowned as Holy Roman Emperor Charles II.

1170 – Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.

1778 – American Revolutionary War: Three thousand British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia.

1835 – The Treaty of New Echota is signed, ceding all the lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States.

1845 – In accordance with International Boundary delimitation, the United States annexes the Republic of Texas, following the manifest destiny doctrine. The Republic of Texas, which had been independent since the Texas Revolution of 1836, is thereupon admitted as the 28th U.S. state.

1851 – The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.

1876 – The Ashtabula River railroad disaster occurs, leaving 64 injured and 92 dead at Ashtabula, Ohio.

1890 – Wounded Knee Massacre occurs on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 300 Lakota, including 65 women and 24 children, are killed by the United States 7th Cavalry Regiment.

1916 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the first novel by James Joyce, was first published as a book by American publishing house B. W. Huebschis after it had been serialized in The Egoist (1914–15).

1937 – The Irish Free State is replaced by a new state called Ireland with the adoption of a new constitution.

1949 – KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.

1989 – Czech writer, philosopher and dissident Václav Havel is elected the first post-communist President of Czechoslovakia.

1997 – Hong Kong begins to kill all the nation's 1.25 million chickens to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.

1998 – Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed over one million lives.

2003 – The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct.

Births

1766 – Charles Macintosh (inventor of waterproof fabric); 1800 – Charles Goodyear (developed vulcanized rubber); 1808 – Andrew Johnson (17th POTUS); 1876 – Pablo Casals♪ ♫; 1879 – Billy Mitchell; 1881 – Jess Willard; 1911 – Klaus Fuchs; 1915 – Robert Ruark (adventurer and big game hunter); 1915 – Jo Van Fleet (East of Eden, Cool Hand Luke); 1920 – Viveca Lindfors; 1923 – Dina Merrill; 1929 – Matt 'Guitar' Murphy; 1932 – Inga Swenson (Benson); 1934 – Ed Flanders ('Ed', not 'Ned', St. Elsewhere); 1936 – Mary Tyler Moore; 1938 – Jon Voight; 1939 – Ed Bruce♪ ♫(Maverick(1981 tv series, co-wrote Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys); 1941 – Ray Thomas♪ ♫(Moody Blues); 1943 – Bill Aucoin (manager/discovered KISS, manager Billy Idol); 1943 – Rick Danko(The Band); 1946 – Marianne Faithfull♪ ♫; 1947 – Ted Danson; 1947 – Cozy Powell(Jeff Beck Group, Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath, Emerson, Lake & Powell, et al); 1951 – Yvonne Elliman♪ ♫(sang "If I Can't Have You"); 1953 – Stanley Williams (founder of street gang The Crips); 1959 – Patricia Clarkson; 1959 – Paula Poundstone; 1961 – Jim Reid♪ ♫(The Jesus & Mary Chain); 1967 – Ashleigh Banfield; 1967 – Evan Seinfeld(Biohazard); 1972 – Jude Law; 1974 – Mekhi Phifer; 1976 – Danny McBride

Deaths

1170 – Thomas Becket; 1929 – Wilhelm Maybach (of the Mercedes tuning Maybachs); 1980 – Tim Hardin♪ ♫; 2012 – Mike Auldridge(The Seldom Scene)

[Gravdigr]

January 2

Today is Nat'l Cream Puff Day, in the U.S.

Also celebrated in the U.S. today, is Nat'l Science Fiction Day, celebrated on Isaac Asimov's observed birthday.


Events

533 – Mercurius becomes Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a new name upon elevation to the papacy.

1777 – American Revolutionary War: American forces under the command of George Washington repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey. [Assunpink? Ass & pink? Really?]

1860 – The discovery of the planet Vulcan is announced at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris, France.

1920 – The second Palmer Raid takes place with another 6,000 suspected communists and anarchists arrested and held without trial. These raids take place in several U.S. cities.

1941 – World War II: German bombing severely damages the Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.

1942 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) convicts 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history—the Duquesne Spy Ring.

1971 – The second Ibrox disaster kills 66 fans at a Rangers-Celtic association football (soccer) match.

1974 - US country singer, actor and radio presenter Tex Ritter died of a heart attack when he was trying to bail a member of his band out of jail in Nashville.

1974 – United States President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.

