Today in History

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024

Today is Thursday, Jan. 11, the 11th day of 2024. There are 355 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Jan. 11, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon National Monument (it became a national park in 1919).

On this date:

In 1913, the first enclosed sedantype automobile, a Hudson, went on display at the 13th National Automobile Show in New York. In 1927, the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was proposed during a dinner of Hollywood luminaries at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. In 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart began an 18-hour trip from Honolulu to Oakland, California, that made her the first person to fly solo across any part of the Pacific Ocean. In 1943, the United States and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China. In 1963, the Beatles’ single “Please Please Me” (B side “Ask Me Why”) was released in Britain by Parlophone. In 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued “Smoking and Health,” a report that concluded that “cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.” In 1978, two Soviet cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz 27capsule linked up with the Salyut 6 orbiting space station, where the Soyuz 26capsule was already docked. In 1989, nine days before leaving the White House, President Ronald Reagan bade the nation farewell in a prime-time address, saying of his eight years in office: “We meant to change a nation and instead we changed a world.” In 2003, calling the death penalty process “arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral,” Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167condemned inmates, clearing his state’s death row two days before leaving office. In 2010, Mark Mcgwire admitted to The Associated Press that he’d used steroids and human growth hormone when he broke baseball’s home run record in 1998. In 2018, Edgar Ray Killen, a 1960s Klan leader who was convicted decades later in the slayings of three civil rights workers, died in prison at the age of 92. In 2020, health authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan reported the first death from what had been identified as a new type of coronavirus; the patient was a 61-year-old man who’d been a frequent customer at a food market linked to the majority of cases there. In 2023, Jeff Beck, a guitar virtuoso who pushed the boundaries of blues, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll and influenced generations of players, died at age 78. Today’s birthdays: Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (zhahn kray-tee-ehn’) is 90. Movie director Joel Zwick is 82. World Golf Hall of Famer Ben Crenshaw is 72. Singer Robert Earl Keen is 62. Actor Phyllis Logan is 68. Musician Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) is 66. Actor Kim Coles is 61. Actor Jason Connery is 61. Former child actor Dawn Lyn (TV: “My Three Sons”) is 61. Rock musician Tom Dumont (No Doubt) is 56. Movie director Malcolm D. Lee is 54. Singer Mary J. Blige is 53. Musician Tom Rowlands (The Chemical Brothers) is 53. Actor Marc Blucas is 52. Actor Amanda Peet is 52. Actor Rockmond Dunbar is 51. Actor Aja Naomi King is 39. Actor Kristolyn Lloyd is 39. Reality TV star Jason Wahler is 37. Pop singer Cody Simpson is 27.

Friday, Jan. 12, 2024

Today is Friday, Jan. 12, the 12th day of 2024. There are 354 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Jan. 12, 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. founded Motown Records (originally Tamla Records) in Detroit.

On this date:

In 1828, the United States and Mexico signed a Treaty of Limits defining the boundary between the two countries to be the same as the one established by an 1819 treaty between the U.S. and Spain. In 1910, at a White House dinner hosted by President William Howard Taft, Baroness Rosen, wife of the Russian ambassador, caused a stir by requesting and smoking a cigarette — it was, apparently, the first time a woman had smoked openly during a public function in the executive mansion. (Some of the other women present who had brought their own cigarettes began lighting up in turn.) In 1915, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected, 204-174, a proposed constitutional amendment to give women nationwide the right to vote. In 1932, Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate after initially being appointed to serve out the remainder of the term of her late husband, Thaddeus. In 1945, during World War II, Soviet forces began a major, successful offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe. Aircraft from U.S. Task Force 38sank about 40 Japanese ships off Indochina. In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, unanimously ruled that state law schools could not discriminate against applicants on the basis of race. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson said in his State of the Union address that the U.S. military should stay in Vietnam until Communist aggression there was stopped. In 1969, the New York Jets of the American Football League upset the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League 16-7 in Super Bowl III, played at the Orange Bowl in Miami. In 1971, the groundbreaking situation comedy “All in the Family” premiered on CBS television. In 2000, in a 5-4decision, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Illinois v. Wardlow, gave police broad authority to stop and question people who run at the sight of an officer. In 2010, Haiti was struck by a magnitude-7 earthquake; the Haitian government said 316,000 people were killed, while a report prepared for the U.S. Agency for International Development suggested the death toll may have been between 46,000and 85,000. In 2013, the NHL’S four-month lockout finally ended as the league and the players’ association completed signing a required memorandum of understanding. In 2016, Iran detained 10American sailors and their two small Navy boats after the boats drifted into Iranian waters; the sailors and their vessels were released the following day. In 2018, sportscaster Keith Jackson, best known as the downhome voice of college football, died; he was 89. In 2022, Ronnie Spector, who sang 1960s hits including “Be My Baby” as leader of the girl group The Ronettes, died at 78after a brief battle with cancer. In 2023, Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of Elvis Presley and a singer-songwriter dedicated to her father’s legacy, died at age 54. Today’s birthdays: The Amazing Kreskin is 89. Country singer William Lee Golden (The Oak Ridge Boys) is 85. Actor Anthony Andrews is 76. Movie director Wayne Wang is 75. Legal affairs blogger Ann Althouse is 73. Writer Walter Mosley is 72. Country singer Ricky Van Shelton is 72. Radio-tv personality Howard Stern is 70. Writer-producer-director John Lasseter is 67. Broadcast journalist Christiane Amanpour is 66. Actor Oliver Platt is 64. Basketball Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins is 64. Entrepreneur Jeff Bezos is 60. Rock singer Rob Zombie is 59. Actor Olivier Martinez is 58. Model Vendela is 57. Actor Rachael Harris is 56. Rock singer Zack de la Rocha is 54. Rapper Raekwon (Wu Tang Clan) is 54. Actor Zabryna Guevara is 52. Singer Dan Haseltine (Jars of Clay) is 51. Singer Melanie Chisholm (Spice Girls) is 50. Contemporary Christian singer Jeremy Camp is 46. Actor Cynthia Addai-robinson is 44. R&B singer Amerie is 44. Actor Issa Rae is 39. Actor Will Rothhaar is 37. Actor Andrew Lawrence is 36. Singer Zayn Malik is 31. Pop/soul singer Ella Henderson (TV: “The X Factor”) is 28.

