On This Day In History January 1 - 31

[Da Grouch]

~1500 - Carried by a strong storm, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón's ship reached the east coast of South America, making him and his crew the first Europeans to set foot in what is today Brazil.

~1531 - Lisbon, Portugal was hit by an earthquake. 1,500 houses and all the churches were destroyed. Sea waves rushed in engulfing ships and driving the waters of the Tagus river over its banks. Casualties numbered in the thousands.

~1564 – Upon adjourning, the Council of trent asked the supreme pontiff to ratify all its decrees and definitions. This petition was complied with by Pope Pius IV in the papal bull, Benedictus Deus, which enjoins strict obedience upon all Catholics and forbids, under pain of excommunication, all unauthorized interpretation, reserving this to the Pope alone and threatens the disobedient with "the indignation of Almighty God and of his blessed apostles, Peter and Paul." Pope Pius then appointed a commission of cardinals to assist him in interpreting and enforcing the decrees. (Well, at least they weren't a bunch of pompous bastards all full of themselves...)

~1565 – The Battle of Talikota: Involving well over a quarter million combatants this huge battle was fought between the Vijayanagara Empire and the Islamic sultanates of the Deccan. The result was a decisive Deccan victory that led to the subjugation, and eventual destruction, of the last Hindu kingdom in India and brought about the consolidation of Islamic rule over much of the Indian subcontinent.

~1589 – Job was elected as the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. He would go on to exercise all his influence and play a major part in Boris Godunov's ascension to the Russian throne.

Church of the Twelve Apostles, the domestic church of the Patriarchs of
Moscow

Photo by Alexei Troshin (Алексей Трошин)


~1699 – The Treaty of Carlowitz was signed concluding the Austro-Ottoman War of 1683–1697 in which the Ottoman Empire had finally been defeated at the Battle of Zenta on September 11th, 1697.

~1700 – The Cascadia Earthquake occurred on the west coast of North America. The magnitude 9.0 to 9.2 megathrust earthquake took place in the Cascadia subduction zone. The quake involved the Juan de Fuca Plate underlying the Pacific ocean, from mid-Vancouver Island in British Columbia, along the Pacific Northwest coast to upper California. The length of the fault rupture was about 1000 kilometers (610 miles) with an average slip of 20 meters (65 ft). The earthquake caused massive tsunamis, some of which struck as far away as the coast of Japan.

~1736 – Stanislaus I of Poland abdicated his throne for 2nd and last time. He received in compensation the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar, which was to revert to France on his death.

~1785 - Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter expressing disappointment over the selection of the eagle as the symbol of the United States instead of his preferred turkey.

~1788 – The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sailed into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent. The event is commemorated as Australia Day.

The Founding of Australia, 26 January 1788, by Captain Arthur Phillip R.N.
Sydney Cove.

An original 1937 oil sketch by Algernon Talmadge


~1808 – The Rum Rebellion took place, the only successful (albeit short lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia.

~1837 – Michigan was admitted as the 26th state of the Union.

~1855 – The Point No Point Treaty was signed in Washington Territory between the US government and the S'Klallam, the Chimacum and the Skokomish tribes. Under the terms of the treaty, the original inhabitants of the Kitsap Peninsula were to cede ownership of their land in exchange for small reservations in Hood Canal and a payment of $60,000 from the federal government. It also required the natives to trade only with the United States, to free all their slaves, and it abjured them not to acquire new slaves.

~1856 – The First Battle of Seattle: Marines from the sloop of war USS Decatur helped drive off Indians attacking the town after an all day battle with settlers.

~1861 – Louisiana seceded from the Union.

~1863 – General Ambrose Burnside was relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac after the disastrous Fredericksburg Campaign. He was replaced by Joseph Hooker.

Union General Ambrose Burnside, 1862

Photographer unknown


~1863 – Governor of Massachusetts John A. Andrew received permission from the Secretary of War to raise a militia organization for "men of African descent".

~1870 – The state of Virginia was re-admitted to the Union.

~1885 – The troops of Muhammad Ahmed Al Mahdi conquered Khartoum.

~1905 – The Cullinan Diamond was found by Frederick Wells, surface manager of the Premier Diamond Mining Company in Cullinan, in what is today known as Gauteng, South Africa. The stone was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, the owner of the diamond mine. At 3,106.75 carats it is the largest rough gem quality diamond ever found.

~1907 – The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III (equipped with a P'07 Sword Bayonet) was introduced into British Military Service. Today it is the oldest military rifle still in official use.

1908 RSAF Enfield .303 Calibre Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III Rifle

Photo by Coggansfield


~1911 – Glenn H. Curtiss flew the first successful American seaplane, a Model D equipped with pontoons of his own design.

~1920 – Former company executive of Henry Ford, Henry Leland, manufactured the first car of the Lincoln Motor Company. He was forced to sell the firm to his previous employer in 1922 due to financial difficulties.

~1930 – The Indian National Congress declared 26 January as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (Complete Independence) which occurred 20 years later.

~1934 – The Apollo Theater reopened in Harlem, New York City.

~1934 – German-Polish Non Aggression Pact, a treaty between Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic, was signed. In it, both countries pledged to resolve their problems through bilateral negotiations and to forgo armed conflict for a period of at least 10 years. It effectively normalized relations between Poland and Germany which were previously strained by border disputes arising from the territorial settlement in the Treaty of Versailles. (Well, we all know how well THAT worked out then, don't we!)

~1939 – During the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona fell to troops led by nationalist General Francisco Franco and aided by Italy.

~1942 – The first US forces that would fight in Europe during World War II landed in Northern Ireland.

~1950 – The Constitution of India came into force forming a republic. Rajendra Prasad was sworn in as the first President of India. The event is observed annually as Republic Day in India.

~1952 – Rioters burnt Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper class Egyptian businesses.

~1958 – The Japanese ferry Nankai Maru capsized off of southern Awaji Island in Japan. 167 died in the incident. (10 out of 10 sources just use a damned cut and paste blurb from wiki on this so take it with a grain of salt. There is virtually no other info on the web about this disaster.)

~1962 – NASA launched Ranger 3, to study the moon. The mission was designed to boost towards the Moon by an Atlas/Agena rocket, undergo one mid course correction, and impact the lunar surface. Due to malfunctions the space probe missed the moon by 22,000 miles (35,400 km).