1976 – The Gale of January 1976 begins, which results in coastal flooding around the southern North Sea coasts, resulting in at least 82 deaths and US$1.3 billion in damage.

1979 - Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious went on trial in New York accused of murdering his girlfriend Nancy Spungen three months earlier, when he claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their room at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan.

1981 – One of the largest investigations by a British police force ends when serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper", is arrested in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

1997 - Guitarist Randy California from US group Spirit drowned when rescuing his 12-year old son after he was sucked into a riptide off Hawaii.

1999 – A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern United States, causing 14 inches (359 mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 19 inches (487 mm) in Chicago, where temperatures plunge to -13 °F (-25 °C); 68 deaths are reported.

1999 - Chef went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with Chocolate Salty Balls (PS I Love You). Chef appeared in the cult TV series South Park, the voice was that of Isaac Hayes (who had a hit with Shaft in 1971).

2004 – Stardust successfully flies past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples that are returned to Earth.

2006 – An explosion in a coal mine in Sago, West Virginia traps and kills 12 miners, leaving only one survivor.

Births

1647 – Nathaniel Bacon; 1901 – Bob Marshall (Bob Marshall Wilderness Area); 1909 – Barry Goldwater; 1913 – Anna Lee (General Hospital); 1920 – Isaac Asimov; 1930 – Julius La Rosa♪ ♫; 1936 – Roger Miller♪ ♫; 1942 – Dennis Hastert; 1947 – Jack Hanna; 1952 – Wendy Phillips (Touched By An Angel, Promised Land, Falcon Crest); 1964 – Pernell 'Sweet Pea' Whitaker; 1968 – Cuba Gooding, Jr.; 1969 – Robby Gordon; 1969 – Glen Johnson; 1969 – Christy Turlington; 1971 – Taye Diggs; 1975 – Dax Shepard; 1978 – Karina Smirnoff; 1986 – Trombone Shorty♪ ♫

Deaths

1904 – James Longstreet; 1953 – Guccio Gucci (founded Gucci); 1963 – Dick Powell; 1963 – Jack Carson; 1974 – Tex Ritter♪ ♫; 1983 – Dick Emery; 1986 – Una Merkel; 1990 – Alan Hale, Jr. ('Skipper' on Gilligan's Island, The Gunfighter); 2000 – Elmo Zumwalt (namesake of the guided missile destroyer USS Zumwalt, and the Zumwalt-class of destroyers); 2011 – Anne Francis(Honey West, Forbidden Planet); 2011 – Pete Postlethwaite; 2012 – Larry Reinhardt♪ ♫(Iron Butterfly)

[xoxoxoBruce]

No cream puffs, to many leftovers from the weekend.

[Gravdigr]

January 3

Today the U.S. celebrates National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day.


Events

1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.

1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.

1777 – American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.

1823 – Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.

1870 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.

1888 – The James Lick telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest refracting telescope in the world at the time.

1911 – A gun battle in the East End of London left two dead and sparked a political row over the involvement of then-Home Secretary Winston Churchill.

1913 – An Atlantic coast storm sets the lowest confirmed barometric pressure reading (28.21 inHg) for a non-tropical system in the continental United States.

1938 – The March of Dimes is established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1946 – Popular Canadian American jockey George Woolf dies in a freak accident during a race; the annual George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award is created to honor him. [Woolf is famous for having ridden Seabiscuit to victory in a match race over Triple Crown winner War Admiral. When asked what was the best race horse he'd ever ridden, Woolf didn't hesitate when he answered "Seabiscuit."]

1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.

1953 – Frances P. Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.

1956 – A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.

1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch, the Hamilton Electric 500.

1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.

1961 – The SL-1 nuclear reactor is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities.

1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.

1967 - Having received a US army draft notice, The Beach Boys' Carl Wilson refused to be sworn in, saying he was a conscientious objector.

1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated.

1987 - Aretha Franklin became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1990 – Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces.

1999 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched.

2002 – Israeli forces seize the Palestinian freighter Karine A in the Red Sea, finding 50 tons of weapons.

