We all knew that this was coming, right?
Allegations now out in the open that New Jersey's own Governor Chris Christie knew about the lane closures on the GWB while it was happening.
What's the significance of this?
Well, it's the first real signal that this scandal might have been under the direction of Christie himself. He has repeatedly denied knowing anything at the time, which of course comes with it's own list of problems - including incompetency and a decidedly questionable ability to choose truly trustworthy staff around him.
That may be bad, but the alternative is worse, since it would suggest that Christie indeed is a bully, and a petty one at that. Polls had him leading the race for re-election as New Jersey's governor by around 20-24 points over his opponent, Barbara Buono, at the time of the lane closures. It was hardly urgent that one mayor from one town would not endorse Christie, since he pretty much had the thing in the bag.
Yet, the lane closures happened and, up to this point, Christie has made a point of distancing himself from it. And up until today, no one in any significant position has suggested otherwise.
All of that changed, just hours ago as I write this. Take a look at this paragraph from a breaking news article from Reuters:
"David Wildstein, who resigned his post at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey late last year, said he had evidence that proves Christie had knowledge of the jams "during the period when the lanes were closed," according to a letter sent to the authority's lawyer and released to the newspaper."
What's the significance? Take a look at what a Princeton professor say:
"It's the first time a high-level official has contradicted the governor," said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University history professor who specializes in presidential politics.
Now, whether those claims wind up being true or not, time will tell.
Polls have shown that a solid percentage of people indeed suspect that Christie would have had to know about it.
Indeed, it seems hard to believe that this governor, who wants to be in control of everything, would not hve known about it. But, I guess stranger things have happened. It's just interesting, because I remember when this story happened, and it just seemed like one of those weird things that happen from time to time. I never imagined that it would blow up to become such a huge scandal, impacting NJ's governor, and possibly threatening not only his future political ambitions, which seemed destined for a run for the Presidency in 2016. Hell, I already saw some posts on Facebook calling for his impeachment.
Again, time will tell.
Here is the article that I got the information from to use for this blog entry:
"Ex-official says Christie knew about bridge lane closures -report", by Reuters via Yahoo News, January 31, 2014:
http://news.yahoo.com/christie-knew-bridge-lane-closures-ex-official-says-214352437--finance.html
Friday, January 31, 2014
Study in Norway
Boy, I wish I had known about this during my younger years!
There are opportunities to study abroad in Norway, with expenses paid! Imagine living and studying in a Scandinavian country, with high quality, funded education!
Of course, you have to qualify, but still, that sounds like a pretty awesome opportunity to me! I would have loved to have gone there to study, before having my son and other responsibilities that obviously take precedence now.
Still, it seemed like a good idea to share this information, once I found out about it, because you never know. Maybe someone reading this might be interested in finding out more information, for themselves or someone in their lives.
In any case, here is the link:
http://www.studyinnorway.no/Tuition-Scholarships/Tuition-fees
There are opportunities to study abroad in Norway, with expenses paid! Imagine living and studying in a Scandinavian country, with high quality, funded education!
Of course, you have to qualify, but still, that sounds like a pretty awesome opportunity to me! I would have loved to have gone there to study, before having my son and other responsibilities that obviously take precedence now.
Still, it seemed like a good idea to share this information, once I found out about it, because you never know. Maybe someone reading this might be interested in finding out more information, for themselves or someone in their lives.
In any case, here is the link:
http://www.studyinnorway.no/Tuition-Scholarships/Tuition-fees
With the Seahawks Making News With Super Bowl Appearance, Some Other Notables From Seattle Discuss Emerald City
Super Bowl XLVIII
Seattle Seahawks 43,. Denver Broncos 8
East Rutherford, New Jersey
February 2, 2014
When I got the opportunity to go to Seattle in 1997 with my then girlfriend (now ex-wife), I was excited. I had only been to the West Coast once before, in early 1996, for a journalism conference in San Francisco, which itself was amazing and beautiful.
This was in the spring of 1997. Specifically, it was in mid-May, literally the day the semester ended for both of us. We both had done well, and so there was reason to celebrate!
I was excited, because a lot of my favorite musicians were from Seattle. You might remember that, at the time, Seattle had recently been the musical capital of the moment, with the whole "Seattle sound" of "grunge", which spread quickly in the music world. So, I wanted to visit some of the places of local musical lore. Wanted to see where bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Sound Garden, Alice in Chains, and the Screaming Trees, for starters, had gotten their start.
But really, I just didn't know what to expect. I knew almost nothing about the city itself, other than the Space Needle, and the Kingdome, where the Seahawks and Mariners played. Oh, and I also knew that they had a pretty decent basketball team that had made it to the NBA Finals the year before, losing in six to the mighty Chicago Bulls. That was about it.
We landed at SeaTac Airport, and met my girlfriend's bother, who had moved out there earlier in the year. He was the reason that we were there. He drove us to his home, and we got our first glimpse of the city, including the Space Needle, and maybe even the Kingdome. But it was nighttime, and so our view was limited. it looked nice enough, but that was about it. Couldn't tell anything by just driving past it at night.
The next morning, however, was very different. We woke up, young enough to easily shake off the jetlag, and were getting ready to go to the local coffee shop to get some coffee. That's the other thing that I guess I knew about Seattle, was that coffee is absolutely huge there. And I would have plenty of it, as well as this other, mysterious drink that was new to me at the time, and which still reminds me a little bit of Seattle every time that I have it right up to the present day: spicy Chai tea.
In any case, the weather was not at all what I had been led to expect. Of course, Seattle has a reputation for being gray and rainy all of the time, right? But it was sunny and beautiful, in the mid-80's, with a dry warmth, believe it or not. You simply could not ask for more beautiful weather, and to this day, I don't remember ever having experienced more pleasant, agreeable weather like we had that week (that's right, all week). It was simply perfect.
And so was Seattle! I fell in love. You see, I didn't know what to expect, exactly. But given Seattle's reputation, I know that my expectations were of a grim and gritty city.
I could not have been more wrong. And that was understood literally with the first few steps that I took out the door of my girlfriend's house that morning. Again, it was beautiful and sunny, and so clear. Facing north, I looked to my right, and saw the majestic Cascade Mountain range, with snow capped peaks, looming over lush green fields. When I turned and looked left, I saw the Puget Sound, with the rugged Olympic Mountains towering over the sound. All of the mountains were capped with snow. It was stunning!
Later that week, I would see the most beautiful sunset that I have witness in my life! We were eating late (it gets dark in Seattle well after 10pm during that time of the year), and we found a place right by the water of Puget Sound. The Supersonics were on, and normally, I would be quite taken by the game. Especially at the time, being younger and far more into sports. But not on that day. The sun was setting, and it bathed the sky in pastel colors. I looked towards the snow-capped peaks of Mount Olympus, which was bathed in a pink light, and the relatively still waters of Puget Sound mirrored this scene. Breathtakingly beautiful! Man, I wish I had brought a camera with me.
In any case, we did some really cool things in the city that time. We enjoyed some cool seafood dinners, had tons of coffee, went to the San Juan Islands (specifically, Orcas Island) and camped by the waterfront, and visited the sites of the city, as well. That included, of course, the Space Needle, and it was all so very pleasant. What an incredible city!
We were lucky enough to go a few years later, as well. That would have been in the fall of 2001, but the weather was not as accommodating then. It was typically gray and rainy, like it's reputation. Still, we enjoyed ourselves.
I fell in love with Seattle in 197, and was ready to move there. I didn't, but a part of my heart seems to have remained there. Usually, anything that reminds me of the city, including the music, Chai tea, and Seattle sports teams, are enough to get me in a good mood simply thinking of them.
Now, I have never been to Denver, although I definitely want to, and have been tentatively planning to eventually, go to the Rockies. There is so much of the country - particularly the interior - that I have never seen. The pictures that I have seen of Denver are beautiful. And indeed, I will be rooting for the Broncos for this Super Bowl, mostly because I would like to see Peyton Manning get that second ring, particularly after the season that he had.
That said, I would not be unhappy if the Seahawks do manage to win. If they don't, I will hope that they make it back to the big game, and soon, and pull it off then.
As I said earlier, I love Seattle. I remember that her brother kept referring to Seattle as "Ideal America". It is a city that seemed friendly and very open-minded, which was not a small part of the attraction. I never actually did move there, but if I had, I think that I would have been happy there. The more relaxed pace would have suited me.
Now, I encountered this article about Seattle, with prominent figures in Seattle, albeit in different fields, discussing their beloved city.
Here is the link:
"Seattle Sound: Chris Cornell and Mario Batali", published by NFL.com, January 30, 2014:
http://www.nfl.com/videos/seattle-seahawks/0ap2000000320393/Seattle-Sound-Chris-Cornell-and-Mario-Batali
Some Headline Worthy Trash Talking Before the Super Bowl?
Super Bowl XLVIII
Seattle Seahawks 43,. Denver Broncos 8
East Rutherford, New Jersey
February 2, 2014
We all know that the media tends to bate people into saying shocking things that will make all of the headlines. In sports, right around this time of the year, it is the same every time. They try and take what a player, or maybe even a coach, says, and magnify it. Sometimes, of course, they do not need to. Like when Namath guaranteed victory in Super Bowl III. Or, during the lead-up to Super Bowl XXIV, when the Broncos promised that they would win the big game against San Francisco (they lost, 55-10). Or, when the Seattle Seahawks were last in the Super Bowl, and the Steelers Joey Porter and the Seahawks Jerramy Stevens were trying to get in each other's head. Or, for that matter, when the 10-6 New York Giants dressed all in black, as if for a funeral, to mark the end of the undefeated Patriots dynasty back in 2007.
Trash talking certainly happens. Some thrive by making headlines, some thrive in responding when headlines are made about them, some thrive only at making headlines.
Usually, headlines are made, but seem a bit forced. That's because most people do not want to make headlines. in fact, they wish to remain out of the headlines altogether in the lead-up to the big game, in order to help themselves, and their team, stay focused.
Of course, Richard Sherman has been making news ever since the NFC Championship Game, when he got in a scuffle with 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree, then gave the choke sign to San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and then followed all of that up with a fiery, trash-talking interview dissing Crabtree. But, other than a relatively mild comment about Peyton Manning throwing duck balls, while still making sure to compliment the quarterback plenty, Sherman has remained otherwise quiet.
Sometimes, headlines come from another source altogether. And this year, the most brash talk was from a quarterback who will not even be playing in this year's game.
Not true for the man he defeated in the NFC Championship Game, though, and then gave the choke sign to.
Yes, Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, chose to finally speak out and voice his opinion on the Seahawks. or, more specifically, one Seahawk defender in particular. Yes, you guessed it: he talked trash about Richard Sherman.
Here are some of the things that he had to say (taken from Yahoo Shutdown Corner article by Kevin Kaduk - see link below)::
Colin Kaepernick on Sherman: "He's afraid of our receivers, and that's something I'm looking forward to [exploiting] next year."
Colin Kaepernick on the final play of NFCCG: "If I throw that ball one foot farther, it's a TD and now you're the goat, Richard Sherman."
Colin Kaepernick on Sherman's choke sign: "Did that make you feel better about yourself? Then go ahead. Because I’m not worried about you."
Colin Kaepernick on Sherman: "His comments were ridiculous. If you have to tell people how good you are, then how good are you really?"
Wow! For a quarterback who lost in the NFC Championship Game to that same Sherman and his Seahawks that he is directing his trash talking to, Kaepernick sure has a lot to say now, after the fact.
Well, it is a little easier for him to make bold trash talk worthy of headlines right now, since he is not actually participating in the game. I don't remember him being so brash last year, when he and his team were preparing for the big game themselves.
In any case, he is making noise, and apparently he is not the only quarterback that will not be playing in this week's big game that is, nevertheless, willing to talk some trash. None other than Cam Newton made it clear that he will be responding to Kaepernick's own behavior during the recent playoff meeting between the Carolina Panthers and the San Francisco 49ers.
Stay tuned!
Here is the link to the article that I got the information from:
"Colin Kaepernick blasts Richard Sherman, says he's a 'big Broncos fan' this week" by Kevin Kaduk By Kevin Kaduk of Shutdown Corner, January 30, 2014:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/colin-kaepernick-blasts-richard-sherman--says-he-s-a--big-broncos-fan--this-week-173544521.html
On This Day in History - January 31 Death of Guy Fawkes
Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Jan 31, 1606: The death of Guy Fawkes
At Westminster in London, Guy Fawkes, a chief conspirator in the plot to blow up the British Parliament building, jumps to his death moments before his execution for treason.
On the eve of a general parliamentary session scheduled for November 5, 1605, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, found Guy Fawkes lurking in a cellar of the Parliament building. Fawkes was detained and the premises thoroughly searched. Nearly two tons of gunpowder were found hidden within the cellar. In his interrogation, Fawkes revealed that he was a participant in an English Catholic conspiracy organized by Robert Catesby to annihilate England's entire Protestant government, including King James I. The king was to have attended Parliament on November 5.