Ranger 3

The image released on August 14th, 1964
courtesy NASA Glenn Research Center


~1966 – The Beaumont Children, Jane Nartare Beaumont (aged 9), Arnna Kathleen Beaumont (aged 7), and Grant Ellis Beaumont (aged 4), went missing from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia. Their case resulted in one of the largest police investigations in Australian criminal history and remains Australia's most infamous cold case.

~1970 - Simon and Garfunkel released their 5th and final studio album, the classic Bridge Over Troubled Water, on Columbia Records.

~1978 – The Great Blizzard of 1978: A rare severe blizzard, with the lowest non tropical atmospheric pressure ever recorded in the US, struck the Ohio – Great Lakes region with heavy snow and winds up to 100 mph (161 km/h).

~1980 – Israel and Egypt established diplomatic relations.

~1991 – Mohamed Siad Barre was removed from power in Somalia, ending centralized government in that nation. He was succeeded by Ali Mahdi.

~1992 – Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia would stop targeting US cities with nuclear weapons. (Now that was terribly decent of him.)

~2001 – The Gujarat Earthquake: A major earthquake struck Gujarat, India. The magnitude 7.9 quake caused more than 20,000 deaths, injured another 167,000 while destroying nearly 400,000 homes throughout Gujarat and parts of eastern Pakistan.

~2004 – A dead whale exploded in the town of Tainan, Taiwan causing a disgusting mess to be splattered all over everything and everybody nearby. A build up of gas in the decomposing sperm whale was suspected of causing the explosion.

~2005 – The Glendale Train Crash: A Metrolink commuter train collided with a sport utility vehicle that had been deliberately abandoned on the tracks. The location was near the Los Feliz Blvd. undercrossing next to a Costco Store on the Glendale-Los Angeles boundary in an industrial area, north of downtown Los Angeles. The train jacknifed and struck trains on either side of it, one a stationary Union Pacific freight train and the other a Metrolink train moving in the opposite direction, resulting in the deaths of 11 people and injuries to a further 200 plus.

(Low resolution) Scene from television footage showing an aerial view of the wreck aftermath


No attribution to the camera crew or even the television station that originally aired this can be located

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[Da Grouch]

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~98 - Roman Emperor Nerva died 4 weeks after suffering a severe stroke.

~98 - Trajan became Roman Emperor upon the death of his adoptive father Nerva. Trajan was a prolific builder in Rome and the provinces, and many of his buildings were erected by the gifted architect Apollodorus of Damascus. Notable structures include Trajan's Column, Trajan's Forum, Trajan's Bridge, Alcántara Bridge, and possibly the Alconétar Bridge. In order to build his forum and the adjacent brick market that also held his name Trajan had vast areas of the surrounding hillsides leveled.

Trajan's Alcántara Bridge, widely hailed as a masterpiece of Roman Engineering

Photo taken by Dantla on February 4th, 2004


~661 - The Rashidun Caliphate, also known as the Rightly Guided Caliphate, ended with the death of Ali. It was founded after Muhammad's death in 632. At its height, the borders of the Caliphate extended throughout North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Iranian highlands.

~1142 – Noted Song Dynasty General Yue Fei was wrongfully executed, by order of Qin Hui who was acting on behalf of the opportunistic Emperor Gaozong, for purely political reasons.

~1186 – Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, married Constance of Sicily.

~1343 – Pope Clement VI issued the papal Bull Unigenitus to justify the power of the pope and the use of indulgences. This document was also used in the defence of indulgences after Martin Luther pinned his 95 Theses to a church in Wittenburg on October 31st, 1517.

~1606 – The Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators began. It ended with their executions on January 31st.

Guy Fawkes was discovered in the undercroft beneath the House of Lords shortly
after midnight on November 5th, 1605

Artist Henry Peronett Briggs (c. 1823)


~1785 – The University of Georgia was founded, the first public university in the United States.

~1825 – The U.S. Congress approved the Indian Territory (in what is present day Oklahoma), clearing the way for the forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the Trail of Tears.

~1888 – Following a gathering at the Cosmos Club, a private club then located on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Society was founded.

~1909 – The Young Liberals, the youth league of the Norwegian political party Venstre, was founded in Oslo with Anders Kirkhusmo as the first president.

~1918 – The first hostilities occurred in the Finnish Civil War.

Tampere's civilian buildings destroyed in the civil war (April, 1918)
Photographer unknown, courtesy Museum of Tampere

~1939 – The first flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Referred to as the Twin-tailed Devil by German servicemen during the Second World War the P-38 distinguished itself as a formidible weapon and adversary in both the European and Pacific theaters.

P-38s of the 370th Fighter Group (Summer, 1944)

Photo courtesy the United States Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama


~1943 – The US 8th Air Force Bomber Command dispatched 91 B-17s and B-24s to attack the U-Boat construction yards at Wilhelmshafen, Germany. It was the first American bombing attack on Germany.

~1944 – The 900 day Siege of Leningrad was lifted when German forces were pushed back more than 35 miles from the city.

1,496,000 Soviet personnel were awarded
the medal for the defence of Leningrad

Photo by Grafikm fr


~1945 – The advancing Red Army arrived at the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau where more than 1,500,000 people were murdered. Battle hardened veteran soldiers were struck numb with the horrors they discovered.

Selection on the Jewish ramp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau,
May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant labor;
to the left, the gas chambers

Photo by either Ernst Hofmann or Bernhard Walter


~1951 – Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with a 1 kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat.

~1967 – Apollo 1: Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire during a test of their spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center.

The Apollo 1 astronauts with a model of the command module. The crew
expressed serious concerns about fire hazards and other problems
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/A1prayer.jpg (broken link)
Photo courtesy NASA


The charred remains of the Apollo 1 command module on January 28th, 1967

Photo courtesy NASA (You have to give them credit for having the jam to release this shot.)


~1967 – More than 60 nations signed the Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space.

~1973 – The Paris Peace Accords officially ended the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde was killed in action just 11 hours prior to the ceasefire, becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.