Births

106 BC – Cicero; 1892 – J.R.R. Tolkien; 1894 – ZaSu Pitts; 1907 – Ray Milland; 1909 – Victor Borge; 1911 – John Sturges (director The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral); 1923 – Hank Stram; 1926 – George Martin "The Fifth Beatle"; 1929 – Sergio Leone (invented the 'spaghetti western', director of the Dollars Trilogy); 1929 – Gordon Moore (co-founder of Intel Corporation); 1930 – Robert Loggia ("Get on the wire, tell them how to bring those sons of bitches down."); 1932 – Dabney Coleman; 1937 – Glen A. Larson (created B. J. and the Bear, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I., Knight Rider, Quincy M.E., Alias Smith & Jones, et al); 1939 – Bobby Hull; 1945 – Stephen Stills♪ ♫(Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, Buffalo Springfield); 1946 – John Paul Jones(Led Zeppelin); 1950 – Victoria Principal; 1956 – Mel Gibson; 1969 – Michael Schumacher; 1975 – Danica McKellar; 1981 – Eli Manning; 1988 – J. R. Hildebrand

Deaths

1795 – Josiah Wedgwood (fine china); 1903 – Alois Hitler (if only he'd used a condom); 1945 – Edgar Cayce (<--Interesting read.); 1946 – William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw); 1967 – Jack Ruby (shot Lee Harvey Oswald); 1979 – Conrad Hilton; 1988 – Joie Chitwood(stunt car driver); 2009 – Pat Hingle (the judge in Hang 'Em High); 2014 – Phil Everly♪ ♫(The Everly Bros)

[Gravdigr]

January 4

Today is World Braille Day, celebrating Louis Braille, who developed the 6-dot finger tip reading system known as Braille [by the age of 15].


Events

1490 – Anne of Brittany announces that all those who would ally with the King of France will be considered guilty of the crime of lèse-majesté.

1642 – King Charles I of England sends soldiers to arrest members of Parliament, commencing England's slide into civil war.

1717 – The Netherlands, Great Britain, and France sign the Triple Alliance.

1847 – Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government. ["God created all men. Sam Colt made them equal."]

1853 – After having been kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South, Solomon Northup regains his freedom; his memoir Twelve Years a Slave later becomes a national bestseller.

1865 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters near Wall Street in New York City.

1889 – The Oklahoma Land Run opens two million acres of unused Oklahoma Territory to first-come first-served settlers on April 22.

1896 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.

1903 – Topsy, a performing elephant, is poisoned, strangled, and electrocuted by the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island, . The Edison film company shoots the film Electrocuting an Elephant of Topsy's death.

1912 – The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Empire by royal charter.

1951 – Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul.

1958 – Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from orbit.

1959 – Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.

1972 – Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London, England.

1976 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force shoots dead six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The next day, gunmen shoot dead ten Protestant civilians nearby in retaliation.

1987 – The Maryland train collision: An Amtrak train en route to Boston from Washington, D.C., collides with Conrail engines in Chase, Maryland, killing 16 people.

1989 – Second Gulf of Sidra incident: A pair of Libyan MiG-23 "Floggers" are shot down by a pair of US Navy F-14 Tomcats during an air-to-air confrontation.

1998 – A massive ice storm hits eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, continuing through January 10 and causing widespread destruction.

1999 – Former professional wrestler Jesse 'The Body' Ventura is sworn in as governor of Minnesota.

2004 – Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars.

2007 – The 110th United States Congress convenes, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history.

Births

1785 – Jacob Grimm (Grimm's Fairy Tales); 1809 – Louis Braille; 1838 – General Tom Thumb; 1890 – Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (founder DC Comics); 1895 – Leroy Grumman (co-founded Grumman Aeronautical Engineering Co.); 1900 – Bond, James Bond (no, not that one, this one's an orthin- an onritho- he studies birds); 1905 – Sterling Holloway; 1920 – William Colby; 1927 – Barbara Rush (Peyton Place, All My Children); 1930 – Don Shula [Bum Phillips was asked who was the greatest coach, he said "Don Shula. He can take his'n, and beat yourn, then take yourn, and beat his'n."]; 1935 – Floyd Patterson; 1937 – Dyan Cannon; 1957 – Patty Loveless♪ ♫; 1958 – Matt Frewer; 1958 – Julian Sands; 1959 – Vanity♪ ♫; 1960 – Michael Stipe♪ ♫(R.E.M.); 1962 – Robin Guthrie♪ ♫(Cocteau Twins); 1962 – Peter Steele(Type O Negative); 1963 – Dave Foley; 1963 – Till Lindemann♪ ♫(Rammstein); 1965 – Julia Ormond; 1966 – Deana Carter♪ ♫