Over the next few months, English authorities killed or captured all of the conspirators in the "Gunpowder Plot" but also arrested, tortured, or killed dozens of innocent English Catholics. After a brief trial, Guy Fawkes was sentenced, along with the other surviving chief conspirators, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered in London. On January 30, 1606, the gruesome public executions began in London, and on January 31 Fawkes was called to meet his fate. While climbing to the hanging platform, however, he jumped from the ladder and broke his neck, dying instantly.
In remembrance of the Gunpowder Plot, Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated across Great Britain every year on the fifth of November. As dusk falls in the evening, villagers and city dwellers across Britain light bonfires, set off fireworks, and burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes, celebrating his failure to blow up Parliament and James I.
Jan 31, 1950: Truman announces development of H-bomb
U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announces his decision to support the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II.
Five months earlier, the United States had lost its nuclear supremacy when the Soviet Union successfully detonated an atomic bomb at their test site in Kazakhstan. Then, several weeks after that, British and U.S. intelligence came to the staggering conclusion that German-born Klaus Fuchs, a top-ranking scientist in the U.S. nuclear program, was a spy for the Soviet Union. These two events, and the fact that the Soviets now knew everything that the Americans did about how to build a hydrogen bomb, led Truman to approve massive funding for the superpower race to complete the world's first "superbomb," as he described it in his public announcement on January 31.
On November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated "Mike," the world's first hydrogen bomb, on the Elugelab Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands. The 10.4-megaton thermonuclear device, built upon the Teller-Ulam principles of staged radiation implosion, instantly vaporized an entire island and left behind a crater more than a mile wide. The incredible explosive force of Mike was also apparent from the sheer magnitude of its mushroom cloud--within 90 seconds the mushroom cloud climbed to 57,000 feet and entered the stratosphere. One minute later, it reached 108,000 feet, eventually stabilizing at a ceiling of 120,000 feet. Half an hour after the test, the mushroom stretched 60 miles across, with the base of the head joining the stem at 45,000 feet.
Three years later, on November 22, 1955, the Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb on the same principle of radiation implosion. Both superpowers were now in possession of the "hell bomb," as it was known by many Americans, and the world lived under the threat of thermonuclear war for the first time in history.
Jan 31, 1968: Viet Cong attack U.S. Embassy
As part of the Tet Offensive, Viet Cong soldiers attack the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. A 19-man suicide squad seized the U.S. Embassy and held it for six hours until an assault force of U.S. paratroopers landed by helicopter on the building's roof and routed them.
The offensive was launched on January 30, when communist forces attacked Saigon, Hue, five of six autonomous cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and 64 of 245 district capitals. The timing and magnitude of the attacks caught the South Vietnamese and American forces off guard, but eventually the Allied forces turned the tide. Militarily, the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the communists. By the end of March 1968, they had not achieved any of their objectives and had lost 32,000 soldiers and had 5,800 captured. U.S. forces suffered 3,895 dead; South Vietnamese losses were 4,954; non-U.S. allies lost 214. More than 14,300 South Vietnamese civilians died.
While the offensive was a crushing military defeat for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, the early reporting of a smashing communist victory went largely uncorrected in the media and this led to a great psychological victory for the communists. The heavy U.S. casualties incurred during the offensive coupled with the disillusionment over the earlier overly optimistic reports of progress in the war accelerated the growing disenchantment with President Johnson's conduct of the war. Johnson, frustrated with his inability to reach a solution in Vietnam announced on March 31, 1968, that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of his party for re-election.
Jan 31, 1917: Germans unleash U-boats
On this day in 1917, Germany announces the renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic as German torpedo-armed submarines prepare to attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers, said to be sighted in war-zone waters.
When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America's closest trading partners and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter's attempted blockade of the British isles. Several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines and, in February 1915, Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private American merchant vessel that was transporting grain to England when it disappeared. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologized, calling the attack an unfortunate mistake.
The Germans' most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat, a submarine far more sophisticated than those built by other nations at the time. The typical U-boat was 214 feet long, carried 35 men and 12 torpedoes, and could travel underwater for two hours at a time. In the first few years of World War I, the U-boats took a terrible toll on Allied shipping.
In early May 1915, several New York newspapers published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their own risk. The announcement was placed on the same page as an advertisement for the imminent sailing of the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner from New York to Liverpool. On May 7, the Lusitania was torpedoed without warning just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,959 passengers, 1,198 were killed, including 128 Americans.
The German government maintained that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the U.S. demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. In August 1915, Germany pledged to see to the safety of passengers before sinking unarmed vessels, but in November sank an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. Public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany.
At the end of January 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced the resumption of unrestricted warfare. Three days later, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany; just hours after that, the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. None of the 25 Americans on board were killed and they were picked up later by a British steamer.
On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms-appropriations bill intended to ready the United States for war. Two days later, British authorities gave the U.S. ambassador to Britain a copy of what has become known as the "Zimmermann Note," a coded message from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence, Zimmermann stated that, in the event of war with the United States, Mexico should be asked to enter the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany would promise to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. On March 1, the U.S. State Department published the note and America was galvanized against Germany once and for all.
In late March, Germany sank four more U.S. merchant ships and, on April 2, President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, the Senate voted 82 to six to declare war against Germany. Two days later, the House of Representatives endorsed the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50 and America formally entered World War I.
Jan 31, 1865: House passes the 13th Amendment
On this day in 1865, the U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in America. The amendment read, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
When the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln's professed goal was the restoration of the Union. But early in the war, the Union began keeping escaped slaves rather than returning them to their owners, so slavery essentially ended wherever the Union army was victorious. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in areas that were still in rebellion against the Union. This measure opened the issue of what to do about slavery in border states that had not seceded or in areas that had been captured by the Union before the proclamation.
In 1864, an amendment abolishing slavery passed the U.S. Senate but died in the House as Democrats rallied in the name of states' rights. The election of 1864 brought Lincoln back to the White House along with significant Republican majorities in both houses, so it appeared the amendment was headed for passage when the new Congress convened in March 1865. Lincoln preferred that the amendment receive bipartisan support--some Democrats indicated support for the measure, but many still resisted. The amendment passed 119 to 56, seven votes above the necessary two-thirds majority. Several Democrats abstained, but the 13th Amendment was sent to the states for ratification, which came in December 1865. With the passage of the amendment, the institution that had indelibly shaped American history was eradicated.
Jan 31, 1937: American composer Phillip Glass is born
Phillip Glass, a vital force in postmodern music, is born in Baltimore, Maryland, on this day in 1937.
The description most often used to describe the music of American composer Phillip Glass is "minimalist." While the entirety of Glass's body of work does not fit within the category, he is easily the most prominent of the early proponents of minimalist music—an experimental, avant-garde movement closely associated with New York's downtown art scene of the late 1960s. Glass' "serious" compositions within this vein have earned him recognition as one the most important American composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His numerous scores for both studio and art-house American films have exposed tens of millions of moviegoers to his hauntingly beautiful music.
Phillip Glass's musical education began at Julliard in the early 1960s, where he studied composition within a traditional paradigm, writing music in the vein of modern American composers like Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland. He continued his education in Paris, where his creative awakening came not through his formal studies, but through his exposure to French New Wave cinema and his friendship with the Indian composer and sitar player Ravi Shankar. The association with Shankar opened Glass' ears to structural approaches in Indian music that informed his early, experimental work as a minimalist. It also inspired him to travel to India in 1966, where he began his lifelong involvement in Buddhism.
From the late 60s onward, Glass worked primarily from New York City, and primarily with his own Phillip Glass Ensemble. Perhaps the most widely known of Glass's work from this period is his "Music in Twelve Parts," a six-hour piece in the signature style of minimalism, featuring the slow transformation of repetitive motifs and structures. His opera "Einstein on the Beach" layered droning violins, woodwinds and electronic keyboards with spoken words and repetitive singing of numbers to powerful effect. In recent decades, Glass' most prominent work has been in film—the medium that helped involve him in the avant-garde in the first place. The documentary Koyaanisqatsi (1982), built entirely around silent footage and Glass's score, was his most prominent early film work, and in recent years, he has written Oscar-nominated scores for Kundun (1997), The Hours (2002) and Notes on a Scandal (2005) among numerous others.
Jan 31, 1988: Doug Williams leads Redskins to Super Bowl victory
On January 31, 1988, in San Diego, California, Doug Williams of the Washington Redskins becomes the first African-American quarterback to play in a Super Bowl, scoring four of Washington’s five touchdowns in an upset 42-10 victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII.
Denver was favored to win the game, and they started strong, as star quarterback John Elway threw a 56-yard touchdown pass to Ricky Nattiel on the team’s first play from scrimmage. Williams injured his knee shortly thereafter and was replaced for two plays by Jay Schroeder. By the beginning of the second quarter, the Broncos were ahead 10-0. All that changed, however, when Williams and the Redskins began to obliterate the Denver defense, scoring 35 points in the quarter, the most points ever for a single postseason quarter in National Football League (NFL) history.
The scoring onslaught began with Williams’ 80-yard touchdown pass to Ricky Sanders, which tied a record for longest pass in a Super Bowl game. Williams scored three more touchdowns in the period, finding Gary Clark with a 27-yard pass, hitting Sanders again for 50 yards and finishing with an eight-yard toss to Clint Didier. For the fifth score of the period, Williams handed off to the rookie running back Timmy Smith and Smith headed along the right sideline for 58 yards into the end zone. Sanders and Smith set their own Super Bowl records that day: Sanders for receiving (193 yards) and Smith for rushing (204 yards).
Denver never recovered, as the Redskins scored once more in the second half to put the final score at 42-10. Though he downplayed the race issue of his legacy, telling ABC’s Keith Jackson in a post-game interview that he "didn’t come to the Washington Redskins as a black quarterback," Williams made history in more ways than one in Super Bowl XXII. His four touchdowns in the first half tied the Super Bowl then-record for most touchdowns thrown in an entire game. Also in the first half, he passed for 306 yards, just 25 short of the Super Bowl record for an entire game. Williams broke the record--set by Joe Montana in Super Bowl XIX--in the third period.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1606 - Guy Fawkes was executed after being convicted for his role in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and King James I. 1747 - The first clinic specializing in the treatment of venereal diseases was opened at London Dock Hospital. 1858 - The Great Eastern, the five-funnelled steamship designed by Brunel, was launched at Millwall. 1865 - In America, General Robert E. Lee was named general-in-chief of the Confederate armies. 1865 - The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. It was ratified by the necessary number of states on December 6, 1865. The amendment abolished slavery in the United States. 1876 - All Native American Indians were ordered to move into reservations. 1893 - The trademark "Coca-Cola" was first registered in the United States Patent Office. 1917 - Germany announced its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. 1929 - The USSR exiled Leon Trotsky. He found asylum in Mexico. 1930 - U.S. Navy Lt. Ralph S. Barnaby became the first glider pilot to have his craft released from a dirigible, a large blimp, at Lakehurst, NJ. 1934 - Jim Londos defeated Joe Savoldi in a one-fall match in Chicago, IL. The crowd of 20,000 was one of the largest crowds to see a wrestling match. 1936 - The radio show "The Green Hornet" debuted. 1940 - The first Social Security check was issued by the U.S. Government. 1944 - During World War II, U.S. forces invaded Kwajalein Atoll and other areas of the Japanese-held Marshall Islands. 1945 - Private Eddie Slovik became the only U.S. soldier since the U.S. Civil War to be executed for desertion. 1946 - A new constitution in Yugoslavia created six constituent republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia) subordinated to a central authority, on the model of the USSR. 1949 - The first TV daytime soap opera was broadcast from NBC's station in Chicago, IL. It was "These Are My Children." 1950 - U.S. President Truman announced that he had ordered development of the hydrogen bomb. 1958 - Explorer I was put into orbit around the earth. It was the first U.S. earth satellite. 1960 - Julie Andrews, Henry Fonda, Rex Harrison and Jackie Gleason, appeared in a two-hour TV special entitled "The Fabulous ’50s". 1971 - Astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell and Stuart A. Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon. 1971 - Telephone service between East and West Berlin was re-established after 19 years. 1982 - Sandy Duncan gave her final performance as "Peter Pan" in Los Angeles, CA. She completed 956 performances without missing a show. 1983 - The wearing of seat belts in cars became compulsory in Britain. 1983 - JCPenney announced plans to spend in excess of $1 billion over the next five years to modernize stores and to accelerate a repositioning program. 1985 - The final Jeep rolled off the assembly line at the AMC plant in Toledo, OH. 1990 - McDonald's Corp. opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow, Russia. 1995 - U.S. President Clinton invoked presidential emergency authority to provide a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its economy. 1996 - In Columbo, Sri Lanka, a truck was rammed into the gates of the Central Bank. The truck filled with explosives killed at least 86 and injured 1,400. 2000 - John Rocker (Atlanta Braves) was suspended from major league baseball for disparaging foreigners, homosexuals and minorities in an interview published by Sports Illustrated. 2000 - An Alaska Airlines jet crashed into the ocean off Southern California. All 88 people on board were killed. 2001 - A Scottish court in the Netherlands convicted one Libyan and acquitted a second in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that occurred in 1988. 2005 - Keanu Reeves received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1606 Guy Fawkes, a co-conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, was executed. 1865 Robert E. Lee was appointed commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces. 1865 The House of Representatives approved the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery in the United States. 1940 The first social security check was issued to Ida Fuller for $22.54. 1958 The first U.S. earth satellite, Explorer I, was launched. 1990 The first McDonald's opened in Russia.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/jan31.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
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Jan 31, 1606: The death of Guy Fawkes
At Westminster in London, Guy Fawkes, a chief conspirator in the plot to blow up the British Parliament building, jumps to his death moments before his execution for treason.
