TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS TUESDAY, JAN. 15,
the 15th day of 2019. There are 350 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1929, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta.
In 1559, England’s Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
In 1862, the U.S. Senate confirmed President Abraham Lincoln’s choice of Edwin M. Stanton to be the new Secretary of War, replacing Simon Cameron.
In 1892, the original rules of basketball, devised by James Naismith, were published for the first time in Springfield, Mass., where the game originated.
In 1919, in Boston, a tank containing an estimated 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst, sending the dark syrup coursing through the city’s North End, killing 21 people.
In 1943, work was completed on the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of War (now Defense).
In 1961, a U.S. Air Force radar tower off the New Jersey coast collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean during a severe storm, killing all 28 men aboard.
In 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League 35-10 in the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, retroactively known as Super Bowl I.
In 1973, President Richard M. Nixon announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam, citing progress in peace negotiations.
In 1978, two students at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, were slain in their sorority house. (Ted Bundy was later convicted of the crime and was sentenced to death. But he was executed for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl, which occurred 3 weeks after the sorority slayings.)
In 1981, the police drama series “Hill Street Blues” premiered on NBC.
In 1989, NATO, the Warsaw Pact and 12 other European countries adopted a human rights and security agreement in Vienna, Austria.
In 1993, a historic disarmament ceremony ended in Paris with the last of 125 countries signing a treaty banning chemical weapons.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Actress Margaret O’Brien is 81. Actress Andrea Martin is 72. College and Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Randy White is 66. Actordirector Mario Van Peebles is 62. Rock musician Adam Jones (Tool) and actor James Nesbitt are 54. Singer Lisa Lisa (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam) is 52. Actor Chad Lowe is 51. Alt-country singer Will Oldham (aka Bonnie Prince Billy) is 49. Actress Regina King is 48. Actor Eddie Cahill is 41. NFL quarterback Drew Brees is 40. Rapper/reggaeton artist Pitbull is 38. Actor Victor Rasuk is 34. Electronic dance musician Skrillex is 31. Actress/singer Dove Cameron is 23. Singer-songwriter Grace VanderWaal (TV: “America’s Got Talent”) is 15.