Deaths

1821 – Elizabeth Ann Seton; 1877 – Cornelius Vanderbilt; 1960 – Albert Camus; 1961 – Erwin Schrödinger (Schrödinger's cat); 1965 – T. S. Eliot; 1967 – Donald Campbell; 1986 – Phil Lynott(Thin Lizzy); 1997 – Harry Helmsley (Leona's husband); 1999 – Iron Eyes Cody (the crying Native American in the old anti-pollution commercial); 2001 – Les Brown♪ ♫; 2011 – Gerry Rafferty♪ ♫(Stealer's Wheel)

[glatt]

Never heard of Peter Steele, but the "Type O Negative" comment intrigued me, so I looked it up, expecting some bloody story to follow.

Turns out it's a story of intellectual property and trying to come up again and again with a unique band name only to find out somebody beat you to it. For those as ignorant as I am, his band was "Repulsion" first but had to change its name because there was already another "Repulsion." Then it was "Subzero" and he even got a tattoo with a zero containing a minus sign, when he found out there was already another "Subzero." He already was committed to the tattoo and "Type O Negative" also could be used to describe that ink, so he stuck with "Type O Negative." It appears there are no other "Type O Negatives."

[Gravdigr]

January 5

Today is the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Tonight is Twelfth Night.

Today is Sausage Day, at least in Clitheroe, Lancashire in the northwest of England, and this is the only mention of it I could find.

Today is Nat'l Bird Day in the U.S.

The Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival begins today in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.


Events

1066 – Edward the Confessor dies childless, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.

1477 – Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is killed and Burgundy becomes part of France.

1757 – Louis XV of France survives an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, the last person to be executed in France by drawing and quartering, the traditional and gruesome form of capital punishment used for regicides.

1781 – American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia, is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold, causing Governor Thomas Jefferson to flee the city.

1875 – The Palais Garnier, one of the most famous opera houses in the world, is inaugurated in Paris.

1895 – Dreyfus affair: French army officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.

1914 – The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday.

1919 – The German Workers' Party, which would become the Nazi Party, is founded.

1933 – Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.

1949 – United States President Harry S Truman unveils his Fair Deal program.

1957 – In a speech given to the United States Congress, United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces the establishment of what will later be called the Eisenhower Doctrine.

1972 – United States President Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program.

1974 – Warmest reliably measured temperature below the Antarctic Circle of +59 °F (+15 °C) recorded at Vanda Station.

1975 – The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.

1991 – The United States Embassy to Somalia in Mogadishu is evacuated by helicopter airlift days after violence enveloped Mogadishu during the Somali Civil War.

1998 - Sonny Bono died in a skiing accident at a resort near Lake Tahoe, he was 62.

2004 - Kinks singer Ray Davies was shot in the leg while on holiday in New Orleans. The 59-year-old singer-songwriter was shot while running after two men who stole his girlfriend's purse at gunpoint.

2005 – Eris, the most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System, is discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory.

2014 – A launch of the communication satellite GSAT-14 aboard the GSLV MK.II D5 marks the first successful flight of an Indian cryogenic engine.

2016 - Donald Fagen, lead singer and founder of Steely Dan, was arrested by New York police and charged with assaulting his wife at their home. Fagen, was accused of pushing Libby Titus into a marble window frame, knocking her to the floor of their Manhattan apartment.

