January 30

Scott Winters January 30, 2024 0 Comments

A quick look at Today in History, check out some Celebrity Birthdays, and find out what Days of the Year to celebrate.

TODAY IN HISTORY:

1798 – The first brawl in the U.S. House of Representatives took place. Congressmen Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold fought on the House floor.

1862 – The U.S. Navy’s first ironclad warship, the “Monitor”, was launched.

1894 – C.B. King received a patent for the pneumatic hammer.

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” radio program was presented for the first time on Detroit, MI radio station WXYZ. The program ran for 2,956 episodes and ended in 1955. WXYZ also produced “The Green Hornet” and “Sgt. Preston of the Yukon”.

1946 – The Roosevelt dime was issued.

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.

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 – NASA 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.

1969 – The Beatles made their last-ever public appearance as a group on the roof of Apple Records in London. The performance of “Get Back” was filmed for the movie “Let It Be”.

1973 – The band KISS played their first ever show to about ten people in Queens, NY.

1976 – George Herbert Walker Bush became the director of the CIA.

1982 – Richard Skrenta wrote the first PC virus code, which was 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called “Elk Cloner”.

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 anemia.

1998 – Elton John received a knighthood in British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s first New Year’s Eve Honours List.

2003 – Richard Reid was sentenced to life in prison for trying, in December 2001, to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in his shoes.

2005 – In Iraq, the first free Parliamentary elections since 1958 took place.

2007 – The Windows Vista operating system was released.

2020 – The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

BIRTHDAYS:

Gene Hackman – 94 years old (1930) – Actor (“The French Connection”, “Unforgiven”, “Mississippi Burning”, “I Never Sang for My Father”, “Bonnie and Clyde”)

Vanessa Redgrave – 87 years old (1937) – Actress (“The Bostonians”, “Mary Queen of Scots”, “Isadora”, “Morgan”, “Howard’s End”, “Julia”)

Norma Jean – 86 years old (1938) – Country singer (TV’s “The Porter Wagoner Show”)

Dick Cheney – 83 years old (1941) – Politician (Served as the White House Chief of Staff, in Congress, as Secretary of Defense and then was Vice President under George W. Bush)

William King – 75 years old (1949) – Singer (The Commodores)

Phil Collins – 73 years old (1951) – Singer, drummer (Genesis)

Charles S. Dutton – 73 years old (1951) – Actor (“Gothika”, “Rudy”, “Cookie’s Fortune”, “Blind Faith”, “Cry the Beloved Country”, “Alien 3”, TV’s “Roc”)

Brett Butler – 66 years old (1958) – Actress, comedian (TV’s “Grace Under Fire”, “The Young and the Restless”, “Anger Management”)

Jody Watley – 65 years old (1959) – Singer

Christian Bale – 50 years old (1974) – Actor (“The Fighter”, “American Hustle”, “The Big Short”, “The Dark Night Rises”, “I’m Not There”, “The Dark Knight”, “3:10 to Yuma”, “The Prestige”, “Batman Begins”, “American Psycho”, “Velvet Goldmine”)

Wilmer Valderrama – 44 years old (1980) – Actor (TV’s “That ’70s Show”, “From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series”)