This day in history
Today is Friday, Jan. 5, the fifth day of 2024. There are 361 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Actor Robert Duvall is 93. Juan Carlos, former king of Spain, is 86. Singer-musician Athol Guy of The Seekers is 84. Actor-director Diane Keaton is 78. Actor Ted Lange is 76. Rock guitarist Chris Stein of Blondie is 74. Former CIA director George Tenet is 71. Actor Pamela Sue Martin is 71. Actor Clancy Brown is 65. Singer Iris Dement is 63. Rock musician Kate Schellenbach (Luscious Jackson) is 58. Talk show host/ dancer Carrie Ann Inaba is 56. Rock musician Troy Van Leeuwen (Queens of the Stone Age) is 56. Actor Heather Paige Kent is 55. Rock singer Marilyn Manson is 55. Actor-comedian Jessica Chaffin is 50. Actor Bradley Cooper is 49. Actor January Jones is 46. Actor Brooklyn Sudano is 43.
►In 1896, an Austrian newspaper, Wiener Presse, reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that would come to be known as Xrays.
►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 five-day work week was instituted in 1926.)
►In 1920, the Boston Red Sox announced it had sold slugger/pitcher Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $100,000.
►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, Ala., at about age 80.
►In 1949, in his State of the Union address, President 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 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed assistance to countries to help them resist Communist aggression in what became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.
►In 1972, President Nixon announced 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 US 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 was elected speaker as Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives on the first day of the new Congress.
►In 2022, Australia denied entry to tennis star Novak Djokovic, who was seeking to play for a 10th Australian Open title later in the month; authorities canceled his visa because he failed to meet the requirements for an exemption to COVID-19 vaccination rules.
►Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his armed forces to observe a unilateral 36-hour cease-fire in Ukraine for the Orthodox Christmas holiday, the first such sweeping truce move in the nearly 11-month-old war.