Deaths

1778 – Zebulon Pike (Pike's Peak); 1779 – Stephen Decatur; 1855 – King Camp Gillette (founded the Gillette Company); 1904 – Jeane Dixon; 1914 – George Reeves (Adventures of Superman); 1917 – Jane Wyman; 1923 – Sam Phillips♪ ♫(Sun Records); 1928 – Walter Mondale (42nd VPOTUS); 1931 – Robert Duvall; 1932 – Umberto Eco; 1932 – Chuck Noll; 1940 – Athol Guy(The Seekers); 1942 – Charlie Rose; 1945 – Roger Spottiswoode (director Tomorrow Never Dies, The 6th Day); 1946 – Diane Keaton; 1948 – Ted Lange ('Isaac' the bartender on The Love Boat); 1950 – Chris Stein(Blondie); 1953 – Pamela Sue Martin (The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Dynasty); 1953 – George Tenet; 1959 – Clancy Brown (head guard 'Hadley' in The Shawshank Redemption); 1962 – Suzy Amis (The Ballad of Little Jo, Titanic); 1964 – Grant Young(Soul Asylum); 1965 – Vinnie Jones; 1966 – Kate Schellenbach(Luscious Jackson, The Beastie Boys); 1968 – Carrie Ann Inaba; 1969 – Marilyn Manson♪ ♫; 1975 – Bradley Cooper; 1978 – January Jones; 1922 – Ernest Shackleton; 1943 – George Washington Carver; 1979 Charles Mingus; 1982 – Hans Conried; 1988 – 'Pistol' Pete Maravich; 1990 – Arthur Kennedy (The Glass Menagerie, They Died with Their Boots On, Fantastic Voyage); 1994 – Tip O'Neill; 1998 – Sonny Bono♪ ♫(Sonny & Cher); 2005 – Danny Sugerman♪ ♫(manager The Doors); 2007 – Momofuku Ando (founded Nissin Foods, makers of Top Ramen); 2014 – Carmen Zapata

[Gravdigr]

January 6

Western Christianity celebrates today as Epiphany, the day the Magi visited Baby Jesus.

In Ireland and Scotland, and other places, today is known as Little Christmas. Also known as Women's Christmas.


Events

1017 – Cnut the Great is crowned King of England.

1066 – Harold Godwinson (or Harold II) is crowned King of England.

1205 – Philip of Swabia becomes King of the Romans.

1322 – Stephen Uroš III is crowned King of Serbia.

1355 – Charles I of Bohemia is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy as King of Italy.

1449 – Constantine XI is crowned Byzantine Emperor.

[Izzit just me, or, is there a pattern here?]

1492 – The Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella enter Granada, completing the Reconquista.

1540 – King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves.

1690 – Joseph, son of Emperor Leopold I, becomes King of the Romans.

1838 – Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).

1839 – The most damaging storm in 300 years sweeps across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.

1853 – President-elect of the United States Franklin Pierce and his family are involved in a train wreck near Andover, Massachusetts. Pierce's 11-year-old son Benjamin is killed in the crash.

1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome, Italy.

1912 – New Mexico is admitted to the Union as the 47th U.S. state.

1929 – Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta, India, to begin her work among India's poorest and sick people.

1930 – The first diesel-engined automobile trip is completed, from Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York, New York.

1931 – Thomas Edison signs his last patent application.

1947 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to offer a round-the-world ticket.

1958 - Gibson Guitars launched it's 'Flying V' electric guitar. Guitarists who played a Flying V include, Albert Collins, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan and Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top.

1967 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and ARVN troops launch "Operation Deckhouse Five" in the Mekong River delta.

1974 – In response to the 1973 oil crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly four months early in the United States.

1994 – Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the knee at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit.

2000 – Celia, the last Pyrenean ibex, was found dead after a tree had fallen on her.

2001 - Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour won the right to his dot com name. Dave took legal action in his battle to reclaim davidgilmourdotcom from Andrew Herman who had registered the URL and was selling Pink Floyd merchandise through the site.

2005 – American Civil Rights Movement: Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect in the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers.

2005 – A train collision in Graniteville, South Carolina, releases about 60 tons of chlorine gas.

Births

1412 – Joan of Arc; 1745 – Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier; 1832 – Gustave Doré; 1878 – Carl Sandburg; 1880 – Tom Mix; 1882 – Sam Rayburn; 1912 – Danny Thomas; 1913 – Loretta Young; 1924 – Earl Scruggs♪ ♫; 1925 – John DeLorean; 1926 – Mickey Hargitay (w/Jayne Mansfield, father of Mariska Hargitay); 1928 – Capucine; 1930 – Vic Tayback (owner of Mel's Diner in Alice); 1931 – E. L. Doctorow; 1937 – Lou Holtz; 1940 – Van McCoy♪ ♫(wrote "The Hustle"); 1944 – Bonnie Franklin (One Day At A Time); 1946 – Syd Barrett♪ ♫(Pink Floyd); 1947 – Sandy Denny♪ ♫(Fairport Convention); 1950 – Louis Freeh; 1951 – Kim Wilson♪ ♫(The Fabulous Thunderbirds); 1953 – Malcolm Young(AC/DC); 1954 – Trudie Styler (wife of Sting); 1955 – Rowan Atkinson; 1959 - Kathy Sledge♪ ♫(Sister Sledge); 1960 - Muzz Skillings(Living Colour); 1960 – Paul Azinger; 1960 – Howie Long; 1962 – Michael Houser(Widespread Panic); 1964 – Mark O'Toole(Frankie Goes To Hollywood); 1968 – John Singleton; 1969 – Norman Reedus ('Daryl Dixon' on The Walking Dead, Boondock Saints I & II); 1970 – Julie Chen; 1970 – Gabrielle Reece; 1982 – Eddie Redmayne; 1984 – Eric Trump (second son of the President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump); 1986 – Alex Turner♪ ♫(Arctic Monkeys)