~1974 – The Brisbane River breached its banks causing the largest flood to affect the city of Brisbane in the 20th Century. Continual, heavy rain had fallen for 3 weeks leading up to the flood, which occurred during the Australia Day weekend. Large areas were inundated, with at least 6,700 homes flooded. Damage at the time was estimated at some $200 million (1974 Australian dollars). The 67,320 tonne oil tanker Robert Miller unmoored and became adrift in the river, 2 tugs were needed to control it. A barge was sunk after becoming caught under, and damaging, the Centenary Bridge.

~1980 – Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, 6 American diplomats secretly escaped the hostilities in Iran (using false Canadian passports) in the culmination of the Canadian Caper.

~1983 – The pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel broke through. At 53.85 km (33.46 mi) Seikan is the world's longest undersea tunnel, running between the Japanese islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō.

~1996 – In a military coup Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposed the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane. (We just can't have democratically elected governments all over the Dark Continent ya' know...it just ain't African like!)

~1996 – Germany first observed International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

~1997 - It was revealed that French museums had in their possession nearly 2,000 pieces of art that were stolen by the Nazis. (No comment...but it's hard)

~2006 – 162 years after Samuel Morse sent his famous message "What hath God wrought?", Western Union discontinued its telegram and commercial messaging services.

The original Samuel Morse telegraph of 1844

Sketch believed to have been drawn by Samuel Morse himself

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[Da Grouch]

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~1077 – Walk to Canossa: After begging forgiveness, Henry IV Holy Roman Emperor, had his excommunication lifted by Pope Gregory VII. ("Oh Papa Pope! I'll be good from now on, I promise...can I please come back to church and play with all the other boys and girls?")

Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII in Canossa, 1077

Artist: Carlo Emanuelle (c. 1630)


~1521 – The Diet of Worms began, lasting until May 25th. A general assembly of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire took place at Worms, a small town on the Rhine River. Although other issues were dealt with at the Diet of Worms, it is most memorable for the Edict of Worms (Wormser Edikt), which addressed Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation.

Luther Before the Diet of Worms

Photogravure after the historicist painting byAnton von Werner
(1843-1915) in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.


~1547 – King Henry VIII of England died.

~1547 - Edward VI, The Boy King, ascended the throne of England upon the death of his father, Henry VIII. He was the first Protestant ruler of England.

Edward VI (c. 1550)

Artist: William Scrotts


~1573 – The articles of the Warsaw Confederation were signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland.

~1624 – Sir Thomas Warner founded the colony of Saint Christopher, the first British colony in the Caribbean, on the island of Saint Kitts.

~1724 – The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented by a Senate decree. It was originally called the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

~1760 – Pownal, Vermont was created by Benning Wentworth as one of the New Hampshire Grants.

~1813 – The classic novel Pride and Prejudice was first published in Britain.

~1820 – A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovered the Antarctic continent.

~1846 – The Battle of Aliwal was fought between the British and the Sikhs. The British were led by Sir Harry Smith, while the Sikhs were led by Ranjodh Singh Majithia. The British won a victory which is generally regarded as the turning point of the First Anglo-Sikh War.

~1871 – During the Franco-Prussian War, the Siege of Paris ended in a total French defeat and an armistice with terms dictated solely by the Prussians.

Prussian artillery during the Siege of Paris (1870)

Photo courtesy Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)


~1878 – The Yale Daily News became the first daily college newspaper in the United States.

~1887 – In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world's largest snowflakes were reported, 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick.

~1896 – Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent became the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined 1 shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thereby exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h). (I guess my rod wouldn't have been very welcome back then...)

~1902 – The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

"It is proposed to found in the city of Washington, an institution which...shall in the broadest and most liberal manner encourage investigation, research, and discovery [and] show the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind..." Andrew Carnegie January 28th, 1902

~1917 - The US military ended its search for Pancho Villa.

~1918 – The Finnish Civil War: Rebels seized control of the capital, Helsinki. Members of the Senate of Finland then went underground.

~1921 – A coffin, containing the remains of an unidentified French soldier that was killed in action during World War I, was placed in the symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to honor the unknown dead of The Great War.

~1922 – The Knickerbocker Storm: Washington D.C.'s biggest snowfall, caused the city's greatest single event loss of life when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater collapsed under the excessive snowload. 98 died and a further 133 were injured in the disaster. (This is exactly why the good Lord, in His infinite wisdom, created engineered scissor trusses!)

~1932 – The January 28 Incident: Japanese forces attacked Shanghai beginning a short war with China that lasted until early March of that year.

Chinese 19th Route Army in defensive position in the Battle of Shanghai
(1932)

Photographer unknown


~1934 – The first ski tow in the United States began operation at Woodstock, Vermont. It was operated by Bob and Betty Royce, proprietors of the White Cupboard Inn. Their tow was driven by the rear wheel of a Ford Model A. (OK, so maybe it wasn't very hi-tech...at least it worked.)

~1935 – Iceland became the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion.

~1938 – The World Land Speed Record (on a public road) was broken by driver Rudolf Caracciola in the Mercedes-Benz W125 Rekordwagen at a speed of 432.7 kilometres per hour (268.9 mph).

The W125 Rekordwagen on display at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart

Photo by MartinHansV taken on November 21st, 2006


~1941 – French-Thai War: The final battle (air) of the conflict took place. A Japanese mediated armistice went into effect later in the morning.

~1945 – Supplies began to reach the Republic of China over the newly re-opened Burma Road.

~1946 – The Bluenose, the Canadian schooner from Nova Scotia, foundered on a Haitian reef and sank. She was a celebrated racing ship (and working fishing vessel) that was a symbol of the Maritime province.

The Bluenose (c. 1930)

Photographer unknown, courtesy Nova Scotia Archives
and Records Management


~1958 – The Lego company patented the design of its modern Lego bricks, the originals are still compatible with bricks produced today.

~1964 – A U.S. Air Force jet training plane that strayed into East German airspace was shot down by Soviet fighters near Erfurt, all 3 crewmen aboard were killed.

~1965 – The current design of the Flag of Canada was proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth II. (And a truly boring partisan piece of work it is, too!)

~1977 – The first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977, which severely affected and crippled much of Upstate New York. Buffalo, Syracuse, Watertown and surrounding areas were the most affected with each area accumulating close to 10 feet of snow on this single day.

