TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Monday, Jan. 1, 2024.

Today’s highlight in history

On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states shall be “forever free.”

On this date

In 1892, the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.

In 1942, the Rose Bowl was played in Durham, N.C., instead of Pasadena because of security concerns in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor; Oregon State defeated Duke, 20-16.

In 1953, Hank Williams Sr., among the most important singers and songwriters in country music history, was discovered dead at age 29 in the back seat of his car during a stop in Oak Hill, W.Va., while he was being driven to a concert date in Canton, Ohio.

In 1954, NBC broadcast the first coast-to-coast color TV program as it presented live coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena.

In 1959, Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries overthrew Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.

In 1975, a jury in Washington found Nixon administration officials John N. Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman guilty of charges related to the Watergate cover-up.

In 1985, the music cable channel VH-1, intended as a more adult alternative to MTV, made its debut with a video of Marvin Gaye performing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

In 2014, the nation’s first legal recreational marijuana shops opened in Colorado.

In 2017, California launched legal sales of recreational marijuana.

Today’s birthdays

Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman is 94. Actor Frank Langella is 86. Singer Country Joe McDonald is 82. Comedian Don Novello is 81. Actor Rick Hurst is 78. Rapper Grandmaster Flash is 66. Actor Renn Woods is 66. Singer Brian Flynn (Flynnville Train) is 58. Actor Morris Chestnut is 55. Model Elin Nordegren is 44. Actor Eden Riegel is 43. Ice dancer Meryl Davis is 37.