Deaths

1852 – Louis Braille; 1919 – Theodore Roosevelt (26th POTUS, "a cross between a walrus, and the spirit of war"); 1921 – Devil Anse Hatfield; 1944 – Ida Tarbell; 1949 – Victor Fleming (director Gone With The Wind, The Wizard Of Oz, et al); 1978 – Burt Munro (subject of The World's Fastest Indian); 1993 – Dizzy Gillespie♪ ♫; 1993 – Rudolf Nureyev; 2000 – Don Martin ("Mad's Maddest Artist"); 2006 – Lou Rawls♪ ♫; 2009 – Ron Asheton(The Stooges); 2016 – Pat Harrington, Jr. (building super 'Schneider' on One Day At A Time)

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

1994 – Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the knee at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit.

WHY?! WHY?!

[BigV]

Well played

[Flint]

This Day in History: FREEDOM DIED ON THE CELLAR

[Gravdigr]

Must you spread your shit absolutely everywhere?

Everyone here knows, KNOWS, you are bat shit insane for whatever reason, no need to spread it everywhere.

[Gravdigr]

This message has been deleted by Flint. Reason: FREEDOM!1

[Gravdigr]

January 7

Today the United States of America celebrates (JFC) Nat'l Bobblehead Day. God save us.


Events

1558 – France takes Calais, the last continental possession of England.

1610 – Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able to distinguish the last two until the following day.

1782 – The Bank of North America opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the United States' first de facto central bank.

1785 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, [a distance of ~25 miles] in a gas balloon.

1835 – HMS Beagle drops anchor off the Chonos Archipelago.

1894 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film.

1927 – The first transatlantic telephone service is established from New York, New York to London.

1942 – World War II: The siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.

1945 – World War II: British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference in which he claims credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge.

1948 – Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO. [Capt. Mantell crashed his P-51 Mustang in my hometown, about 3 miles from my house. My house wasn't here then.]

1959 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.

1999 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins.

2006 - Gary Glitter was formally charged with committing obscene acts with two girls aged 11 and 12 in Vietnam, the prosecutor in the southern province of Ba Ria Vung Tau said the charges would carry prison terms of three to seven years. Glitter, (Paul Gadd), had been held since November as he tried to flee the country over child sex allegations.

2006 - Pink married her motocross racer boyfriend Carey Hart on a beach in Costa Rica. More than 100 people attended the singer's big day, including Lisa-Marie Presley. Pink proposed to him during one of his races in Mammoth Lakes, California, by holding up a sign that read "Will you marry me?" Hart pulled out of the race to say yes.

2015 – Two gunmen commit mass murder at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, shooting twelve people execution style, and wounding eleven others.

Births

1800 – Millard Fillmore (13th POTUS); 1873 – Adolph Zukor (co-founded Paramount Pictures); 1895 – Hudson Fysh (co-founded Qantas Airways Limited); 1910 – Orval Faubus; 1911 – Butterfly McQueen (she didn't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies); 1912 – Charles Addams (created The Addams Family); 1920 – Vincent Gardenia; 1929 – Terry Moore; 1930 – Jack Greene♪ ♫; 1938 – Paul Revere(& The Raiders); 1946 – Jann Wenner (co-founded Rolling Stone Magazine); 1948 – Kenny Loggins♪ ♫; 1952 – Sammo Hung (Martial Law); 1956 – David Caruso (YEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!!!); 1957 – Katie Couric; 1959 – Kathy Valentine(The Go-Gos); 1963 – Rand Paul; 1964 – Nicolas Cage; 1970 – Doug E. Doug; 1971 – Jeremy Renner; 1974 – John Rich♪ ♫(Big & Rich); 1980 – Ivan L. Moody♪ ♫(Five Finger Death Punch); 1980 – Merritt Wever ('Nurse Zoey' on Nurse Jackie)