~1980 – USCGC Blackthorn collided with the tanker Capricorn while leaving Tampa Florida and capsized killing 23 Coast Guard crewmembers.

~1981 – Ronald Reagan lifted remaining domestic petroleum price and allocation controls in the United States helping to end the 1979 energy crisis and begin the 1980s oil glut.

~1982 – US Army general James L. Dozier was rescued by Italian anti-terrorism forces from captivity by the Red Brigades.

~1985 – Supergroup USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) recorded the hit single We Are the World, to help raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief.

~1986 – The Challenger Disaster: Mission STS-51-L. Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff on its 10th mission killing all 7 astronauts on board.

Challenger beginning to disintegrate

Photo courtesy NASA


~1999 - Ford Motor Company announced the buyout of Volvo for $6.45 billion.

~2002 – TAME Flt. 120, a Boeing 727-100, crashed into the Andes mountains in southern Colombia killing all 92 aboard.

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[Da Grouch]

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~904 - Sergius III became Pope. He was possibly the only pope known to have ordered the murder of another pope and the only pope known to have fathered an illegitimate son who later became pope, his pontificate has been described as "dismal and disgraceful." (Oh...I could have SO much fun with this one if I wanted to!)

~1119 – Died this day: Pope Gelasius II

~1676 – At the age of 14 Feodor III succeeded his father, Alexis I, as Tsar of Russia.

~1814 – The Battle of Brienne was fought and resulted in the victory of Emperor Napoleon I's French forces over the Russian and Prussian forces commanded by the Prussian Generalfeldmarschall Prince von Blücher.

Napoleon was nearly taken by the Cossacks at the Battle of Brienne. French general Gourgaud saved the life of the Emperor
by killing a cossack who tried to transpierce him his lance.

Artist: C. G. Lohse, 19th century lithograph courtesy McGill University Libraries


~1820 - Died this day: King George III of Britain and Ireland.

~1820 - George IV ascended the throne of Great Britain and Ireland upon the death of his father George III.

~1845 – The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe was first published, in the New York Evening Mirror.

"The Raven" depicts a mysterious raven's midnight visit to a
mourning narrator

Artist: John Tenniel (1858)


~1850 – Henry Clay introduced the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.

~1856 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issued a Warrant under the royal sign manual that established the Victoria Cross, originally to recognize acts of valour by British military personnel during the Crimean War.

The Victoria Cross

Image courtesy Richard Harvey


~1861 – Kansas was admitted as the 34th state of the Union.

~1863 – The Battle of Bear River between the US Army and the Shoshone Indians under chief Bear Hunter turned into the Bear River Massacre after the Indians ran out of ammunition. After most of the men were killed soldiers proceeded to rape and molest the women of the encampment and many of the children were also shot and killed. In some cases, soldiers held the feet of infants by the heel and "beat their brains out on any hard substance they could find." Those women who refused to submit to the soldiers were shot and killed. The soldiers also deliberately burned almost everything they could get their hands on, especially the dwelling structures that the Shoshone had been sleeping in, and killed anybody they found to be still inside.

~1880 – Born this day: W.C. Fields, American actor, comedian, writer and juggler. (d. 1946) (It's reported that he didn't like ANY of the other kids in the nursery and he threw his bottle at the hospital dog...)

The one and only W.C. Fields
http://www.freeclipartnow.com/d/34358-1/W-C-Fields.jpg (broken link)
Photo courtesy http://www.freeclipartnow.com


~1886 – Karl Benz patented the first successful gasoline driven automobile, the Benz Patent Motorwagon, as DRP-37435: "automobile fueled by gas".

1885 Benz Patent Motorwagon

Author of image unknown


~1891 – Lili'uokalani was proclaimed Queen of Hawaii, its last monarch.

~1916 – The first air raid against Paris took place when German zeppelins bombed the city.

~1929 - The Seeing Eye organization was formed. They have since supplied over 15,000 seeing eye dogs to the blind.

~1936 – The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame were announced.

~1939 - Japan's ultra-maneuverable Nakajima Ki-43 "Oscar" single engine fighter took to the air on its maiden flight. (Although the official company records of this occurrence were destroyed in an air raid during World War II, there are at least 2 peripheral sources that indicate this as the actual day of the event. )

Nakajima Ki-43

Photographer unknown


~1940 – Three trains on the Sakurajima Line, in Osaka, Japan, collided and exploded while approaching Ajikawaguchi station. 189 people were killed and another 69 injured in the disaster.

The January, 1940 wreck at Ajikawaguchi

Photographer unknown


~1943 - The first day of the Battle of Rennell Island. The USS Chicago was torpedoed and heavily damaged by Japanese bombers.

The USS Chicago low in the water on the morning of January 30, 1943, from torpedo damage inflicted the previous evening

Photo courtesy US Navy (Historical Center)


~1944 – The USS Missouri (BB-63), The Peace Ship, was launched at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She was the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy.

The USS Missouri bombarding Communist positions off Chong Jin, Korea with her 16" main batteries on October 21st, 1950.
She was less than 40 miles from the Soviet border at the time so all hands were at General Quarters

Photo courtesy the US Navy and US National Archives


~1944 – 38 men, women, and children died and another 12 were wounded in the Koniuchy Massacre in Poland.

~1944 – In Bologna, Italy, the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio was destroyed during an air raid.

~1958 - Spree killer Charles Starkweather was captured in Wyoming. The tale of Starkweather and his 14 year old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, has been the inspiration for several songs and movies, including the 1994 hit Natural Born Killers.

~1959 - Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty was first released. It was the last animated feature produced by Disney to be based upon a fairy tale until the studio returned to the genre with 1989's The Little Mermaid.

~1964 - The 1964 Winter Olympic Games opened in Innsbruck, Austria.

~1966 - The first of 608 performances of Sweet Charity opened at the Palace Theatre in New York City.

~1971 - Chrysler manufactured its last 426 hemi for production models. It is believed that the elephant motor was installed into a '71 Hemi 'Cuda on March 5th. (A lot of us still cry over that day.)

~1979 – A 16 year old female headcase killed 2 people and wounded 8 at the Grover Cleveland Elementary School Shootings in San Diego. The incident was immortalized in the Boomtown Rats 1979 hit "I don't like Mondays".