On the eve of a general parliamentary session scheduled for November 5, 1605, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, found Guy Fawkes lurking in a cellar of the Parliament building. Fawkes was detained and the premises thoroughly searched. Nearly two tons of gunpowder were found hidden within the cellar. In his interrogation, Fawkes revealed that he was a participant in an English Catholic conspiracy organized by Robert Catesby to annihilate England's entire Protestant government, including King James I. The king was to have attended Parliament on November 5.
Over the next few months, English authorities killed or captured all of the conspirators in the "Gunpowder Plot" but also arrested, tortured, or killed dozens of innocent English Catholics. After a brief trial, Guy Fawkes was sentenced, along with the other surviving chief conspirators, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered in London. On January 30, 1606, the gruesome public executions began in London, and on January 31 Fawkes was called to meet his fate. While climbing to the hanging platform, however, he jumped from the ladder and broke his neck, dying instantly.
In remembrance of the Gunpowder Plot, Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated across Great Britain every year on the fifth of November. As dusk falls in the evening, villagers and city dwellers across Britain light bonfires, set off fireworks, and burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes, celebrating his failure to blow up Parliament and James I.
Jan 31, 1950: Truman announces development of H-bomb
U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announces his decision to support the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II.
Five months earlier, the United States had lost its nuclear supremacy when the Soviet Union successfully detonated an atomic bomb at their test site in Kazakhstan. Then, several weeks after that, British and U.S. intelligence came to the staggering conclusion that German-born Klaus Fuchs, a top-ranking scientist in the U.S. nuclear program, was a spy for the Soviet Union. These two events, and the fact that the Soviets now knew everything that the Americans did about how to build a hydrogen bomb, led Truman to approve massive funding for the superpower race to complete the world's first "superbomb," as he described it in his public announcement on January 31.
On November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated "Mike," the world's first hydrogen bomb, on the Elugelab Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands. The 10.4-megaton thermonuclear device, built upon the Teller-Ulam principles of staged radiation implosion, instantly vaporized an entire island and left behind a crater more than a mile wide. The incredible explosive force of Mike was also apparent from the sheer magnitude of its mushroom cloud--within 90 seconds the mushroom cloud climbed to 57,000 feet and entered the stratosphere. One minute later, it reached 108,000 feet, eventually stabilizing at a ceiling of 120,000 feet. Half an hour after the test, the mushroom stretched 60 miles across, with the base of the head joining the stem at 45,000 feet.
Three years later, on November 22, 1955, the Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb on the same principle of radiation implosion. Both superpowers were now in possession of the "hell bomb," as it was known by many Americans, and the world lived under the threat of thermonuclear war for the first time in history.
Jan 31, 1968: Viet Cong attack U.S. Embassy
As part of the Tet Offensive, Viet Cong soldiers attack the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. A 19-man suicide squad seized the U.S. Embassy and held it for six hours until an assault force of U.S. paratroopers landed by helicopter on the building's roof and routed them.
The offensive was launched on January 30, when communist forces attacked Saigon, Hue, five of six autonomous cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and 64 of 245 district capitals. The timing and magnitude of the attacks caught the South Vietnamese and American forces off guard, but eventually the Allied forces turned the tide. Militarily, the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the communists. By the end of March 1968, they had not achieved any of their objectives and had lost 32,000 soldiers and had 5,800 captured. U.S. forces suffered 3,895 dead; South Vietnamese losses were 4,954; non-U.S. allies lost 214. More than 14,300 South Vietnamese civilians died.
While the offensive was a crushing military defeat for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, the early reporting of a smashing communist victory went largely uncorrected in the media and this led to a great psychological victory for the communists. The heavy U.S. casualties incurred during the offensive coupled with the disillusionment over the earlier overly optimistic reports of progress in the war accelerated the growing disenchantment with President Johnson's conduct of the war. Johnson, frustrated with his inability to reach a solution in Vietnam announced on March 31, 1968, that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of his party for re-election.
Jan 31, 1917: Germans unleash U-boats
On this day in 1917, Germany announces the renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic as German torpedo-armed submarines prepare to attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers, said to be sighted in war-zone waters.
When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America's closest trading partners and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter's attempted blockade of the British isles. Several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines and, in February 1915, Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private American merchant vessel that was transporting grain to England when it disappeared. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologized, calling the attack an unfortunate mistake.
The Germans' most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat, a submarine far more sophisticated than those built by other nations at the time. The typical U-boat was 214 feet long, carried 35 men and 12 torpedoes, and could travel underwater for two hours at a time. In the first few years of World War I, the U-boats took a terrible toll on Allied shipping.
In early May 1915, several New York newspapers published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their own risk. The announcement was placed on the same page as an advertisement for the imminent sailing of the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner from New York to Liverpool. On May 7, the Lusitania was torpedoed without warning just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,959 passengers, 1,198 were killed, including 128 Americans.
The German government maintained that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the U.S. demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. In August 1915, Germany pledged to see to the safety of passengers before sinking unarmed vessels, but in November sank an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. Public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany.
At the end of January 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced the resumption of unrestricted warfare. Three days later, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany; just hours after that, the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. None of the 25 Americans on board were killed and they were picked up later by a British steamer.
On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms-appropriations bill intended to ready the United States for war. Two days later, British authorities gave the U.S. ambassador to Britain a copy of what has become known as the "Zimmermann Note," a coded message from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence, Zimmermann stated that, in the event of war with the United States, Mexico should be asked to enter the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany would promise to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. On March 1, the U.S. State Department published the note and America was galvanized against Germany once and for all.
In late March, Germany sank four more U.S. merchant ships and, on April 2, President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, the Senate voted 82 to six to declare war against Germany. Two days later, the House of Representatives endorsed the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50 and America formally entered World War I.
Jan 31, 1865: House passes the 13th Amendment
On this day in 1865, the U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in America. The amendment read, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
When the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln's professed goal was the restoration of the Union. But early in the war, the Union began keeping escaped slaves rather than returning them to their owners, so slavery essentially ended wherever the Union army was victorious. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in areas that were still in rebellion against the Union. This measure opened the issue of what to do about slavery in border states that had not seceded or in areas that had been captured by the Union before the proclamation.
In 1864, an amendment abolishing slavery passed the U.S. Senate but died in the House as Democrats rallied in the name of states' rights. The election of 1864 brought Lincoln back to the White House along with significant Republican majorities in both houses, so it appeared the amendment was headed for passage when the new Congress convened in March 1865. Lincoln preferred that the amendment receive bipartisan support--some Democrats indicated support for the measure, but many still resisted. The amendment passed 119 to 56, seven votes above the necessary two-thirds majority. Several Democrats abstained, but the 13th Amendment was sent to the states for ratification, which came in December 1865. With the passage of the amendment, the institution that had indelibly shaped American history was eradicated.
Jan 31, 1937: American composer Phillip Glass is born
Phillip Glass, a vital force in postmodern music, is born in Baltimore, Maryland, on this day in 1937.
The description most often used to describe the music of American composer Phillip Glass is "minimalist." While the entirety of Glass's body of work does not fit within the category, he is easily the most prominent of the early proponents of minimalist music—an experimental, avant-garde movement closely associated with New York's downtown art scene of the late 1960s. Glass' "serious" compositions within this vein have earned him recognition as one the most important American composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His numerous scores for both studio and art-house American films have exposed tens of millions of moviegoers to his hauntingly beautiful music.
Phillip Glass's musical education began at Julliard in the early 1960s, where he studied composition within a traditional paradigm, writing music in the vein of modern American composers like Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland. He continued his education in Paris, where his creative awakening came not through his formal studies, but through his exposure to French New Wave cinema and his friendship with the Indian composer and sitar player Ravi Shankar. The association with Shankar opened Glass' ears to structural approaches in Indian music that informed his early, experimental work as a minimalist. It also inspired him to travel to India in 1966, where he began his lifelong involvement in Buddhism.
From the late 60s onward, Glass worked primarily from New York City, and primarily with his own Phillip Glass Ensemble. Perhaps the most widely known of Glass's work from this period is his "Music in Twelve Parts," a six-hour piece in the signature style of minimalism, featuring the slow transformation of repetitive motifs and structures. His opera "Einstein on the Beach" layered droning violins, woodwinds and electronic keyboards with spoken words and repetitive singing of numbers to powerful effect. In recent decades, Glass' most prominent work has been in film—the medium that helped involve him in the avant-garde in the first place. The documentary Koyaanisqatsi (1982), built entirely around silent footage and Glass's score, was his most prominent early film work, and in recent years, he has written Oscar-nominated scores for Kundun (1997), The Hours (2002) and Notes on a Scandal (2005) among numerous others.
Jan 31, 1988: Doug Williams leads Redskins to Super Bowl victory
On January 31, 1988, in San Diego, California, Doug Williams of the Washington Redskins becomes the first African-American quarterback to play in a Super Bowl, scoring four of Washington’s five touchdowns in an upset 42-10 victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII.
Denver was favored to win the game, and they started strong, as star quarterback John Elway threw a 56-yard touchdown pass to Ricky Nattiel on the team’s first play from scrimmage. Williams injured his knee shortly thereafter and was replaced for two plays by Jay Schroeder. By the beginning of the second quarter, the Broncos were ahead 10-0. All that changed, however, when Williams and the Redskins began to obliterate the Denver defense, scoring 35 points in the quarter, the most points ever for a single postseason quarter in National Football League (NFL) history.
The scoring onslaught began with Williams’ 80-yard touchdown pass to Ricky Sanders, which tied a record for longest pass in a Super Bowl game. Williams scored three more touchdowns in the period, finding Gary Clark with a 27-yard pass, hitting Sanders again for 50 yards and finishing with an eight-yard toss to Clint Didier. For the fifth score of the period, Williams handed off to the rookie running back Timmy Smith and Smith headed along the right sideline for 58 yards into the end zone. Sanders and Smith set their own Super Bowl records that day: Sanders for receiving (193 yards) and Smith for rushing (204 yards).
Denver never recovered, as the Redskins scored once more in the second half to put the final score at 42-10. Though he downplayed the race issue of his legacy, telling ABC’s Keith Jackson in a post-game interview that he "didn’t come to the Washington Redskins as a black quarterback," Williams made history in more ways than one in Super Bowl XXII. His four touchdowns in the first half tied the Super Bowl then-record for most touchdowns thrown in an entire game. Also in the first half, he passed for 306 yards, just 25 short of the Super Bowl record for an entire game. Williams broke the record--set by Joe Montana in Super Bowl XIX--in the third period.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
314 - St Silvester I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
876 - Charles becomes king of Italy
1504 - By treaty of Lyons, French cede Naples to Ferdinand
of Aragon
1531 - Kings Ferdinand of Austria/Janos Zapolyai of Hungary
accept each other
1578 - Battle of Gembloers
1596 - Catholic League disjoins
1609 - Wisselbank of Amsterdam established
1627 - Spanish government goes bankrupt
1675 - Cornelia/Dina Olfaarts found not guilty of witchcraft
1679 - Jean-Baptiste Lully's opera "Bellerophon,"
premieres in Paris
1696 - Revolt of undertakers after funeral reforms
(Amsterdam)
1747 - The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London
Lock Hospital.
1779 - Charles Messier adds M57 (Ring Nebula in Lyra) to his
catalog
1804 - British vice-admiral William Blighs fleet reaches
Curacao
1814 - Gervasio Antonio de Posadas becomes Supreme Director
of Argentina.
1817 - Franz Grillparzer's "Die Ahnfrau,"
premieres in Vienna
1846 - After the Milwaukee Bridge War, Juneautown and
Kilbourntown unified as the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1849 - Corn Laws abolished in Britain
1851 - Gail Borden announces invention of evaporated milk
1851 - SF Orphan's Asylum, 1st in California, founded
1854 - Dutch KNMI established (Royal Meteorological
Institute)
1855 - Western railroads blocked by snow
1861 - Friedrich Hebbel's "Siegfrieds Tod,"
premieres in Weimar
1861 - State of Louisiana takes over US Mint at New Orleans
1862 - Telescope maker Alvin Clark discovers dwarf companion
of Sirius
1863 - 1st black Civil War regiment, SC Volunteers, mustered
into US army
1865 - Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in
America (121-24)
Confederate General Robert E. LeeConfederate General Robert
E. Lee 1865 - Gen Robert E. Lee named Commander-in-Chief of Confederate Armies
1867 - Maronite nationalist leader Youssef Karam leaves
Lebanon on board of a French ship for Algeria
1871 - Millions of birds fly over western SF, darkens sky
1874 - Jesse James gang robs train at Gads Hill, Missouri
1876 - The United States orders all Native Americans to move
into reservations.