Deaths

1536 – Catherine of Aragon; 1932 – André Maginot (The Maginot Line); 1943 – Nikola Tesla; 1980 – Larry Williams♪ ♫; 1988 – Trevor Howard; 1989 – Hirohito (124th Emperor of Japan); 1990 – Bronko Nagurski; 2001 – James Carr♪ ♫; 2002 – Avery Schreiber; 2007 – Bobby Hamilton; 2013 – Huell Howser; 2016 – Kitty Kallen♪ ♫

[Gravdigr]

January 8

387 – Siyaj K'ak' conquers Waka, Fozzie Bear's homeland.

1297 – François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, leads his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco.

1697 – Thomas Aikenhead, a student at Edinburgh, becomes the last person executed for blasphemy in Britain.

1746 – Second Jacobite rising: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.

1790 – George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in New York City.

1815 – War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.

1835 – The United States national debt is zero for the only time.

1867 – African American men are granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.

1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.

1940 – World War II: Britain introduces food rationing.

1963 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

1972 - The New Seekers were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, (in Perfect Harmony'). The song started as a Coca Cola TV ad. It originally included the line, 'I'd like to buy the world a Coke.'

1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.

1981 – A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".

1989 – Kegworth air disaster: British Midland Flight 92, a Boeing 737-400, crashes into the M1 motorway, killing 47 of the 126 people on board.

1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov leaves for the Mir space station on Soyuz TM-18. He would stay on the station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.

2002 – President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.

2004 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

2005 – The nuclear sub USS San Francisco collides at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man is killed, but the sub surfaces and is repaired.

2011 – The attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in which five people were shot dead.

2016 - David Bowie released his twenty-fifth and final studio album Blackstar, on his 69th birthday and two days before his death. It became his first and only album to reach No.1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in the US.

Births

1821 – James Longstreet; 1862 – Frank Nelson Doubleday (founded the Doubleday Publishing Company); 1904 – Karl Brandt; 1908 – William Hartnell (the 1st Dr. Who); 1911 – Gypsy Rose Lee; 1912 – José Ferrer; 1923 – Larry Storch (F Troop); 1926 – Soupy Sales; 1931 – Bill Graham♪ ♫(concert promoter); 1933 – Charles Osgood (CBS News Sunday Morning); ♪ ♫1935 – Elvis Presley♪ ♫; 1937 – Shirley Bassey♪ ♫; 1938 – Bob Eubanks (The Newlywed Game); 1941 – Graham Chapman ("You vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous pervert!"); 1942 – Stephen Hawking; 1942 – Yvette Mimieux; 1946 – Robby Krieger(The Doors); 1947 – David Bowie♪ ♫; 1947 – Terry Sylvester♪ ♫(The Hollies); 1951 – John McTiernan; 1955 – Mike Reno♪ ♫(Loverboy); 1959 – Kim Duk-koo(died after a match against Ray 'BoomBoom' Mancini); 1959 – Paul Hester(Crowded House); 1966 – Andrew Wood♪ ♫(Mother Love Bone); 1967 – R. Kelly; 1979 – Sarah Polley; 1984 – Kim Jong-un (Dear Leader)

Deaths

1825 – Eli Whitney; 1880 – Emperor Norton; 1896 – Paul Verlaine; 1914 – Simon Bolivar Buckner; 1916 – Ada Rehan; 1979 – Sara Carter♪ ♫(The Carter Family); 1981 – Matthew Beard ('Stymie' on Our Gang); 1990 – Terry-Thomas; 1991 – Steve Clark(Def Leppard, died the rock star's death, alcohol poisoning); 1994 – Pat Buttram ('Mr. Haney' on Green Acres); 1996 – François Mitterrand; 2002 – Dave Thomas (founder Wendy's); 2007 – Yvonne De Carlo('Lily Munster' on The Munsters); 2015 – Andraé Crouch♪ ♫; 2015 – Patsy Garrett (Benji movie series)