~1986 - The Height 611 UFO Incident occurred in Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Krai, USSR.

~1995 - Super Bowl XXIX: The San Francisco 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers 49-26 and became the first NFL team to win 5 Super Bowl titles.

~1996 – President Jacques Chirac announced a "definitive end" to French nuclear weapons testing. (Take a deep breath and just let it go, Ron...)

~1996 – La Fenice, Venice's opera house, was destroyed by an arson fire.

~1998 – In Birmingham, Alabama a bomb exploded at an abortion clinic, killing one person and severely wounding another. The Olympic Park Bomber was suspected as the culprit.

~2001 – Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia stormed parliament and demanded that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals.

~2002 – In his State of the Union Address, United States President George W. Bush describes "regimes that sponsor terror" as an Axis of Evil, in which he includes Iran, North Korea and Iraq. (Oh, yeah...Iraq has weapons of mass destruction...right, I'm all over that...hey, let's invade them...OK?)

~2005 – The first direct commercial flights from the mainland China (from Guangzhou) to Taiwan since 1949 arrived in Taipei. Shortly afterwards, a China Airlines carrier landed in Beijing.

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[Da Grouch]

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~1048 – Protestantism: The villagers in and around today's Baden-Baden elected their own priest in defiance of the local bishop. Later, in a move that would not be seen again until the Protestant Reformation, he was also elected Pope by acclamatio, only to die that same day. It is supected that Ildebrando di Soana heard of the acclamatio and used it later to get elected himself as Pope Gregory VII.

~1648 – The Eighty Years' War: The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück was signed, finally ending the conflict between the Netherlands and Spain.

~1649 – King Charles I of England was beheaded for treason. His last words were, "I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be."

A 1649 German print showing the execution of Charles I outside the Banqueting House, Whitehall, London.

Artist unknown


~1661 – The body of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England was exhumed and ritually executed 2 years after his death, on the anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed. (Just what in hell THAT was all about we can only guess.)

~1790 – The first boat specializing as a lifeboat was tested on the River Tyne. It was built by Henry Greathead.

~1806 – The original Lower Trenton Bridge, which spans the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, was opened.

~1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge was opened. It is considered the world's first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales.

The Menai Suspension Bridge as pictured on a Staffordshire stoneware plate from around 1850. The plate is most likely the product of Thomas Dimmock & Co.

Photo by Petri Krohn


~1835 – In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, a mentally ill Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot president Andrew Jackson. He failed when both his pistols misfired and he was subdued by the crowd present, including several congressmen and Jackson himself.

~1858 РThe first Hall̩ concert was given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of the Hall̩ Orchestra as a full time professional orchestra.

~1862 – The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor was launched.

~1889 – Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, was found dead along with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in Mayerling. The incident was an apparent double suicide pact.

~1911 – The destroyer USS Terry (DD-25) made the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of James McCurdy 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.

USS Terry in harbor (c. 1912)

Photo courtesy US Navy


~1925 – The Government of Turkey unceremoniously tossed Patriarch Constantine VI out of Istanbul after only 43 days in the position.

~1930 – The first flight of the Molchanov Radiosonde. Robert Bureau coined the name "radiosonde" and flew the first instrument on January 7th, 1929. Pavel Molchanov developed his independently a year later and launched it in Pavlovsk, USSR. Molchanov's design became a popular standard due to its simplicity and because it converted sensor readings to Morse code, making it particularly easy to use without special equipment or training.

~1933 – Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany by a reluctant German president, Paul von Hindenburg. (Hmmm...maybe not a good move there.)

On a more pleasant note: ~1933 - The first of 2,956 episodes of The Lone Ranger premiered on WXYZ radio in Detroit, Michigan and later on the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network and then on NBC's Blue Network (that later became ABC, which broadcast the show's last new episode on September 3, 1954). Elements of the Lone Ranger story were first used in an earlier series Fran Striker wrote for a station in Buffalo, New York.

~1934 - The first flight of the Luftwaffe's beautiful and delightful to fly biplane fighter, the Arado Ar 68.

The Arado Ar 68

Photo by Klinke & Co. (c. 1936), courtesy the Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)


~1944 - The Battle of Cisterna was fought in central Italy as part of the Battle of Anzio that followed Operation Shingle. The battle was a clear German victory which also had repercussions on the employment of U.S. Army Rangers that went beyond the immediate tactical and strategic results of the battle.

~1944 – In the Marshall Islands, US troops invaded Japanese held Majuro and occupied the island.

~1945 – The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with refugees fleeing the approaching Red Army, sank in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by the Soviet submarine S-13. It is believed that no less than 9,343 people were killed in the attack; to date this remains the deadliest known maritime disaster.

Wilhelm Gustloff as a hospital ship. Danzig, September 23rd 1939

Photo by Hans Sönnke, courtesy the Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)


~1945 – The Raid at Cabanatuan: 126 American Rangers and Filipino resistance liberated more than 500 prisoners from the Cabanatuan POW camp.

Former Cabanatuan POWs celebrate on January 30th, 1945
after the successful raid on the prison camp

Photo courtesy the U.S. National Archives


~1945 – Hitler gave his last ever public address, a radio address on the 12th anniversary of his coming to power. (A subsequent address on February 24 was not read by Hitler.)

~1948 – Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist.

~1948 – Died this day: Orville Wright, American aviation pioneer. (b. 1871)

~1951 - Died this day: Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, Austrian automotive engineer and creator of the Volkswagen Beetle. (b. 1875)

~1956 – American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s home was firebombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

~1958 - Died this day: Ernst Heinkel, German aviation engineer (b. 1888)

~1960 – The African National Party (Parti National Africain, PNA) was founded through the merger remnants of 4 parties based in the Muslim dominated northern Chad.

~1962 - 2 of the highwire Flying Wallendas were killed when their famous 7-person pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit, Michigan.

~1964 – NASA launched Ranger 6. While the spacecraft did impact with the moon as planned the onboard TV cameras failed to transpond and the mission was ultimately a failure.

Ranger 6

Image courtesy NASA


~1969 – The Beatles made their last public performance on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert was broken up by the police. (Obviously the cops were Stones fans!)