1891 - The first attempt of a Portuguese republican revolution
breakes out in the northern city of Porto.
1893 - "Westminster Gazette" begins publishing
1895 - Jose Martí & others leave NYC for invasion of
Spanish Cuba
1901 - Boer general John Smuts & De la Rey conqueror Mud
river Transvaal
1901 - Chekhov's "Three Sisters" opens at Moscow
Art Theater
1901 - Winnipeg Victorias sweep Montreal Shamrocks in 2 for
Stanley Cup
1904 - Bela Bartok's symphony "Kossuth," premieres
1905 - 1st auto to exceed 100 mph (161 kph), A G MacDonald,
Daytona Beach
1905 - Carroll Wright appointed 1st US Commissioner of Labor
1906 - Strongest instrumentally recorded earthquake,
Colombia, 8.6 Richter
Outlaw Jesse JamesOutlaw Jesse James 1911 - Congress names
SF as Panama Canal opening celebration site
1915 - 1st (German) poison gas attack, against Russians
1916 - Dutch Girl Guides form
1917 - Germany notifies US that U-boats will attack neutral
merchant ship
1918 - A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish
night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives,
and damage to another five British warships.
1919 - The Battle of George Square takes place in Glasgow,
Scotland.
1920 - 1st Ukrainian daily newspaper in US (NYC) begins
publication
1920 - Joe Malone, Quebec Bulldogs, sets NHL record with 7
goals in a game
1920 - Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, at Howard University,
incorporates
1925 - Premier Ahmed Zogu becomes president of Angola
1927 - Intl allies military command in Germany disbands
1927 - NL Pres John Heydler rules Rogers Hornsby can't hold
stock in the Cardinals & play for the Giants
1928 - Scotch tape 1st marketed by 3-M Company
1929 - Erich Maria Remarque publishes "Im Westen nichts
Neues" in Berlin
1929 - Leon Trotsky expelled from Russia to Turkey
Russian Revolutionary Leon TrotskyRussian Revolutionary Leon
Trotsky 1930 - 1st US glider flight from a dirigible, Lakehurst, NJ
1931 - NHL's Quebec Bulldogs' Joseph Malone scores a record
7 goals
1931 - Philip Barry's "Tomorrow & Tomorrow,"
premieres in NYC
1932 - US railway unions accept 10% wage reduction
1933 - French government of Daladier takes power
1933 - Hitler promises parliamentary democracy
1934 - FDR devalus dollar in relation to gold at $35 per
ounce
1936 - "Green Hornet" radio show is 1st heard on
WXYZ Radio in Detroit
1940 - 40 U boats sunk this month (111,000 ton)
1940 - C Turney & J Horwin's "My Dear
Children," premieres in NYC
1941 - 21 U boats sunk this month (127,000 ton)
1941 - Anti-German demonstration in Haarlem Netherlands
1941 - Joe Louis KOs Red Burman in 5 for heavyweight boxing
title
1941 - Layforce set sail.
1942 - 62 U boats sunk this month (327,000 ton)
32nd US President Franklin D. Roosevelt32nd US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1943 - 39 U boats sunk this month (203,100 ton)
1943 - Chile breaks contact with Germany & Japan
1943 - Gen Friedrich von Paul surrenders to Russian troops
at Stalingrad
1944 - Operation-Overlord (D-Day) postponed until June
1944 - U-592 sunk off Ireland
1944 - US forces invade Kwajalein Atoll
1945 - US 4th Infantry division occupies Elcherrath
1946 - Yugoslavia adopts new constitution, becomes a federal
republic
1948 - J D Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Banana
Fish" appears in NY
1948 - Magnetic tape recorder developed by Wireway
1949 - 1st daytime soap on TV "These Are My
Children" (NBC in Chicago)
1950 - President Harry Truman publicly announces development
of H-bomb
1950 - Pres Harry Truman OKs building of hydrogen bomb
1952 - Dutch Lutheran Church reunites after 1½ centuries
1952 - Harry Heilmann & Paul Waner elected to Baseball
Hall of Fame
33rd US President Harry Truman33rd US President Harry Truman
1953 - "Princess Victoria" capsized off Stanraer Scotland; 133 die
1953 - Hurricane-like winds flood Netherlands drowning 1,835
1953 - NY, Cleveland, & Boston retaliate at Bill Veeck,
forcing the Browns to play afternoon games to avoid sharing TV revenues
1955 - RCA demonstrates 1st music synthesizer
1956 - French government of Mollet forms
1956 - Juscelino Kubitschek becomes president of Brazil
1956 - Guy Mollet becomes Prime Minister of France.
1957 - Liz Taylor's 2nd divorce (Michael Wilding)
1957 - Trans-Iranian oil pipe line finished
1957 - Eight people on the ground in Pacoima, California are
killed following the mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a
Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet.
1958 - "Jackpot Bowling" premieres on NBC with Leo
Durocher as host
1958 - James van Allen discovers radiation belt
1958 - US launches their 1st artificial satellite, Explorer 1
1959 - Joe Cronin signs 7 year pact to become head of AL
1961 - David Ben-Gurion resigns as Prime Minister of Israel
First Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-GurionFirst Israeli
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion 1961 - Ham is 1st primate in space (158 miles)
aboard Mercury/Redstone 2
1961 - Houston voters approve bond to finance luxury domed
stadium
1961 - Kanhai completes twin tons (117 & 115) v Aust at
Adelaide
1961 - NATO secretary-general Paul-Henri Spaak says he'll
resign
1961 - USAF launches Samos spy satellite to replace U-2
flights
1962 - Gen Charles P Cabell, USAF, ends term as deputy
director of CIA
1962 - Samuel Gravely assumes command of destroyer escort
"USS Falgout"
1963 - Tony Sheridan & Beat Brothers record "What'd
I Say" & "Ruby Baby"
1964 - US report "Smoking & Health" connects
smoking to lung cancer
1965 - Pud Galvin elected to baseball Hall of Fame
1966 - Belgian state police kills 2 striking mine workers
1966 - USSR launches Luna 9 towards Moon
1968 - Bobby Simpson takes 5-59 v India in his last Test for
ten years
1968 - Nauru (formerly Pleasant Island) declares
independence from Australia
1968 - Record high barometric pressure (1083.8 mb,
32"), at Agata, USSR
Singer-songwriter Tony SheridanSinger-songwriter Tony
Sheridan 1968 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1968 - Viet Cong's Tet offensive begins
1969 - Beatles perform last live gig (42-min concert on roof
of Apple HQs)
1969 - Vice Admiral Rufus L Taylor, USN, ends term as deputy
director of CIA
1970 - Grateful Dead members busted on LSD charges
1971 - "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison hit #1
on UK pop chart
1971 - Apollo 14 launched, 1st landing in lunar highlands
1971 - Jake Beckley, Joe Kelley, Harry Hooper, Rube
Marquard, Chick Hafey
1971 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Janet
Lynn
1971 - US male Figure Skating championship won by John Misha
Petkevich
1971 - & Dave Bancroft & George Weiss elected to
baseball Hall of Fame
1972 - Aretha Franklin sings at Mahalia Jackson's funeral
1972 - Birenda, becomes leader of Nepal
1972 - Military coup ousts civilian government of Ghana
1972 - US launches HEOS A-2 for interplanetary observations
(396/244,998)
MacDonalds Entreprenuer Ray KrocMacDonalds Entreprenuer Ray
Kroc 1974 - McDonald's founder Ray Kroc buys San Diego Padres
1975 - Barry Manilow's "Mandy" goes gold
1975 - John Lennon releases "#9 Dream"
1975 - UCLA wins NCAA basketball championship
1976 - "Love Rollercoaster" by Ohio Players hits
#1
1976 - Lance Gibbs becomes highest Test wicket-taker at 308
1976 - 3rd American Music Award: Olivia Newton-John &
John Denver win
1977 - Frenchman Francois Claustre freed, after 33 months as
hostage in Chad
1977 - Joe Sewell, Amos Rusie, & Al Lopez elected to
baseball Hall of Fame
1977 - 4th American Music Award: Olivia Newton-John &
Elton John win
1978 - "Elvis: The Legend Lives!" opens at Palace
Theater NYC for 101 perfs
1978 - Israel turns 3 milt outposts in West Bank into
civilian settlements
1980 - Police storm occupied Spanish embassy in Guatemala
City, killing 41
1981 - "The Tide Is High" by Blondie hits #1
1981 - 38th Golden Globes: Ordinary People, Coal Miner's
Daughter
Musician and Beatle John LennonMusician and Beatle John
Lennon 1981 - Gaetan Boucher skates world record 1000m (1:13.39)
1982 - 10 Arabian oryx (extinct except in zoos) released in
Oman
1982 - 12th AFC-NFC pro bowl, AFC wins 16-13
1982 - 32nd NBA All-Star Game: East beats West 120-118 at
New Jersey
1982 - Gustafson skates world record 10 km (14:26.59)
1982 - Hollis Stacy wins LPGA Whirlpool Golf Championship of
Deer Creek
1982 - NFL Pro Bowl: AFC beats NFC 16-13
1982 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Scott
Hamilton
1984 - 36th NHL All-Star Game: Wales beat Campbell 7-6 at NJ
1984 - Edwin Newman retires from NBC News after 35 years
with the network
1984 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1985 - "Harrigan 'n Hart" opens at Longacre
Theater NYC for 5 performances
1985 - South African president PW Botha offers to free
Mandela if he denounces violence
1986 - Mary Lund of Minn, is 1st female recipient of an
artificial heart
1987 - 44th Golden Globes: Platoon, Marlee Matlin win
Deaf Actress Marlee MatlinDeaf Actress Marlee Matlin 1987 -
United Steel workers union ratified a concessionary with USX Corp
1988 - Barge sinks near Anacortes, WA, spills 70,000 gallons
of oil
1988 - Super Bowl XXII: Wash Redskins beat Denver Broncos,
42-10 in San Diego Super Bowl MVP: Doug Williams, Washington, QB
1990 - 1st McDonalds in Russia opens in Moscow, world's
biggest McDonalds
1990 - 1st ever all-sports daily "National" begins
publishing
1990 - Jushin "Thunder" Liger beats Naoki Sano to
become New Japan IWGP champ
1990 - The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opens in
Moscow, USSR.
1991 - Nugget's Michael Adams becomes shortest NBAer to get
a triple-double
1991 - Robert Gibson flies record 27,040 feet altitude
1992 - MTA raised tolls on most NYC bridges from $2.50 to
$3.00
1993 - "St Joan" opens at Lyceum Theater NYC for
49 performances
1993 - 81st Australian Mens Tennis: Jim Courier beats S
Edberg (62 61 26 75)
1993 - Super Bowl XXVII: Dallas Cowboys beat Buffalo Bills,
52-17 in Pasadena Super Bowl MVP: Troy Aikman, Dallas, QB
1994 - Barcelona opera theater "Gran Teatro del
Liceo" burns down
1994 - Dow Jones hits a record 3,978.36
42nd US President Bill Clinton42nd US President Bill Clinton
1995 - President Bill Clinton authorizes a $20 billion loan to Mexico to
stabilize its economy.
1998 - 72nd Australian Womens Tennis: Martina Hingis beats C
Martinez (63 63)
1998 - STS 89 (Endeavour 12) lands
2000 - Alaska Airlines flight 261 MD-83, experiencing
horizontal stabilizer problems, crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of
Point Mugu, California, killing all 88 persons aboard.
2001 - In the Netherlands a Scottish court convicts a Libyan
and acquits another for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which
crashed into Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.
2003 - The Waterfall rail accident occurs near Waterfall,
New South Wales, Australia.
2007 - Suspects are arrested in Birmingham in the UK,
accused of plotting the kidnap, holding and eventual beheading of a serving
Muslim British soldier in Iraq.
2009 - In Kenya, at least 113 people are killed and over 200
injured following an oil spillage ignition in Molo, days after a massive fire
at a Nakumatt supermarket in Nairobi killed at least 25 people.
