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:
Gregory Benford – 85 years old (1941) – Astrophysicist and author
Peter Agre – 77 years old (1949) – Physician and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate
Charles S. Dutton – 75 years old (1951) – Actor and director
Fred Hembeck – 73 years old (1953) – Author and illustrator
John Baldacci – 71 years old (1955) – Politician, 73rd Governor of Maine
Curtis Strange – 71 years old (1955) – Golfer
Mychal Thompson – 71 years old (1955) – Bahamian-American basketball player and sportscaster
Ann Dowd – 70 years old (1956) – Actress
Chris Jansing – 69 years old (1957) – Television reporter
Brett Butler – 68 years old (1958) – Actress
Jody Watley – 67 years old (1959) – Entertainer
Otis Smith – 62 years old (1964) – Basketball player, coach, and manager
Julie McCullough – 61 years old (1965) – Actress
Mike Johnson – 54 years old (1972) – Politician, 56th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Jalen Rose – 53 years old (1973) – Basketball player and sportscaster
Andy Milonakis – 50 years old (1976) – Entertainer
John Patterson – 48 years old (1978) – Baseball player
Lena Hall – 46 years old (1980) – Actress and singer
Josh Kelley – 46 years old (1980) – Singer-songwriter and musician
Wilmer Valderrama – 46 years old (1980) – Actor and producer
Lee Zeldin – 46 years old (1980) – Politician and 17th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Jonathan Bender – 45 years old (1981) – Basketball player
Jorge Cantú – 44 years old (1982) – American-Mexican baseball player
Cameron Wake – 44 years old (1982) – Football player
Kid Cudi – 42 years old (1984) – Entertainer
Jahvid Best – 37 years old (1989) – Football player and athlete
Kylie Bunbury – 37 years old (1989) – Canadian-American actress
Jake Thomas – 36 years old (1990) – Actor
Jason Gastrow – 35 years old (1991) – YouTuber
Danielle Campbell – 31 years old (1995) – Actress
Colin White – 29 years old (1997) – Ice hockey player
Bryan Woo – 26 years old (2000) – Baseball player
Bijan Robinson – 24 years old (2002) – Football player
Amen Thompson – 23 years old (2003) – Basketball player
Ausar Thompson – 23 years old (2003) – Basketball player
TODAY IS:
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For additional information check out websites like: www.on-this-day.com, www.born-today.com, www.famousbirthdays.com, www.daysoftheyear.com, and www.nationaldaycalendar.com.
