TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, JAN. 1, the first day of 2021. There are 364 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states shall be “forever free.”
In 1660, Englishman Samuel Pepys began keeping his famous diary.
In 1892, the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.
In 1953, country singer Hank Williams Sr., 29, was discovered dead in the back seat of his car during a stop in Oak Hill, West Virginia, 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, California.
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, John D. Ehrlichman and Robert C. Mardian guilty of charges related to the Watergate cover-up (Mardian’s conviction for conspiracy was later overturned on appeal).
In 1984, the breakup of AT&T took place as the telecommunications giant was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.
In 1992, Boutros Boutros-Ghali succeeded Javier Perez de Cuellar as secretary-general of the United Nations. In 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In 2005, Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, died near Daytona Beach, Florida, at age 80.
In 2014, the nation’s first legal recreational pot shops opened in Colorado at 8 a.m. Mountain time. TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Documentary maker Frederick Wiseman is 91. Actor Frank Langella is 83. Rock singermusician Country Joe McDonald is 79. Writer-comedian Don Novello is 78. Actor Rick Hurst is 75. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is 67. The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, is 65. Rapper Grandmaster Flash and actor Renn Woods are 63. Actor Dedee Pfeiffer is 57. Country singer Brian Flynn (Flynnville Train) is 55. Actor Morris Chestnut is 52. Rhythm and blues singer Tank is 45. Model Elin Nordegren is 41. Actors Jonas Armstrong and Eden Riegel are 40. Olympic gold medal ice dancer Meryl Davis is 34. Rock musician Noah Sierota (Echosmith) is 25.