2010 - 52nd Grammy Awards: Use Somebody, Zac Brown Band wins
2010 - NFL Pro Bowl: AFC beats NFC 41-34
2013 - 300 people are injured in a train collision in
Pretoria, South Africa
2013 - 36 people are killed and 126 are injured in an
explosion at Torre Ejecutiva Pemex, Mexico
1606 - Guy Fawkes was executed after being convicted for his role in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and King James I. 1747 - The first clinic specializing in the treatment of venereal diseases was opened at London Dock Hospital. 1858 - The Great Eastern, the five-funnelled steamship designed by Brunel, was launched at Millwall. 1865 - In America, General Robert E. Lee was named general-in-chief of the Confederate armies. 1865 - The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. It was ratified by the necessary number of states on December 6, 1865. The amendment abolished slavery in the United States. 1876 - All Native American Indians were ordered to move into reservations. 1893 - The trademark "Coca-Cola" was first registered in the United States Patent Office. 1917 - Germany announced its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. 1929 - The USSR exiled Leon Trotsky. He found asylum in Mexico. 1930 - U.S. Navy Lt. Ralph S. Barnaby became the first glider pilot to have his craft released from a dirigible, a large blimp, at Lakehurst, NJ. 1934 - Jim Londos defeated Joe Savoldi in a one-fall match in Chicago, IL. The crowd of 20,000 was one of the largest crowds to see a wrestling match. 1936 - The radio show "The Green Hornet" debuted. 1940 - The first Social Security check was issued by the U.S. Government. 1944 - During World War II, U.S. forces invaded Kwajalein Atoll and other areas of the Japanese-held Marshall Islands. 1945 - Private Eddie Slovik became the only U.S. soldier since the U.S. Civil War to be executed for desertion. 1946 - A new constitution in Yugoslavia created six constituent republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia) subordinated to a central authority, on the model of the USSR. 1949 - The first TV daytime soap opera was broadcast from NBC's station in Chicago, IL. It was "These Are My Children." 1950 - U.S. President Truman announced that he had ordered development of the hydrogen bomb. 1958 - Explorer I was put into orbit around the earth. It was the first U.S. earth satellite. 1960 - Julie Andrews, Henry Fonda, Rex Harrison and Jackie Gleason, appeared in a two-hour TV special entitled "The Fabulous ’50s". 1971 - Astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell and Stuart A. Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon. 1971 - Telephone service between East and West Berlin was re-established after 19 years. 1982 - Sandy Duncan gave her final performance as "Peter Pan" in Los Angeles, CA. She completed 956 performances without missing a show. 1983 - The wearing of seat belts in cars became compulsory in Britain. 1983 - JCPenney announced plans to spend in excess of $1 billion over the next five years to modernize stores and to accelerate a repositioning program. 1985 - The final Jeep rolled off the assembly line at the AMC plant in Toledo, OH. 1990 - McDonald's Corp. opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow, Russia. 1995 - U.S. President Clinton invoked presidential emergency authority to provide a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its economy. 1996 - In Columbo, Sri Lanka, a truck was rammed into the gates of the Central Bank. The truck filled with explosives killed at least 86 and injured 1,400. 2000 - John Rocker (Atlanta Braves) was suspended from major league baseball for disparaging foreigners, homosexuals and minorities in an interview published by Sports Illustrated. 2000 - An Alaska Airlines jet crashed into the ocean off Southern California. All 88 people on board were killed. 2001 - A Scottish court in the Netherlands convicted one Libyan and acquitted a second in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that occurred in 1988. 2005 - Keanu Reeves received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1606 Guy Fawkes, a co-conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, was executed. 1865 Robert E. Lee was appointed commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces. 1865 The House of Representatives approved the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery in the United States. 1940 The first social security check was issued to Ida Fuller for $22.54. 1958 The first U.S. earth satellite, Explorer I, was launched. 1990 The first McDonald's opened in Russia.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/jan31.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
Thursday, January 30, 2014
What Ever Happened to the "Shining" Twins?
It was one of the most iconic - and haunting - scenes in movie history.
The twins from the Shining, suddenly showing up in a hallway that should be empty, and urging Danny to play with them...forever, and ever...and ever!
Sometimes, when I walk the halls of the buildings that I work at on my weekend job, when the facility is closed for business except for a very few people, I find myself thinking back to that scene, and feeling a small chill up my spine.
But, they are real people, and just actresses. Or are real people, and not the ghosts that most people identify them with as a result of that movie.
This article came at a decent time, given that Stephen King just wrote Dr. Sleep, the follow up novel to The Shining.
Here is a link to an article about them, and what they are up to now:
"See 'The Shining' Twins All Grown Up" by Hallie Stephens of Yahoo Celebrity, January 29, 2014:
http://celebrity.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/see-shining-twins-grown-000357375.html?vp=1
The twins from the Shining, suddenly showing up in a hallway that should be empty, and urging Danny to play with them...forever, and ever...and ever!
Sometimes, when I walk the halls of the buildings that I work at on my weekend job, when the facility is closed for business except for a very few people, I find myself thinking back to that scene, and feeling a small chill up my spine.
But, they are real people, and just actresses. Or are real people, and not the ghosts that most people identify them with as a result of that movie.
This article came at a decent time, given that Stephen King just wrote Dr. Sleep, the follow up novel to The Shining.
Here is a link to an article about them, and what they are up to now:
"See 'The Shining' Twins All Grown Up" by Hallie Stephens of Yahoo Celebrity, January 29, 2014:
http://celebrity.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/see-shining-twins-grown-000357375.html?vp=1
Will Peyton Manning Need This Super Bowl Win To Secure His Legacy?
Super Bowl XLVIII
Seattle Seahawks 43,. Denver Broncos 8
East Rutherford, New Jersey
February 2, 2014
The talk all week seems to be this: Peyton Manning is one of the great quarterbacks of all time. Probably the greatest regular season quarterback, with all the statistics and the wins to back this up.
But the knock on him is his performance historically in the postseason. In short, it has not been that great, and he has not kept up those great numbers of the regular season once he gets into the postseason.
This will be his third time reaching the Super Bowl. The previous times, he was at the helm for the Indianapolis Colts. They got hot in 2006 and won three straight postseason games to reach the Super Bowl, and he had a strong game there, winning Super Bowl MVP honors, and earning his first ever Super Bowl ring. But when the Colts got there after a very strong 2009 season, they lost to the Saints. The clinching moment was when Manning threw a pick six late in the fourth quarter to ice the game for New Orleans.
Obviously, he has burned to get another shot at the big game, after that last experience. But he would not have the chance to do it with the Indianapolis Colts.
This time, he did it with another team, and another system. He chose the Denver Broncos, and was rewarded with two great seasons. But last season was marred by the failure of the Broncos to win even a single postseason game. Manning had a decent game, but the Ravens were the hot team, and shocked the Broncos at Mile High.
On the heels of that disappointment, Manning and the Broncos put together a phenomenal season this year. Manning threw for more passing yards and, more importantly, threw for more touchdowns, than any other quarterback in history for a single season. He already owns many of the all-time quarterback records, and if he continues on past this season, he likely would clinch many more records very quickly next season.
In short, his credentials are beyond question in his overall career.
Still, people knock him for his postseason failures, and claim that this detracts, even greatly detracts, from his legacy.
Maybe. I'm not sure. I think he has always been among the most talented quarterbacks that the league has ever seen, and when you think about what he accomplished simply in keeping on playing, and starting anew with a different team, and actually succeeding with them, it is really phenomenal, and adds even more to his already considerable legacy. Other great quarterbacks have tried with other teams, and did not succeed. Joe Montana did not continue in Kansas City the way he had in San Francisco. Joe Namath was not the same quarterback with the Los Angeles Rams that he had been with the New York Jets. Brett Favre came close in 2009 with the Minnesota Vikings, but is best remembered for the interception with seconds left in regulation, that probably cost his team a berth in the Super Bowl. Favre's 2010 season was a disaster, and rather marred his public image.
In each of those cases, it was clear that these men should have stepped away from the game earlier, that their experimentation with other teams at an advanced age was a flop.
Not so with Manning, who has absolutely thrived in Denver. How much did he flourish? The Denver Broncos barely won a weak division in 2011 behind a much maligned quarterback in Tim Tebow. They snuck into the playoffs, but their home victory against Pittsburgh was deemed by many to be a fluke. When Denver got slaughtered at New England the next week, it kind of confirmed their status as a not so serious team.
That changed dramatically, and right away, when Manning chose the Broncos out of the three teams that he had been officially flirting with joining at the time - the Tennessee Titans, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Denver Broncos.
But people were not sure. he had not played in more than a year. How would he react the first time he really got a big hit? Was his arm still the same? Was he too old? Had the game perhaps passed him by a little during that long 2011 season when he was standing on the Indianapolis sideline?
Well, those doubts have been answered. The Broncos went from relative mediocrity at 8-8 in 2011, to the cusp of greatness since. They started off the 2012 season at 2-3, struggling out of the gate. But boy, did they end with a flourish, winning their final eleven straight to earn the top seed in the AFC. Still, they lost to Baltimore immediately.
Now, this season, the Broncos were ready. It started off right away with a rematch against the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, and Manning set the tone for the rest of a historic season, throwing seven touchdown passes and wowing audiences everywhere. He would go on to throw 55 touchdown passes in the season, easily a record. He also passed for more yards than any other quarterback in a single season. He was the engineer of the most explosive offense that the league has ever seen. The Broncos were the first team to have scored over 600 points in a season. And now, he has gotten back to the Super Bowl. That more than answered the critics, silencing them forever.
Or, has it? Some are still suggesting that Manning needs this victory to secure his legacy. I have been listening to sports radio the last week or so more than usual, getting in the mood for the upcoming Super Bowl. Some are suggesting that he does indeed need it, while others claim that he already has attained that lofty status, and that this would cement that further.
Personally, I think that he already has earned that very elite status, although his winning this Super Bowl upcoming would indeed finally silence all the critics. But this is a man who has passed for many of the all-time records already. Plus, he already has a ring, and has led his team (two entirely different franchises, in fact) to the Super Bowl three times. Having led Denver to this Super Bowl, he becomes only one of a very few men (I think he becomes the third) quarterback ever to lead different teams to the Super Bowl. If he wins this Super Bowl, he will become the first ever quarterback to achieve that feat. And, again, he has more than one season under his belt that were considered serious contenders for greatest season that any quarterback ever had. Two of the top three touchdown passes thrown in a single season belong to him, and this season was the all-time record. So, if he caps all of that with a Super Bowl ring to boot, I don't think there remains any real arguments anymore that he belongs to the very upper tier even among elite quarterbacks. Only a very few names - Montana, Elway, and perhaps Brady - would belong in the same category, and could be mentioned in the same breath as Peyton Manning without strange looks.
Obviously, though, it would really, really help his cause if he and the Broncos were to win on Sunday.
On This Day in History - January 30 Gandhi Assassinated
Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Jan 30, 1948: Gandhi assassinated
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, is assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu fanatic.
Born the son of an Indian official in 1869, Gandhi's Vaishnava mother was deeply religious and early on exposed her son to Jainism, a morally rigorous Indian religion that advocated nonviolence. Gandhi was an unremarkable student but in 1888 was given an opportunity to study law in England. In 1891, he returned to India, but failing to find regular legal work he accepted in 1893 a one-year contract in South Africa.
Settling in Natal, he was subjected to racism and South African laws that restricted the rights of Indian laborers. Gandhi later recalled one such incident, in which he was removed from a first-class railway compartment and thrown off a train, as his moment of truth. From thereon, he decided to fight injustice and defend his rights as an Indian and a man. When his contract expired, he spontaneously decided to remain in South Africa and launched a campaign against legislation that would deprive Indians of the right to vote. He formed the Natal Indian Congress and drew international attention to the plight of Indians in South Africa. In 1906, the Transvaal government sought to further restrict the rights of Indians, and Gandhi organized his first campaign of satyagraha, or mass civil disobedience. After seven years of protest, he negotiated a compromise agreement with the South African government.
In 1914, Gandhi returned to India and lived a life of abstinence and spirituality on the periphery of Indian politics. He supported Britain in the First World War but in 1919 launched a new satyagraha in protest of Britain's mandatory military draft of Indians. Hundreds of thousands answered his call to protest, and by 1920 he was leader of the Indian movement for independence. He reorganized the Indian National Congress as a political force and launched a massive boycott of British goods, services, and institutions in India. Then, in 1922, he abruptly called off the satyagraha when violence erupted. One month later, he was arrested by the British authorities for sedition, found guilty, and imprisoned.
After his release in 1924, he led an extended fast in protest of Hindu-Muslim violence. In 1928, he returned to national politics when he demanded dominion status for India and in 1930 launched a mass protest against the British salt tax, which hurt India's poor. In his most famous campaign of civil disobedience, Gandhi and his followers marched to the Arabian Sea, where they made their own salt by evaporating sea water. The march, which resulted in the arrest of Gandhi and 60,000 others, earned new international respect and support for the leader and his movement.
In 1931, Gandhi was released to attend the Round Table Conference on India in London as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The meeting was a great disappointment, and after his return to India he was again imprisoned. While in jail, he led another fast in protest of the British government's treatment of the "untouchables"--the impoverished and degraded Indians who occupied the lowest tiers of the caste system. In 1934, he left the Indian Congress Party to work for the economic development of India's many poor. His protege, Jawaharlal Nehru, was named leader of the party in his place.
