Today in History
Today is Wednesday, Jan. 5, the fifth day of 2022. There are 360 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 5, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed assistance to countries to help them resist Communist aggression in what became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.
On this date:
In 1896, an Austrian newspaper, Wiener Presse, reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen ( RENT’- gun) of a type of radiation that came to be known as X- rays.
In 1914, auto industrialist Henry Ford announced he was going to pay workers $ 5 for an 8- hour day, as opposed to $ 2.34 for a 9- hour day. ( Employees still worked six days a week; the 5- day work week was instituted in 1926.)
In 1925, Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming took office as America’s first female governor, succeeding her late husband, William, following a special election.
In 1933, construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge. ( Work was completed four years later.)
In 1943, educator and scientist George Washington Carver, who was born into slavery, died in Tuskegee, Alabama, at about age 80.
In 1949, in his State of the Union address, President Harry S. Truman labeled his administration the Fair Deal.
In 1953, Samuel Beckett’s two- act tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot,” considered a classic of the Theater of the Absurd, premiered in Paris.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon announced that he had ordered development of the space shuttle.
In 1994, Thomas P. “Tip” O’neill, former speaker of the House of Representatives, died in Boston at age 81.
In 1998, Sonny Bono, the 1960s pop star- turned- politician, was killed when he struck a tree while skiing at the Heavenly Ski Resort on the Nevada- California state line; he was 62.
In 2004, foreigners arriving at U. S. airports were photographed and had their fingerprints scanned in the start of a government effort to keep terrorists out of the country.
In 2011, John Boehner ( BAY’- nur) was elected speaker as Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives on the first day of the new Congress.
Ten years ago: Speaking at the Pentagon, President Barack Obama launched a reshaping and shrinking of the military, vowing to preserve U. S. pre- eminence even as the Army and Marine Corps shed troops and the administration considered reducing its arsenal of nuclear weapons. A U. S. Navy destroyer rescued an Iranian fishing boat that had been commandeered by suspected pirates. Jessica Joy Rees, a Southern California girl who had become a nationally recognized face of child cancer with a blog that chronicled her fight against brain tumors, died at age 12.
Five years ago: President- elect Donald Trump, in a series of tweets, urged Republicans and Democrats to “get together” to design a replacement for President Barack Obama’s health care law. Friends and family members gathered at the next- door homes of Debbie Reynolds and daughter Carrie Fisher in the Hollywood Hills for an intimate memorial to mourn the late actors.