~1971 – Carole King's album Tapestry was released, it would become the longest charting album by a female solo artist and sell 24 million copies worldwide.

~1972 – British Paratroopers killed 14 unarmed civil rights/anti internment marchers in Northern Ireland.

~1972 – Pakistan withdrew from the Commonwealth of Nations in protest at the Commonwealth's recognition of breakaway Bangladesh. (But they came back to the party on August 2nd, 1989 because they figured there was money to be made with the Old Boys Network.)

~1979 – A Varig Boeing 707-323C freighter, commanded by the same pilot that had flown the ill-fated Varig Flt. 820 6 years earlier, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo.

~1982 – Richard Skrenta wrote the first PC virus code, which was 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called Elk Cloner. (The DINK!)

~1989 – The US closed its embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

~1994 – 14 year old Serbian born Péter Lékó became the youngest chess grand master.

~1996 – Gino Gallagher, the suspected leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, was killed while waiting in line for his unemployment benefit. (Sometimes these easy ones are REALLY hard to let go of...)

~2000 – Just offshore from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Kenya Airways Flt 431 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169 of the 179 aboard.

~2002 - Slobodan Milosevic accused the United Nations war crimes tribunal of an "evil and hostile attack" against him. (And if anybody would know an "evil and hostile attack" when they saw one...!)

...

[Da Grouch]

.

~314 – Silvester I began his reign as Pope of the Catholic Church, succeeding Pope Miltiades who had died on January 10th.

~1504 – France ceded Naples to Aragon. The war between Aragon and France ultimately resulted in an Aragonese victory leaving Ferdinand of Aragon in control of the Kingdom of Naples. The kingdom continued to be a focus of dispute between France and Spain for the next several decades, but French efforts to gain control of it became feebler as the decades went on and Spanish control was never genuinely endangered.

~1606 – The Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes was executed for his plotting against Parliament and James I of England. Sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered Fawkes, although weakened by his torture, managed to jump from the gallows and break his neck, thereby avoiding the gruesome latter part of his execution.

~1747 – The first venereal diseases clinic opened at London Lock Hospital. (*sigh*...sometimes it's too bad this is a PG rated forum, I could have SUCH fun with this.)

~1814 – Gervasio Antonio de Posadas becomes Supreme Director of Argentina. (Can you say: DICTATOR?)

~1846 – Following the Milwaukee Bridge War, Juneautown and Kilbourntown unified as the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

~1848 – John C. Fremont was court martialed on grounds of mutiny and disobeying orders. (Too bad they didn't hang the bastard!)

~1849 – The Corn Laws were abolished in the United Kingdom. These laws are often viewed as examples of British mercantilism, and their abolition marked a significant step towards free trade.

~1862 – Alvan Graham Clark, while testing a new 18 1/2 inch refracting telescope in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, made the first observation of Sirius B. The magnitude 8 companion of Sirius is also the first known white dwarf star. The 18 1/2 inch refracting telescope is now still being used at the landmark Dearborn Observatory of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

The image of Sirius and Sirius B taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The white dwarf can be seen to the lower left. The diffraction spikes
and concentric rings are Instrumental effects

Photo courtesy NASA & ESA


~1865 – The United States Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, abolishing slavery, and submitted it to the states for ratification.

~1865 – CSA General Robert E. Lee was promoted to the rank of General In Chief.

~1891 – The first attempt at a Portuguese republican revolution erupted in the northern city of Porto. This would go on to result ultimately in the creation of the Portuguese Republic in 1910.

~1900 – Datu Muhammad Salleh was assassinated in Kampung Teboh, Tambunan, ending the Mat Salleh Rebellion in Malaysia.

~1915 – German forces used poison gas for the first time when they fired shells containing xylyl bromide at Russian troops near the town of Bolimów, Poland.

~1917 – Germany announced its U-boats would engage in unrestricted submarine warfare. (Hmmm, I dunno...that one could blow up in your faces, guys.)

World War I German U-boat (U-14)

Photographer unknown, courtesy Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)

~1918 – A series of accidental collisions on a foggy Scottish night led to the loss of 2 Royal Navy submarines with over 100 lives lost and damage to 3 other submarines and a light cruiser.

~1919 – The Battle of George Square took place in Glasgow, Scotland. It was one of the worst riots in the history of Glasgow. The dispute revolved around a campaign for shorter working hours, backed by widespread strike action.

~1928 – The Soviet Union exiled Leon Trotsky to Alma Ata (now in Kazakhstan).

~1930 – 3M began marketing Scotch Tape.

~1936 - The Green Hornet premiered on radio station WXYZ (the same local Detroit station which originated The Lone Ranger), the Mutual Broadcasting System and the network known through its succession of various owners as NBC Blue, the Blue Network and the ABC Network until its final airing on December 5th, 1952. The series detailed the adventures of Britt Reid, debonair newspaper publisher by day, crime fighting masked hero by night.

~1943 – German Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet Red Army at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of World War II's fiercest battles. Paulus surrendered a day after he was promoted to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall by Adolf Hitler. Hitler expected Paulus to commit suicide, citing that there was no record of a German field marshal ever surrendering to enemy forces. While in Soviet captivity during the war he became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Russian sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany. He would not be released until 1953.

~1944 – A massive American invasion force landed on, and quickly seized control of, the Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese held Marshall Islands.

U.S. Infantry inspect an enemy bunker after capturing the Kwajalein Atoll from the Japanese, January 31st, 1944
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/78/Kwajalein-closing_in.jpeg (broken link)
Photographer unknown, Official U.S. Army Signal Corps Photograph, Graflex-Made. Made available by
Joseph Garofalo - 121st Seabees, 4th Marine Division.


~1944 – During the Anzio campaign, the 1st Ranger Battalion (Darby's Rangers) was destroyed behind enemy lines in a heavily outnumbered encounter at the Battle of Cisterna, Italy.

~1945 – US Army private Eddie Slovik was executed by firing squad for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War.

~1950 – US President Harry S. Truman announced a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.

~1953 – A North Sea storm and ensuing flood caused 1,835 deaths, mostly in the Netherlands. A combination of a high spring tide and a severe European windstorm caused a storm tide. In combination with a tidal surge of the North Sea the water level locally exceeded 5.6 metres above mean sea level. The flood and waves overwhelmed the sea defences and caused extensive flooding.