With the outbreak of World War II, Gandhi returned to politics and called for Indian cooperation with the British war effort in exchange for independence. Britain refused and sought to divide India by supporting conservative Hindu and Muslim groups. In response, Gandhi launched the "Quit India" movement it 1942, which called for a total British withdrawal. Gandhi and other nationalist leaders were imprisoned until 1944.
In 1945, a new government came to power in Britain, and negotiations for India's independence began. Gandhi sought a unified India, but the Muslim League, which had grown in influence during the war, disagreed. After protracted talks, Britain agreed to create the two new independent states of India and Pakistan on August 15, 1947. Gandhi was greatly distressed by the partition, and bloody violence soon broke out between Hindus and Muslims in India.
In an effort to end India's religious strife, he resorted to fasts and visits to the troubled areas. He was on one such vigil in New Delhi when Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist who objected to Gandhi's tolerance for the Muslims, fatally shot him. Known as Mahatma, or "the great soul," during his lifetime, Gandhi's persuasive methods of civil disobedience influenced leaders of civil rights movements around the world, especially Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States.
Jan 30, 1933: Adolf Hitler is named chancellor of Germany
On this day in 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany.
The year 1932 had seen Hitler's meteoric rise to prominence in Germany, spurred largely by the German people's frustration with dismal economic conditions and the still-festering wounds inflicted by defeat in the Great War and the harsh peace terms of the Versailles treaty. A charismatic speaker, Hitler channeled popular discontent with the post-war Weimar government into support for his fledgling Nazi party. In an election held in July 1932, the Nazis won 230 governmental seats; together with the Communists, the next largest party, they made up over half of the Reichstag.
Hindenburg, intimidated by Hitler's growing popularity and the thuggish nature of his cadre of supporters, the SA (or Brownshirts), initially refused to make him chancellor. Instead, he appointed General Kurt von Schleicher, who attempted to steal Hitler's thunder by negotiating with a dissident Nazi faction led by Gregor Strasser. At the next round of elections in November, the Nazis lost ground—but the Communists gained it, a paradoxical effect of Schleicher's efforts that made right-wing forces in Germany even more determined to get Hitler into power. In a series of complicated negotiations, ex-Chancellor Franz von Papen, backed by prominent German businessmen and the conservative German National People's Party (DNVP), convinced Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor, with the understanding that von Papen as vice-chancellor and other non-Nazis in key government positions would contain and temper Hitler's more brutal tendencies.
Hitler's emergence as chancellor on January 30, 1933, marked a crucial turning point for Germany and, ultimately, for the world. His plan, embraced by much of the German population, was to do away with politics and make Germany a powerful, unified one-party state. He began immediately, ordering a rapid expansion of the state police, the Gestapo, and putting Hermann Goering in charge of a new security force, composed entirely of Nazis and dedicated to stamping out whatever opposition to his party might arise. From that moment on, Nazi Germany was off and running, and there was little Hindenburg or von Papen—or anyone—could do to stop it.
Jan 30, 1968: Tet Offensive shakes Cold War confidence
In coordinated attacks all across South Vietnam, communist forces launch their largest offensive of the Vietnam War against South Vietnamese and U.S. troops.
Dozens of cities, towns, and military bases--including the U.S. embassy in Saigon--were attacked. The massive offensive was not a military success for the communists, but its size and intensity shook the confidence of many Americans who were led to believe, by the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, that the war would shortly be coming to a successful close.
On January 30, 1968-during the Tet holiday cease-fire in South Vietnam-an estimated 80,000 troops of the North Vietnamese Army and National Liberation Front attacked cities and military establishments throughout South Vietnam. The most spectacular episode occurred when a group of NLF commandos blasted through the wall surrounding the American embassy in Saigon and unsuccessfully attempted to seize the embassy building. Most of the attacks were turned back, with the communist forces suffering heavy losses.
Battles continued to rage throughout the country for weeks--the fight to reclaim the city of Hue from communist troops was particularly destructive. American and South Vietnamese forces lost over 3,000 men during the offensive. Estimates for communist losses ran as high as 40,000.
While the communists did not succeed militarily, the impact of the Tet Offensive on public opinion in the United States was significant. The American people, who had been told a few months earlier that the war was successful and that U.S. troops might soon be allowed withdraw, were stunned to see fighting taking place on the grounds of the U.S. embassy.
Despite assurances from the Johnson administration that all was well, the Tet Offensive led many Americans to begin seriously questioning such statements, and to wonder whether American military might could truly prevail over the communist threat on foreign shores. In the 1950s, Americans had almost unconditionally supported a vigorous American response to communism; the reaction to the Tet Offensive seemed to reflect the growing skepticism of the 1960s, when Americans felt increasingly doubtful about the efficacy of such Cold War tactics. In the wake of the Tet Offensive, support for the U.S. effort in Vietnam began steadily to decline, and public opinion turned sharply against President Johnson, who decided not to run for re-election.
Jan 30, 1649: King Charles I executed for treason
In London, King Charles I is beheaded for treason on January 30, 1649.
Charles ascended to the English throne in 1625 following the death of his father, King James I. In the first year of his reign, Charles offended his Protestant subjects by marrying Henrietta Maria, a Catholic French princess. He later responded to political opposition to his rule by dissolving Parliament on several occasions and in 1629 decided to rule entirely without Parliament. In 1642, the bitter struggle between king and Parliament for supremacy led to the outbreak of the first English civil war.
The Parliamentarians were led by Oliver Cromwell, whose formidable Ironsides force won an important victory against the king's Royalist forces at Marston Moor in 1644 and at Naseby in 1645. As a leader of the New Model Army in the second English civil war, Cromwell helped repel the Royalist invasion of Scotland, and in 1646 Charles surrendered to a Scottish army. In 1648, Charles was forced to appear before a high court controlled by his enemies, where he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. Early in the next year, he was beheaded.
The monarchy was abolished, and Cromwell assumed control of the new English Commonwealth. In 1658, Cromwell died and was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard, who was forced to flee to France in the next year with the restoration of the monarchy and the crowning of Charles II, the son of Charles I. Oliver Cromwell was posthumously convicted of treason, and his body was disinterred from its tomb in Westminster Abbey and hanged from the gallows at Tyburn.
Jan 30, 1972: Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland
In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators are shot dead by British Army paratroopers in an event that becomes known as "Bloody Sunday." The protesters, all Northern Catholics, were marching in protest of the British policy of internment of suspected Irish nationalists. British authorities had ordered the march banned, and sent troops to confront the demonstrators when it went ahead. The soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd of protesters, killing 13 and wounding 17.
The killings brought worldwide attention to the crisis in Northern Ireland and sparked protests all across Ireland. In Dublin, the capital of independent Ireland, outraged Irish citizens lit the British embassy aflame on February 2.
The crisis in Northern Ireland escalated in 1969 when British troops were sent to the British possession to suppress nationalist activity by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and to quell religious violence between Protestants and Catholics.
In April 1972, the British government released a report exonerating British troops from any illegal actions during the Londonderry protest. Irish indignation over Britain's Northern Ireland policies grew, and Britain increased its military presence in the North while removing any vestige of Northern self-rule. On July 21, 1972, the IRA exploded 20 bombs simultaneously in Belfast, killing British military personnel and a number of civilians. Britain responded by instituting a new court system composed of trial without jury for terrorism suspects and conviction rates topped over 90 percent.
The IRA officially disarmed in September 2005, finally fulfilling the terms of the historic 1998 Good Friday peace agreement. It was hoped that the disarmament would bring with it an end to decades of politically motivated bloodshed in the region.
Jan 30, 1943: RAF launches massive daytime raid on Berlin
On this day, the British Royal Air Force begins a bombing campaign on the German capital that coincides with the 10th anniversary of Hitler's accession to power.
The Casablanca Conference, held from January 14 to 23, saw Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff meet in Morocco to discuss future war strategy following on the success of the North African invasion, which heralded the defeat of Vichy forces. One of the resolutions of the conference was to launch a combined and sustained strategic bombing effort against the Germans. Strategic bombing was the policy of using bombers to destroy an enemy's warmaking capacity, also referred to as "area bombing." Churchill described it as an "absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers...upon the Nazi homeland."
To celebrate the anniversary of Hitler's 1933 appointment to the office of chancellor by then-President Paul von Hindenburg, both propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and head of the Luftwaffe Hermann Goering planned to give radio addresses to the German masses. Goebbels intended to bolster morale by hailing an impending victory in Russia: "A thousand years hence, every German will speak with awe of Stalingrad and remember that it was there that Germany put the seal on her victory." As the speeches were broadcast, RAF fighters rained bombs on Berlin, the beginning of devastating attacks on German cities that would last until the very end of the war. To make matters even worse for the Germans, the next day a massive surrender of German troops occurred at Stalingrad.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1649 King Charles I of England was beheaded. 1933 Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany. 1948 Gandhi was assassinated. 1968 North Vietnamese forces launched attacks against the South Vietnamese, beginning the Tet offensive. 1972 British troops opened fire on civil rights marchers in Northern Ireland, sparking the "Bloody Sunday" massacre. 1979 The Iranian civilian government announced that the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini would be allowed to return.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://www.historyorb.com/events/january/30
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Jan 30, 1948: Gandhi assassinated
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, is assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu fanatic.
Born the son of an Indian official in 1869, Gandhi's Vaishnava mother was deeply religious and early on exposed her son to Jainism, a morally rigorous Indian religion that advocated nonviolence. Gandhi was an unremarkable student but in 1888 was given an opportunity to study law in England. In 1891, he returned to India, but failing to find regular legal work he accepted in 1893 a one-year contract in South Africa.
Settling in Natal, he was subjected to racism and South African laws that restricted the rights of Indian laborers. Gandhi later recalled one such incident, in which he was removed from a first-class railway compartment and thrown off a train, as his moment of truth. From thereon, he decided to fight injustice and defend his rights as an Indian and a man. When his contract expired, he spontaneously decided to remain in South Africa and launched a campaign against legislation that would deprive Indians of the right to vote. He formed the Natal Indian Congress and drew international attention to the plight of Indians in South Africa. In 1906, the Transvaal government sought to further restrict the rights of Indians, and Gandhi organized his first campaign of satyagraha, or mass civil disobedience. After seven years of protest, he negotiated a compromise agreement with the South African government.
In 1914, Gandhi returned to India and lived a life of abstinence and spirituality on the periphery of Indian politics. He supported Britain in the First World War but in 1919 launched a new satyagraha in protest of Britain's mandatory military draft of Indians. Hundreds of thousands answered his call to protest, and by 1920 he was leader of the Indian movement for independence. He reorganized the Indian National Congress as a political force and launched a massive boycott of British goods, services, and institutions in India. Then, in 1922, he abruptly called off the satyagraha when violence erupted. One month later, he was arrested by the British authorities for sedition, found guilty, and imprisoned.
After his release in 1924, he led an extended fast in protest of Hindu-Muslim violence. In 1928, he returned to national politics when he demanded dominion status for India and in 1930 launched a mass protest against the British salt tax, which hurt India's poor. In his most famous campaign of civil disobedience, Gandhi and his followers marched to the Arabian Sea, where they made their own salt by evaporating sea water. The march, which resulted in the arrest of Gandhi and 60,000 others, earned new international respect and support for the leader and his movement.
In 1931, Gandhi was released to attend the Round Table Conference on India in London as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The meeting was a great disappointment, and after his return to India he was again imprisoned. While in jail, he led another fast in protest of the British government's treatment of the "untouchables"--the impoverished and degraded Indians who occupied the lowest tiers of the caste system. In 1934, he left the Indian Congress Party to work for the economic development of India's many poor. His protege, Jawaharlal Nehru, was named leader of the party in his place.
With the outbreak of World War II, Gandhi returned to politics and called for Indian cooperation with the British war effort in exchange for independence. Britain refused and sought to divide India by supporting conservative Hindu and Muslim groups. In response, Gandhi launched the "Quit India" movement it 1942, which called for a total British withdrawal. Gandhi and other nationalist leaders were imprisoned until 1944.
In 1945, a new government came to power in Britain, and negotiations for India's independence began. Gandhi sought a unified India, but the Muslim League, which had grown in influence during the war, disagreed. After protracted talks, Britain agreed to create the two new independent states of India and Pakistan on August 15, 1947. Gandhi was greatly distressed by the partition, and bloody violence soon broke out between Hindus and Muslims in India.
In an effort to end India's religious strife, he resorted to fasts and visits to the troubled areas. He was on one such vigil in New Delhi when Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist who objected to Gandhi's tolerance for the Muslims, fatally shot him. Known as Mahatma, or "the great soul," during his lifetime, Gandhi's persuasive methods of civil disobedience influenced leaders of civil rights movements around the world, especially Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States.
Jan 30, 1933: Adolf Hitler is named chancellor of Germany
On this day in 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany.
