Today in History
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 2, the second day of 2024. There are 364 days left in the year.
Birthdays: TV host Jack Hanna is 77. Movie director Todd Haynes is 63. Retired MLB All-Star pitcher David Cone is 61. Baseball Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez is 61. Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. is 56. Actor Taye Diggs is 53. Actor Renée Elise Goldsberry is 53. Actor Kate Bosworth is 41. Jazz singer-musician Trombone Shorty is 38.
ºIn 1811, Senator Timothy Pickering, a Federalist from Massachusetts, became the first member of the US Senate to be censured after he’d improperly revealed the contents of an executive document.
ºIn 1900, Secretary of State John Hay announced the “Open Door Policy” to facilitate trade with China.
ºIn 1929, the US and Canada reached agreement to preserve Niagara Falls.
ºIn 1942, the Philippine capital of Manila was captured by Japanese forces during World War II.
ºIn 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts launched his successful bid for the presidency.
ºIn 1967, Republican Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as the new governor of California in a ceremony that took place in Sacramento shortly after midnight.
ºIn 1971, 66 people were killed in a pileup of spectators leaving a soccer match at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1974, President Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 miles an hour as a way of conserving gasoline in the face of an OPEC oil embargo. (The 55 limit was effectively phased out in 1987; federal speed limits were abolished in 1995.)
ºIn 2007, the state funeral for former president Gerald R. Ford began with an elaborate service at Washington National Cathedral, then moved to Grand Rapids, Mich.
ºIn 2016, a heavily armed group led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, beginning a 41-day standoff to protest the imprisonment of two ranchers convicted of setting fires on public land and to demand the federal government turn over public lands to local control.
ºIn 2018, Senator Al Franken formally resigned from the Senate a month after the Minnesota Democrat announced his plan to leave Congress amid a series of sexual misconduct allegations, while NBC News announced that Hoda Kotb would be the co-anchor of the first two hours of the “Today” show, replacing Matt Lauer following his firing due to sexual misconduct allegations.
ºLast year, at the Vatican, tens of thousands of people filed past the body of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI as it lay in St. Peter’s Basilica, while in Brazil, thousands paid their respects to soccer legend Pele in a procession past his coffin at Vila Belmiro Stadium in his hometown of Santos.