~1957 – A mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner on a test flight and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet over Pacoima, California resulted in 8 deaths (including 4 on the ground) and 74 injuries.

~1958 – Explorer 1 was launched. It was the first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit. The mission would result in the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt, a torus of energetic charged particles (plasma) around Earth which is held in place by Earth's magnetic field.

Explorer 1 satellite

Image courtesy NASA


~1961 – Mercury-Redstone 2: Ham the Chimp travelled into outer space in the first US manned (?) space flight. In spite of everything going wrong during the mission that could go wrong Ham survived unscathed and the 3 year old monkey went into retirement at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. (No word as to whether he ever received his NASA pension or not...maybe he just got a non-stop supply of bananas.)

Ham fitted into a special biopack couch prior to flight

Photo courtesy NASA


~1966 – The Soviet Union launched the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program. Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data back to Earth.

Luna 9 spacecraft

Image courtesy NASA


~1968 – The Tet Offensive began when Viet Cong forces launched a series of surprise attacks in South Vietnam.

~1968 – Nauru, the world's smallest island nation at just 21 square kilometres (8.1 square miles), was granted its full independence from Australia.

~1971 – Apollo 14: Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lifted off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.

The crew of Apollo 14, left to right: S. Roosa, A. Shepard, E. Mitchell

Photo courtesy NASA

Launch of Apollo 14
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8f/Apollo14Launch.jpg (broken link)
Photo courtesy NASA


~1971 – The Winter Soldier Investigation, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, began in Detroit, Michigan.

~1971 - The first (prototype) of the now legendary Soviet designed T-72 main battle tank rolled out of the factory to begin trials.

T-72 Ajeya of the Indian Army
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/T-72_Ajeya1.jpg (broken link)
Photo by cell105 as posted on flickr
http://flickr.com/photos/cell105/3226605028/in/pool-tanktanks


~1990 – The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opened in Moscow. (Still the only country where you can get a shot of vodka with your Big Mac.)

~1996 - Comet Hyakutake was first discovered, by Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake.

The region around the nucleus of Comet Hyakutake, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Some fragments can be
seen breaking off.

Photos courtesy NASA
(Yeah, I know...it seems to be NASA's day today.)


~1996 – A truck filled with explosives rammed into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in Colombo, Sri Lanka killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400 more when it detonated.

~2000 – Alaska Airlines Flt. 261, an MD-83, crashed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Mugu, California due to loss of horizontal stabilizer control. All 88 people on board were killed. Following the crash, the acme nut and jackscrew recovered from the aircraft were found to be excessively worn and the cause of the crash, due to inadequate maintenance. As a result the FAA ordered airlines to inspect and lubricate the jackscrew more frequently.

~2001 – In the Netherlands a Scottish court convicted Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and acquitted another Libyan citizen for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flt. 103 which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21st, 1988.

~2003 – The Waterfall Rail Accident occurred near Waterfall, New South Wales, Australia when the train driver (engineer) suffered a heart attack and the train entered a sharp turn at too high a speed. It was never determined why the deadman (safety) switch failed to stop the train when the driver collapsed.

Rescuers working the scene of the Waterfall Rail Accident

Photo by Dallas Kilponen


~2004 - Mystery Science Theater 3000 ended its run on the Sci-Fi Channel.

~2007 – 9 suspects were arrested in Birmingham, England and accused of plotting the kidnap, holding and eventual beheading of a Muslim British soldier serving in Iraq.

~2009 – In Kenya, at least 113 people were killed and over 200 injured following an oil spillage ignition in Molo. The incident occurred when an oil spill from an overturned truck burst into flames as onlookers attempted to obtain remnants of the spilled fuel for personal use. This was just days after a massive fire at a Nakumatt supermarket in Nairobi killed at least 25 people.

...

[419gottaminute]

Originally Posted by Da Grouch

.

~314 – Silvester I began his reign as Pope of the Catholic Church, succeeding Pope Miltiades who had died on January 10th.

~1504 – France ceded Naples to Aragon. The war between Aragon and France ultimately resulted in an Aragonese victory leaving Ferdinand of Aragon in control of the Kingdom of Naples. The kingdom continued to be a focus of dispute between France and Spain for the next several decades, but French efforts to gain control of it became feebler as the decades went on and Spanish control was never genuinely endangered.

~1606 – The Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes was executed for his plotting against Parliament and James I of England. Sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered Fawkes, although weakened by his torture, managed to jump from the gallows and break his neck, thereby avoiding the gruesome latter part of his execution.

~1747 – The first venereal diseases clinic opened at London Lock Hospital. (*sigh*...sometimes it's too bad this is a PG rated forum, I could have SUCH fun with this.)

~1814 – Gervasio Antonio de Posadas becomes Supreme Director of Argentina. (Can you say: DICTATOR?)

~1846 – Following the Milwaukee Bridge War, Juneautown and Kilbourntown unified as the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

~1848 – John C. Fremont was court martialed on grounds of mutiny and disobeying orders. (Too bad they didn't hang the bastard!)

~1849 – The Corn Laws were abolished in the United Kingdom. These laws are often viewed as examples of British mercantilism, and their abolition marked a significant step towards free trade.

~1862 – Alvan Graham Clark, while testing a new 18 1/2 inch refracting telescope in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, made the first observation of Sirius B. The magnitude 8 companion of Sirius is also the first known white dwarf star. The 18 1/2 inch refracting telescope is now still being used at the landmark Dearborn Observatory of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

The image of Sirius and Sirius B taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The white dwarf can be seen to the lower left. The diffraction spikes
and concentric rings are Instrumental effects

Photo courtesy NASA & ESA


~1865 – The United States Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, abolishing slavery, and submitted it to the states for ratification.

~1865 – CSA General Robert E. Lee was promoted to the rank of General In Chief.

~1891 – The first attempt at a Portuguese republican revolution erupted in the northern city of Porto. This would go on to result ultimately in the creation of the Portuguese Republic in 1910.

~1900 – Datu Muhammad Salleh was assassinated in Kampung Teboh, Tambunan, ending the Mat Salleh Rebellion in Malaysia.

~1915 – German forces used poison gas for the first time when they fired shells containing xylyl bromide at Russian troops near the town of Bolimów, Poland.

