TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Saturday, Jan. 13.
TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT
On Jan. 13, 1968, country singer Johnny Cash performed and recorded a pair of shows at Folsom State Prison in California; material from the concerts was released as an album by Columbia Records under the title “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, ”which proved a hit.
ON THIS DATE
In 1733, James Oglethorpe and some 120 English colonists arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, while en route to settle in present-day Georgia.
In 1794, President George Washington approved a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the Union. (The number of stripes was later reduced to the original 13.)
In 1864, American songwriter Stephen Foster died in poverty in a New York hospital at age 37.
In 1898, Emile Zola’s famous defense of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, “J’accuse,” was published in Paris.
In 1915, a magnitude-7 earthquake centered in Avezzano, Italy, claimed some 30,000 lives.
In 1941, a new law went into effect granting Puerto Ricans U.S. birthright citizenship. Novelist and poet James Joyce died in Zurich, Switzerland, less than a month before his 59th birthday.
In 1962, comedian Ernie Kovacs died in a car crash in west Los Angeles 10 days before his 43rd birthday.
In 1978, former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey died in Waverly, Minnesota, at age 66.
In 1982, an Air Florida 737 crashed into Washington, D.C.’s 14th Street Bridge and fell into the Potomac River while trying to take off during a snowstorm, killing a total of 78 people; four passengers and a flight attendant survived.
In 1990, L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the nation’s first elected black governor as he took the oath of office in Richmond.
In 1997, seven black soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for World War II valor; the lone survivor of the group, former Lt. Vernon Baker, received his medal from President Bill Clinton at the White House.
In 2012, the Italian luxury liner Costa Concordia ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio and flipped onto its side; 32 people were killed.
Ten years ago: President George W. Bush, visiting the United Arab Emirates, gently urged authoritarian Arab allies to satisfy frustrated desires for democracy in the Mideast and saved his harshest criticism for Iran, branding it “the world’s leading state-sponsor of terror.”
Five years ago: A Cairo appeals court overturned Hosni Mubarak’s life sentence and ordered a retrial of the former Egyptian president for failing to prevent the killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising that toppled his regime. (Mubarak was later acquitted.)
One year ago: Republicans drove a budget through Congress giving them an early but critical victory in their crusade to scrap President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
“A little too much is just enough for me.” — Jean Cocteau, French author and filmmaker (1889-1963). THE ASSOCIATED PRESS