Saturday, Jan. 13,. 2024

Today is Saturday, Jan. 13, the 13th day of 2024. There are 353 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Jan. 13, 2021, President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House over the violent Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol, becoming the only president to be twice impeached; ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting to impeach Trump on a charge of “incitement of insurrection.” (Trump would again be acquitted by the Senate in a vote after his term was over.)

On this date:

In 1733, James Oglethorpe and some 120English colonists arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, while en route to settle in presentday 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 1898, Emile Zola’s famous defense of French military officer Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, “J’accuse,” (zhah-kooz’), was published in Paris. In 1941, a new law went into effect granting Puerto Ricans U.S. birthright citizenship. In 1964, Roman Catholic Bishop Karol Wojtyla (voy-tee’-wah) (the future Pope John Paul II) was appointed Archbishop of Krakow, Poland, by Pope Paul VI. In 1982, an Air Florida 737crashed 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 78people, including four motorists on the bridge; four passengers and a flight attendant survived. In 1987, West German police arrested Mohammed Ali Hamadi, a suspect in the 1985hijacking of a TWA jetliner and the killing of a U.S. Navy diver who was on board. (Although convicted and sentenced to life, Hamadi was paroled by Germany in December 2005 and returned home to Lebanon.) 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 1992, Japan apologized for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for its soldiers during World War II, citing newly uncovered documents that showed the Japanese army had had a role in abducting the socalled “comfort women.” In 2000, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stepped aside as chief executive and promoted company president Steve Ballmer to the position. In 2001, an earthquake estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey at magnitude 7.7struck El Salvador; more than 840 people were killed. In 2011, a funeral was held in Tucson, Arizona, for 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, the youngest victim of a mass shooting that claimed five other lives and critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. In 2013, 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 2011uprising that toppled his regime. (Mubarak was later ordered released.) In 2018, a false alarm that warned of a ballistic missile headed for Hawaii sent the islands into a panic, with people abandoning cars on a highway and preparing to flee their homes; officials apologized and said the alert was sent when someone hit the wrong button during a shift change. In 2020, at a royal family summit in eastern England, Queen Elizabeth II brokered a deal to secure the future of the monarchy; it would allow Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, to live part-time in Canada. In 2022, the Supreme Court found that the Biden administration had overstepped its authority by requiring that employees at large businesses get a Covid-19vaccine or test regularly and wear a mask on the job; the court allowed the administration to proceed with a vaccine mandate for most health care workers.

Today’s birthdays: TV personality Nick Clooney is 90. Comedian Charlie Brill is 86. Actor Billy Gray is 86. Rock musician Trevor Rabin is 70. Rock musician James Lomenzo (Megadeth) is 65. Actor Kevin Anderson is 64. Actor Julia Louis-dreyfus is 63. Rock singer ru(madness) is 63. Country singer Trace Adkins is 62. Actor Penelope Ann Miller is 60. Actor Patrick Dempsey is 58. Actor Suzanne Cryer is 57. Actor Traci Bingham is 56. Actor Keith Coogan is 54. TV producer-writer Shonda Rhimes is 54. Actor Nicole Eggert is 52. Actor Ross Mccall is 48. Actor Michael Pena is 48. Actor Orlando Bloom is 47. Meteorologist Ginger Zee (TV: “Good Morning America”) is 43. Actor Ruth Wilson is 42. Actor Julian Morris is 41. Actor Beau Mirchoff is 35. Actor Liam Hemsworth is 34. NHL center Connor Mcdavid is 27.