~1917 – Germany announced its U-boats would engage in unrestricted submarine warfare. (Hmmm, I dunno...that one could blow up in your faces, guys.)

World War I German U-boat (U-14)

Photographer unknown, courtesy Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)

~1918 – A series of accidental collisions on a foggy Scottish night led to the loss of 2 Royal Navy submarines with over 100 lives lost and damage to 3 other submarines and a light cruiser.

~1919 – The Battle of George Square took place in Glasgow, Scotland. It was one of the worst riots in the history of Glasgow. The dispute revolved around a campaign for shorter working hours, backed by widespread strike action.

~1928 – The Soviet Union exiled Leon Trotsky to Alma Ata (now in Kazakhstan).

~1930 – 3M began marketing Scotch Tape.

~1936 - The Green Hornet premiered on radio station WXYZ (the same local Detroit station which originated The Lone Ranger), the Mutual Broadcasting System and the network known through its succession of various owners as NBC Blue, the Blue Network and the ABC Network until its final airing on December 5th, 1952. The series detailed the adventures of Britt Reid, debonair newspaper publisher by day, crime fighting masked hero by night.

~1943 – German Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet Red Army at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of World War II's fiercest battles. Paulus surrendered a day after he was promoted to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall by Adolf Hitler. Hitler expected Paulus to commit suicide, citing that there was no record of a German field marshal ever surrendering to enemy forces. While in Soviet captivity during the war he became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Russian sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany. He would not be released until 1953.

~1944 – A massive American invasion force landed on, and quickly seized control of, the Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese held Marshall Islands.

U.S. Infantry inspect an enemy bunker after capturing the Kwajalein Atoll from the Japanese, January 31st, 1944

Photographer unknown, Official U.S. Army Signal Corps Photograph, Graflex-Made. Made available by
Joseph Garofalo - 121st Seabees, 4th Marine Division.


~1944 – During the Anzio campaign, the 1st Ranger Battalion (Darby's Rangers) was destroyed behind enemy lines in a heavily outnumbered encounter at the Battle of Cisterna, Italy.

~1945 – US Army private Eddie Slovik was executed by firing squad for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War.

~1950 – US President Harry S. Truman announced a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.

~1953 – A North Sea storm and ensuing flood caused 1,835 deaths, mostly in the Netherlands. A combination of a high spring tide and a severe European windstorm caused a storm tide. In combination with a tidal surge of the North Sea the water level locally exceeded 5.6 metres above mean sea level. The flood and waves overwhelmed the sea defences and caused extensive flooding.

~1957 – A mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner on a test flight and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet over Pacoima, California resulted in 8 deaths (including 4 on the ground) and 74 injuries.

~1958 – Explorer 1 was launched. It was the first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit. The mission would result in the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt, a torus of energetic charged particles (plasma) around Earth which is held in place by Earth's magnetic field.

Explorer 1 satellite

Image courtesy NASA


~1961 – Mercury-Redstone 2: Ham the Chimp travelled into outer space in the first US manned (?) space flight. In spite of everything going wrong during the mission that could go wrong Ham survived unscathed and the 3 year old monkey went into retirement at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. (No word as to whether he ever received his NASA pension or not...maybe he just got a non-stop supply of bananas.)

Ham fitted into a special biopack couch prior to flight

Photo courtesy NASA


~1966 – The Soviet Union launched the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program. Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data back to Earth.

Luna 9 spacecraft

Image courtesy NASA


~1968 – The Tet Offensive began when Viet Cong forces launched a series of surprise attacks in South Vietnam.

~1968 – Nauru, the world's smallest island nation at just 21 square kilometres (8.1 square miles), was granted its full independence from Australia.

~1971 – Apollo 14: Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lifted off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.

The crew of Apollo 14, left to right: S. Roosa, A. Shepard, E. Mitchell

Photo courtesy NASA

Launch of Apollo 14

Photo courtesy NASA


~1971 – The Winter Soldier Investigation, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, began in Detroit, Michigan.

~1971 - The first (prototype) of the now legendary Soviet designed T-72 main battle tank rolled out of the factory to begin trials.

T-72 Ajeya of the Indian Army

Photo by cell105 as posted on flickr
http://flickr.com/photos/cell105/3226605028/in/pool-tanktanks


~1990 – The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opened in Moscow. (Still the only country where you can get a shot of vodka with your Big Mac.)

~1996 - Comet Hyakutake was first discovered, by Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake.

The region around the nucleus of Comet Hyakutake, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Some fragments can be
seen breaking off.

Photos courtesy NASA
(Yeah, I know...it seems to be NASA's day today.)


~1996 – A truck filled with explosives rammed into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in Colombo, Sri Lanka killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400 more when it detonated.

~2000 – Alaska Airlines Flt. 261, an MD-83, crashed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Mugu, California due to loss of horizontal stabilizer control. All 88 people on board were killed. Following the crash, the acme nut and jackscrew recovered from the aircraft were found to be excessively worn and the cause of the crash, due to inadequate maintenance. As a result the FAA ordered airlines to inspect and lubricate the jackscrew more frequently.

~2001 – In the Netherlands a Scottish court convicted Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and acquitted another Libyan citizen for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flt. 103 which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21st, 1988.

~2003 – The Waterfall Rail Accident occurred near Waterfall, New South Wales, Australia when the train driver (engineer) suffered a heart attack and the train entered a sharp turn at too high a speed. It was never determined why the deadman (safety) switch failed to stop the train when the driver collapsed.

Rescuers working the scene of the Waterfall Rail Accident

Photo by Dallas Kilponen


~2004 - Mystery Science Theater 3000 ended its run on the Sci-Fi Channel.

~2007 – 9 suspects were arrested in Birmingham, England and accused of plotting the kidnap, holding and eventual beheading of a Muslim British soldier serving in Iraq.

~2009 – In Kenya, at least 113 people were killed and over 200 injured following an oil spillage ignition in Molo. The incident occurred when an oil spill from an overturned truck burst into flames as onlookers attempted to obtain remnants of the spilled fuel for personal use. This was just days after a massive fire at a Nakumatt supermarket in Nairobi killed at least 25 people.

...

awesome post...also the day I was born, 1972...