The year 1932 had seen Hitler's meteoric rise to prominence in Germany, spurred largely by the German people's frustration with dismal economic conditions and the still-festering wounds inflicted by defeat in the Great War and the harsh peace terms of the Versailles treaty. A charismatic speaker, Hitler channeled popular discontent with the post-war Weimar government into support for his fledgling Nazi party. In an election held in July 1932, the Nazis won 230 governmental seats; together with the Communists, the next largest party, they made up over half of the Reichstag.
Hindenburg, intimidated by Hitler's growing popularity and the thuggish nature of his cadre of supporters, the SA (or Brownshirts), initially refused to make him chancellor. Instead, he appointed General Kurt von Schleicher, who attempted to steal Hitler's thunder by negotiating with a dissident Nazi faction led by Gregor Strasser. At the next round of elections in November, the Nazis lost ground—but the Communists gained it, a paradoxical effect of Schleicher's efforts that made right-wing forces in Germany even more determined to get Hitler into power. In a series of complicated negotiations, ex-Chancellor Franz von Papen, backed by prominent German businessmen and the conservative German National People's Party (DNVP), convinced Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor, with the understanding that von Papen as vice-chancellor and other non-Nazis in key government positions would contain and temper Hitler's more brutal tendencies.
Hitler's emergence as chancellor on January 30, 1933, marked a crucial turning point for Germany and, ultimately, for the world. His plan, embraced by much of the German population, was to do away with politics and make Germany a powerful, unified one-party state. He began immediately, ordering a rapid expansion of the state police, the Gestapo, and putting Hermann Goering in charge of a new security force, composed entirely of Nazis and dedicated to stamping out whatever opposition to his party might arise. From that moment on, Nazi Germany was off and running, and there was little Hindenburg or von Papen—or anyone—could do to stop it.
Jan 30, 1968: Tet Offensive shakes Cold War confidence
In coordinated attacks all across South Vietnam, communist forces launch their largest offensive of the Vietnam War against South Vietnamese and U.S. troops.
Dozens of cities, towns, and military bases--including the U.S. embassy in Saigon--were attacked. The massive offensive was not a military success for the communists, but its size and intensity shook the confidence of many Americans who were led to believe, by the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, that the war would shortly be coming to a successful close.
On January 30, 1968-during the Tet holiday cease-fire in South Vietnam-an estimated 80,000 troops of the North Vietnamese Army and National Liberation Front attacked cities and military establishments throughout South Vietnam. The most spectacular episode occurred when a group of NLF commandos blasted through the wall surrounding the American embassy in Saigon and unsuccessfully attempted to seize the embassy building. Most of the attacks were turned back, with the communist forces suffering heavy losses.
Battles continued to rage throughout the country for weeks--the fight to reclaim the city of Hue from communist troops was particularly destructive. American and South Vietnamese forces lost over 3,000 men during the offensive. Estimates for communist losses ran as high as 40,000.
While the communists did not succeed militarily, the impact of the Tet Offensive on public opinion in the United States was significant. The American people, who had been told a few months earlier that the war was successful and that U.S. troops might soon be allowed withdraw, were stunned to see fighting taking place on the grounds of the U.S. embassy.
Despite assurances from the Johnson administration that all was well, the Tet Offensive led many Americans to begin seriously questioning such statements, and to wonder whether American military might could truly prevail over the communist threat on foreign shores. In the 1950s, Americans had almost unconditionally supported a vigorous American response to communism; the reaction to the Tet Offensive seemed to reflect the growing skepticism of the 1960s, when Americans felt increasingly doubtful about the efficacy of such Cold War tactics. In the wake of the Tet Offensive, support for the U.S. effort in Vietnam began steadily to decline, and public opinion turned sharply against President Johnson, who decided not to run for re-election.
Jan 30, 1649: King Charles I executed for treason
In London, King Charles I is beheaded for treason on January 30, 1649.
Charles ascended to the English throne in 1625 following the death of his father, King James I. In the first year of his reign, Charles offended his Protestant subjects by marrying Henrietta Maria, a Catholic French princess. He later responded to political opposition to his rule by dissolving Parliament on several occasions and in 1629 decided to rule entirely without Parliament. In 1642, the bitter struggle between king and Parliament for supremacy led to the outbreak of the first English civil war.
The Parliamentarians were led by Oliver Cromwell, whose formidable Ironsides force won an important victory against the king's Royalist forces at Marston Moor in 1644 and at Naseby in 1645. As a leader of the New Model Army in the second English civil war, Cromwell helped repel the Royalist invasion of Scotland, and in 1646 Charles surrendered to a Scottish army. In 1648, Charles was forced to appear before a high court controlled by his enemies, where he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. Early in the next year, he was beheaded.
The monarchy was abolished, and Cromwell assumed control of the new English Commonwealth. In 1658, Cromwell died and was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard, who was forced to flee to France in the next year with the restoration of the monarchy and the crowning of Charles II, the son of Charles I. Oliver Cromwell was posthumously convicted of treason, and his body was disinterred from its tomb in Westminster Abbey and hanged from the gallows at Tyburn.
Jan 30, 1972: Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland
In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators are shot dead by British Army paratroopers in an event that becomes known as "Bloody Sunday." The protesters, all Northern Catholics, were marching in protest of the British policy of internment of suspected Irish nationalists. British authorities had ordered the march banned, and sent troops to confront the demonstrators when it went ahead. The soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd of protesters, killing 13 and wounding 17.
The killings brought worldwide attention to the crisis in Northern Ireland and sparked protests all across Ireland. In Dublin, the capital of independent Ireland, outraged Irish citizens lit the British embassy aflame on February 2.
The crisis in Northern Ireland escalated in 1969 when British troops were sent to the British possession to suppress nationalist activity by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and to quell religious violence between Protestants and Catholics.
In April 1972, the British government released a report exonerating British troops from any illegal actions during the Londonderry protest. Irish indignation over Britain's Northern Ireland policies grew, and Britain increased its military presence in the North while removing any vestige of Northern self-rule. On July 21, 1972, the IRA exploded 20 bombs simultaneously in Belfast, killing British military personnel and a number of civilians. Britain responded by instituting a new court system composed of trial without jury for terrorism suspects and conviction rates topped over 90 percent.
The IRA officially disarmed in September 2005, finally fulfilling the terms of the historic 1998 Good Friday peace agreement. It was hoped that the disarmament would bring with it an end to decades of politically motivated bloodshed in the region.
Jan 30, 1943: RAF launches massive daytime raid on Berlin
On this day, the British Royal Air Force begins a bombing campaign on the German capital that coincides with the 10th anniversary of Hitler's accession to power.
The Casablanca Conference, held from January 14 to 23, saw Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff meet in Morocco to discuss future war strategy following on the success of the North African invasion, which heralded the defeat of Vichy forces. One of the resolutions of the conference was to launch a combined and sustained strategic bombing effort against the Germans. Strategic bombing was the policy of using bombers to destroy an enemy's warmaking capacity, also referred to as "area bombing." Churchill described it as an "absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers...upon the Nazi homeland."
To celebrate the anniversary of Hitler's 1933 appointment to the office of chancellor by then-President Paul von Hindenburg, both propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and head of the Luftwaffe Hermann Goering planned to give radio addresses to the German masses. Goebbels intended to bolster morale by hailing an impending victory in Russia: "A thousand years hence, every German will speak with awe of Stalingrad and remember that it was there that Germany put the seal on her victory." As the speeches were broadcast, RAF fighters rained bombs on Berlin, the beginning of devastating attacks on German cities that would last until the very end of the war. To make matters even worse for the Germans, the next day a massive surrender of German troops occurred at Stalingrad.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1077 - Pope Gregory VII pardons German emperor Henry IV
1349 - Gunther of Schwarzburg chosen German anti-king
1349 - Jews of Freilsburg Germany are massacred
1467 - Battle at Velke Kostolany: Hung king Mátyás Corvinus
beats Bratrici
1487 - Bell chimes invented
1522 - Duke of Albany takes captured French back to Scotland
1544 - Adrian van Goes becomes land advocate of Holland
1592 - Ippolito Aldobrandini elected Pope Clement VIII
1647 - Scots agree to sell King Charles I to English
Parliament for £400
1648 - Spain & Netherlands sign Peace of Munster, ending
Tachtigjarige War
1661 - Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth
of England is ritually executed after having been dead for two years.
1667 - Treaty/Truce of Andrusovo signed between Tsardom of
Russia & Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
1713 - England & Netherlands sign 2nd anti-French
boundary treaty
1774 - Capt Cook reaches 71°10' south, 1820km from south
pole (record)
1781 - Articles of Confederation ratified by 13th state,
Maryland
1790 - Lifeboat 1st tested at sea, by Mr Greathead, the
inventor
1797 - Congress refuses to accept 1st petitions from
American blacks
1798 - Rep Matthew Lyon (Vt) spits in face of Rep Roger
Griswold (Ct) in US House of Representatives, after an argument
1800 - US population: 5,308,483; Black population 1,002,037
(18.9%)
English Military and Political Leader Oliver CromwellEnglish
Military and Political Leader Oliver Cromwell 1804 - Mungo Park leaves England
seeking source of Niger River
1806 - Prussia takes possession of Hanover
1806 - The original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the
Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), which spans the Delaware River between
Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, is opened.
1815 - Burned Library of Congress reestablished with
Jefferson's 6500 vols
1818 - Keats composes his sonnet, "When I Have
Fears"
1820 - Edward Bransfield aboard Williams discovers
Antarctica (UK claim)
1826 - The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world's
first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north
West coast of Wales is opened.
1835 - Richard Lawrence misfires at President Andrew Jackson
in Washington DC in 1st attempted assassination of a US President
1841 - A fire destroys two-thirds of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
1847 - Yerba Buena renamed San Francisco
1854 - 1st election in Washington Territory; 1,682 votes
cast
1858 - Charles Halle founds Halle Orchestra in Manchester
1858 - William Wells Brown published 1st Black drama,
"Leap to Freedom"
1862 - US Navy's 1st ironclad warship (Monitor) launched
1877 - Storm flood ravages Dutch coastal provinces
US President & General Andrew JacksonUS President &
General Andrew Jackson 1879 - French President MacMahon resigns
1883 - England team presented with ashes of a bail after
Sydney Test
1888 - Harry Moses 297 not out for NSW against Victoria
1889 - John Herschel uses camera obscura to photograph
48" (120cm) telescope
1889 - Victoria beat NSW after following on (NSW all out 63
needed 76)
1889 - Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the
Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera
in Mayerling.
1892 - Bobby Abel carries his bat for 132* for England in
SCG Test
1892 - Capt Lugard occupies Uganda's King Mwanga's hide out
1894 - Pneumatic hammer patented by Charles King of Detroit
1894 - US flag fired on in Rio; prompt satisfaction exacted
by Adm Benham
1895 - C J Eady (Tas) 1st Australian to score twin centuries
(v Vic)
1895 - SS Elbe sinks after collision in North Sea, 332 killed
1895 - Tasmania beat Victoria for 1st F-C victory in 41
years
1911 - 1st rescue of an air passenger by a ship, near
Havana, Cuba
1913 - House of Lords rejects Irish Home Rule Bill
1915 - German submarine attack on Le Havre
1915 - No 10 batsman F W Hyett scores century on debut, Vic
v Tas
1917 - 1st jazz record recorded (Dark Town Strutters Ball)
1919 - Reds hire Pat Moran as manager as Christy Mathewson,
is still in France with US Army
1921 - French rapist-murderer Henri-Desire Landru sentenced
to death
1922 - Ted McDonald takes 8-58 in big Victorian win over NSW
1922 - World Law Day, 1st celebrated
1924 - Ponsford scores second 110 of the game in Vic win
over NSW
1925 - Turkish government throws out Constantine VI of
Constantinople
1927 - Left wins national election in Thuringen
1928 - 1st radio telephone connection between Netherlands
& US
1928 - Bradman scores 134 not out (225 mins, 13 fours) NSW v
Vic
1928 - Eugene O'Neill's "Strange Interlude,"
premieres in NYC
1930 - Vladimir Mayakovsky's "Banya," premieres in
Leningrad
1930 - The world's first radiosonde is launched in Pavlovsk,
USSR.
