January 6
It’s Bean Day and Cuddle Up Day
ON THIS DAY…
0871 The Danes are defeated by the West Saxons under Ethelred and Alfred the Great at the battle of Ashdown
1066 Harold Godwinson is crowned King of England following the death of his brother-in-law Edward the Confessor; he is Englands last Anglo-Saxon king
1540 King Henry VIII marries his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves
1649 The Rump Parliament votes to put King Charles I on trial
1714 The typewriter was patented by Englishman Henry Mill, but he never succeeded in perfecting his invention and it died with him
1806 Horatio Nelson is laid to rest in Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London
1838 Samuel Morse, with his partner, Alfred Vail, gave the first public demonstration of their new invention electric telegraphic system
1851 The rotation of the Earth was proved experimentally by Leon Foucault
1854 William (or Thomas) Sherlock Scott Holmes is born at the farmstead of Mycroft, near Sigerside, in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
1904 Marconi Co establishes “CQD” as first international radio distress signal. It didn’t last long. Two years later, “SOS” became the radio distress signal because it was more convenient – meaning quicker – to send by wireless radio.
1912 New Mexico becomes the 47th state
1913 William M. Burton patented a process to “crack” petroleum, converting oil to produce gasoline
1927 Commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London
1929 Sheffield Farms of New York began using wax paper cartons instead of glass bottles for milk delivery
1929 Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta
1931 Thomas Edison submits his last patent application
1941 President Franklin Roosevelt defines the American goal of Four Freedoms freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear
1945 On leave from active duty in World War II, George Herbert Walker Bush marries Barbara Pierce
1949 The first photograph of genes was taken at the University of Southern California by Dr. Daniel Chapin Pease and Dr. Richard Freligh Baker
1949 The first atomic clock is built
1950 Britain formally recognises the Peoples Republic of China
1957 Elvis Presley makes his seventh and final appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show
1958 Gibson patents the Flying V Guitar
1963 Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins begins on NBC
1967 The final episode of The Milton Berle Show airs on ABC
1971 Berkeley chemists announced the first synthetic production of growth hormones
1971 The first adult heart transplant in the U.S. was performed at the Stanford Medical Center, Stanford, CA by Dr. Norman Shumway
1973 Schoolhouse Rock premiered on ABC with “My Hero Zero,” “Elementary, My Dear,” “Three Is a Magic Number” and “The Four-Legged Zoo” the first segments shown
1975 Wheel Of Fortune debuts on NBC-TV
1977 EMI records drops the Sex Pistols
1987 University of California astronomers first witnessed the birth of a galaxy that contained 1 billion stars
1993 Bill Wyman announces he will leave Rolling Stones
1994 skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked by Tonya Harding’s bodyguard
2005 Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect for the 1964 murders of three Civil Rights workers
BORN:
1367 Richard II, King of England
1412 Joan of Arc, Roman Catholic Saint / national heroine of France (legendary date)
1655 Jacob (Jacques) Bernoulli, mathematician who was one of the first to fully utilize differential calculus and introduced the term “integral” in integral calculus
1745 Jacques Étienne Montgolfier, ballooning pioneer, who with his brother Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, developed the hot-air balloon and conducted the first untethered flights
1822 Heinrich Schliemann, archaeologist who discovered and excavated the legendary cities of Troy and Mycenae
1874 Fred Niblo, director (Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Blood and Sand)
1878 Carl Sandburg, poet / author (Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, Rootabaga Stories)
1880 Tom Mix, actor / director (The Pony Express Rider, A Horseman of the Plains)
1883 Khalil Gibran, poet / philosopher (The Prophet, The Wanderer)
1899 Phyllis Haver, actress (Chicago, What Price Glory)
1913 Loretta Young, Academy Award-winning actress (The Farmer’s Daughter, The Bishop’s Wife)
1914 Danny Thomas, actor / director / producer (Make Room for Daddy, The Jazz Singer)
1925 John De Lorean, auto maker
1930 Vic Tayback, actor (Alice, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore)
1931 E. L. Doctorow, author (Ragtime, The Book of Daniel)
1940 Van McCoy, musician (“The Hustle”, “I Get The Sweetest Feeling”)
1944 Bonnie Franklin, actress (One Day at a Time, Sister Margaret and the Saturday Night Ladies)
1946 Syd Barrett, musician (founding member of Pink Floyd)
1954 Anthony Minghella, Academy Award-winning director (The English Patient, Truly Madly Deeply)
1955 Rowan Atkinson, actor (Black Adder, Mr. Bean)
1956 Angus Deayton, actor (One Foot in the Grave, Elizabeth)
1960 Howie Long, Oakland Raider / actor (Firestorm, Broken Arrow)
1968 John Singleton, director (Boyz n the Hood, Four Brothers)
DIED:
1852 Louis Braille, educator who developed a tactile form of printing and writing, known as braille, since widely adopted by the blind, dies at 43
1919 Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president (1901-09), dies at 60
1946 Slim Summerville, actor (Captain January, Tobacco Road), dies at 53
1949 Victor Fleming, Academy Award-winning director (Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz), dies at 59
1981 AJ Cronin, author (Keys of the Kingdom, The Citadel, To Serve Them All My Days), dies at 84
1990 Ian Charleson, actor (Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, Reilly: Ace of Spies, Gandhi), dies of AIDS at 40
1993 Dizzy Gillespie, musician / composer (“Manteca”, “A Night in Tunisia”), dies at 73
1993 Rudolf Nureyev, ballet dancer / actor (Valentino, The Nutcracker), dies at 54
1994 Hugh Fraser, animator (The Secret Squirrel Show, Pinocchio) dies at 89
1994 Morty the Moose, moose (Northern Exposure), dies at 6
2000 Don Martin, cartoonist (MAD Magazine), dies at 70
2006 Lou Rawls, actor / singer (“You’ll never Find Another Love like Mine”), dies at 72