Comedian/Actor/Filmaker Charlie
ChaplinComedian/Actor/Filmaker Charlie Chaplin 1931 - Charlie Chaplin's
"City Lights" premieres at Los Angeles Theater
1932 - Grimmett 7-116 in South Africa 1st innings at
Adelaide Oval
1933 - "Lone Ranger" begins a 21-year run on ABC
radio
1933 - Adolf Hitler named German Chancellor, forms
government with Von Papen
1933 - Grimmett takes 7-86 for SA in Qld 2nd inn, 13-135 for
match
1934 - 1st theatrical presentation sponsored by US
government, NYC
1934 - Bert Ironmonger ends Sheffield Shield career age 51
yrs 298 days
1934 - Hitler proclamation on German unified states
1935 - Ezra Pound meets Benito Mussolini, reads from a draft
of "Cantos"
1936 - New owners of Boston Braves ask newspapermen to pick
a new nickname
1936 - Victoria need 442 to win against NSW, but lose, all
out for 415 They pick "The Bees" it doesn't catch on & is
scrapped by 1940 season
1937 - 2nd of Stalin's purge trials; Pyatakov & 16
others sentenced to death
1939 - Heavy after shocks destroy some of Chile
1939 - Hitler calls for extermination of European Jews
1940 - Benjamin Britten's "Lesson Illuminations"
premieres in London
Soviet Union Premier Joseph StalinSoviet Union Premier
Joseph Stalin 1940 - Cor Jongert wins 6th Dutch 11 Cities Skating Race
1940 - Hassett's second 122 of the game for Vic can't stop a
NSW win
1941 - Australian troops conquer Derna Libya
1942 - Japanese troops land on Ambon
1943 - 6 British Mosquito's daylight bomb Berlin
1943 - German assault on French in Tunisia
1943 - German under officers shot down in Haarlem Neth
1943 - Hitler promotes Friedrich von Paul to
general-fieldmarshal
1943 - Illegal opposition newspaper Loyal begins publishing
1943 - USS Chicago sinks in Pacific Ocean
1944 - US invades Majuro, Marshall Islands
1944 - World War II: United States troops land on Majuro.
1945 - "Wilhelm Gustloff" torpedoed off Danzig by
Soviet sub-c 9,400 die
1946 - 1st issue of Franklin Roosevelt dime
1948 - 5th Winter Olympic games open in St Moritz,
Switzerland
Pacifist and Spiritual Leader Mahatma GandhiPacifist and
Spiritual Leader Mahatma Gandhi 1948 - Mahatma Gandhi assassinated by Nathuram
Godse
1950 - "Robert Montgomery Presents" dramatic
anthology premieres on NBC TV
1951 - Belgium refuses to allow communists to make speeches
on radio
1952 - Lehmer verifies: 2^521-1 & 2^607-1 (183 ciphers)
Mersenne-prime #
1952 - Paul Creston's 4th Symphony, premieres
1954 - Belgium ends trade agreement with USSR
1954 - Italy's Fanfani government resigns
1956 - Elvis Presley records his version of "Blue Suede
Shoes"
1956 - KRMA TV channel 6 in Denver, CO (PBS) begins
broadcasting
1956 - KTXS TV channel 12 in Sweetwater-Abilene, TX (ABC)
begins broadcasting
1956 - Martin Luther King Jr's home bombed
1957 - US Congress accepts "Eisenhower-doctrine"
1958 - 1st 2-way moving sidewalk in service, Dallas Tx
1958 - Baseball announces players & coaches rather than
fans pick all stars
1958 - Dore Schary's "Sunrise at Campobello,"
premieres in NYC
Clergyman and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King
Jr.Clergyman and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King Jr. 1958 - House of
Lords passes bill allowing women in
1959 - Australia 1-200 1st day 4th Test v England, Adelaide
Oval
1959 - Paul Hindemith's symphony "Pittsburgh,"
premieres
1960 - CIA OKs Lockheed to produce a new U-2 aircraft
(Oxcart)
1960 - Dutch communist trade union EVC'58 disbands
1960 - Riot curtails third days play at Port-Of-Spain WI v
England
1960 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Carol
Heiss
1960 - US male Figure Skating championship won by David
Jenkins
1961 - Bobby Darin is youngest performer to headline a TV
special on NBC
1961 - JFK asks for an Alliance for Progress & Peace
Corp
1961 - KAET TV channel 8 in Phoenix, AZ (PBS) begins
broadcasting
1961 - Lance Gibbs takes hat-trick (Mackay, Grout, Misson)
at Adelaide
1962 - UN General Assembly censures Portugal (because of
Angola)
1962 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1962 - 2 members of Flying Wallendas' high-wire act killed
when their 7-person pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit
US President John F. KennedyUS President John F. Kennedy
1964 - Military coup of Gen Nguyen Khanh in South Vietnam
1964 - Ranger 6 launched; makes perfect flight to Moon, but
cameras fail
1965 - "The Name Game" by Shirley Ellis hits #3
1965 - State funeral of Winston Churchill
1966 - -19°F (-28°C), Corinth, Mississippi (state record)
1966 - -27°F (-33°C), New Market, Alabama (state record)
1966 - Ard Schenk skates world record 1500m (2:05.2)
1966 - Dmitri Sjostakovitsj completes his 11th string
quartet
1968 - Bobby Goldsboro records his biggest hit,
"Honey"
1968 - Vietcong launch Tet-offensive on US embassy in Saigon
1969 - Beatles perform their last gig together, a free
concert
1969 - US/Canada ISIS 1 launched to study ionosphere
1971 - "Ari" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC
after 19 performances
1971 - Dennis Lillee takes 5-84 in his 1st Test bowl, v
England
1971 - UCLA starts 88 basketball game win streak
Soldier, author, journalist, politician Winston
ChurchillSoldier, author, journalist, politician Winston Churchill 1972 -
Bloody Sunday: Brit soldiers shoot on catholics in Londonderry, 13 die
1972 - Pakistan withdraws from Commonwealth
1973 - 26th NHL All-Star Game: East beat West 5-4 at NY
Rangers
1973 - Jury finds Watergate defendants Liddy & McCord
guilty on all counts
1973 - KISS plays their 1st show (Coventry Club in Queens
NY)
1974 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1976 - 1st-class debut of Dav Whatmore, in Johannesburg
1976 - George H W Bush becomes 11th director of CIA (until
1977)
1976 - William E Colby, ends term as 10th director of CIA
1977 - 8th (final) part of "Roots" is most-watched
entertainment show ever
1977 - Allan Border scores 36 in his 1st-class innings (NSW
v Qld)
1977 - Edward W Stack replaces Paul Kerr president of Hall
of Fame
1978 - Addie Joss & Larry MacPhail elected to Baseball
Hall of Fame
1978 - Mutual Broadcasting Network begins airing Larry King
Show on radio
1979 - Rhodesia agrees to new constitution
1979 - Varig 707-323C freighter, flown by the same commander
as Flight 820, disappears over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off
from Tokyo.
1980 - Edward Albee's "Lady from Dubuque,"
premieres in NYC
Country Singer Kenny RogersCountry Singer Kenny Rogers 1981
- 8th American Music Award: Barbra Streisand & Kenny Rogers win
1982 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Rosalynn
Sumners
1982 - Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which
is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk
Cloner".
1983 - Hilbert van Thumb becomes European skating champ
1983 - Pat Bradley wins LPGA Mazda of Deer Creek Golf
Classic
1983 - Super Bowl XVII: Wash Red Skins beat Miami Dolphins,
27-17 in Pasadena Super Bowl MVP: John Riggins, Washington, RB
1988 - Hansie Cronje gets a pair in 2nd 1st-class game (OFS
v N Tvl)
1989 - 16th American Music Award: Randy Travis & George
Michael wins
1989 - 5 Pharaoh sculptures from 1470 BC found at temple of
Luxor
1989 - Joel Steinberg found guilty of 1st degree
manslaughter of daughter
1989 - Last day of 1st class cricket for Dav Whatmore
1989 - Olympian, Bruce Kimball, is sentenced to 17 years in
prison for killing 2 teenagers in a drunk driving accident
1989 - The American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan closes.
1992 - Space Shuttle STS-42 (Discovery 15) lands
1993 - 100,000n Europeans demonstrate against fascism &
racism
Rock Vocalist George MichaelRock Vocalist George Michael
1993 - 67th Australian Women's Tennis Open: Monica Seles beat Graf (4-6 6-3
6-2)
1994 - 68th Australian Women's Tennis Open: S Graf beats A S
Vicario (6-0 6-2)
1994 - 82nd Australian Mens Tennis: Pete Sampras beats Todd
Martin (76 64 64)
1994 - Dan Jansen skates world record 500m (35.76)
1994 - Kapil Dev equals Richard Hadlee's world record of 431
Test wkts
1994 - Super Bowl XXVIII: Dallas Cowboys beat Buffalo Bills,
30-13 in Atlanta Super Bowl MVP: Emmitt Smith, Dallas, RB
1994 - Péter Lékó becomes the youngest chess grand master.
1995 - 22nd American Music Award: Boyz II Men & Ace of
Base win
1995 - Belgium's TV channel 2 in Flanders goes on the air
1995 - Car bomb explodes in Algiers, 42 killed/296 injured
1995 - Kevin Eubanks officially becomes band leader of
"Tonight Show"
1995 - Workers from the National Institutes of Health
announce the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment
for sickle-cell disease.
1996 - Gino Gallagher, the suspected leader of the Irish
National Liberation Army, is killed while waiting in line for his unemployment
benefit.
1997 - Minuteman III launches
1998 - All-Star Fla Marlin catcher Darren Daulton, retires
American Football Player Emmitt SmithAmerican Football
Player Emmitt Smith 1998 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Indianapolis IN
on WNAP 93.1 FM
1998 - Paul Simon's "The Capeman," premieres
2000 - Super Bowl XXXIV: St. Louis Rams beat Tennessee
Titans, 23-16 at the Georgia Dome Atlanta MVP: Kurt Warner, St. Louis, QB
2000 - Off the coast of Ivory Coast, Kenya Airways Flight
431 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169.
2003 - Belgium legally recognizes same-sex marriage.
2011 - NFL Pro Bowl: NFC beats AFC 55-41
2013 - South Korea successfully launches its rocket Naro-1
which was carrying a scientific satellite
1649 - England's King Charles I was beheaded. 1790 - The first purpose-built lifeboat was launched on the River Tyne. 1798 - The first brawl in the U.S. House of Representatives took place. Congressmen Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold fought on the House floor. 1844 - Richard Theodore Greener became the first African American to graduate from Harvard University. 1847 - The town of Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco. 1862 - The U.S. Navy's first ironclad warship, the "Monitor", was launched. 1889 - Rudolph, crown prince of Austria, and his 17-year-old mistress, Baroness Marie Vetsera, were found shot in his hunting lodge at Mayerling, near Vienna. 1894 - C.B. King received a patent for the pneumatic hammer. 1900 - The British fighting the Boers in South Africa ask for a larger army. 1910 - Work began on the first board-track automobile speedway. The track was built in Playa del Ray, CA. 1911 - The first airplane rescue at sea was made by the destroyer "Terry." Pilot James McCurdy was forced to land in the ocean about 10 miles from Havana, Cuba. 1933 - "The Lone Ranger" was heard on radio for the first time. The program ran for 2,956 episodes and ended in 1955. 1933 - Adolf Hitler was named the German Chancellor. 1948 - Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu extremist. 1950 - NBC-TV debuted "Robert Montgomery Presents." The show lasted for seven seasons. 1958 - Yves Saint Laurent, at age 22, held his first major fashion show in Paris. 1958 - The first two-way moving sidewalk was put in service at Love Field in Dallas, TX. The length of the walkway through the airport was 1,435 feet. 1960 - The women’s singles U.S. figure skating championship was won by Carol Heiss. 1962 - Two members of the "Flying Wallendas" high-wire act were killed when their seven-person pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit, MI. 1964 - January 30 - The U.S. launched Ranger 6. The unmanned spacecraft carried television cameras and was intentionally crash-landed on the moon. The cameras did not return any pictures to Earth. 1968 - The Tet Offensive began as Communist forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese provincial capitals. 1972 - In Northern Ireland, British soldiers shot and killed thirteen Roman Catholic civil rights marchers. The day is known as "Bloody Sunday." 1979 - The civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to return. He had been living in exile in France. 1989 - The U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan was closed. 1994 - Peter Leko became the world's youngest-ever grand master in chess. 1995 - The U.N. Security Council authorized the deployment of a 6,000-member U.N. peace-keeping contingent to assume security responsibilities in Haiti from U.S. forces. 1995 - Researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced that clinical trials had demonstrated the effectiveness of the first preventative treatment for sickle cell anaemia. 1996 - Gino Gallagher, the reputed leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, was shot and killed as he queued for his unemployment benefit. 1997 - A New Jersey judge ruled that the unborn child of a female prisoner must have legal representation. He denied the prisoner bail reduction to enable her to leave the jail and obtain an abortion. 2002 - Slobodan Milosevic accused the U.N. war crimes tribunal of an "evil and hostile attack" against him. Milosevic was defending his actions during the Balkan wars. 2002 - Japan's last coal mine was closed. The closures were due to high production costs and cheap imports.
1649 King Charles I of England was beheaded. 1933 Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany. 1948 Gandhi was assassinated. 1968 North Vietnamese forces launched attacks against the South Vietnamese, beginning the Tet offensive. 1972 British troops opened fire on civil rights marchers in Northern Ireland, sparking the "Bloody Sunday" massacre. 1979 The Iranian civilian government announced that the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini would be allowed to return.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://www.historyorb.com/events/january/30
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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