January 11
It’s Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend’s Day
ON THIS DAY…
1569 The first national lottery is held in England
1693 Mt. Etna erupta; a powerful earthquake that follows destroys parts of Sicily and Malta
1759 The first American life insurance company is incorporated in Philadelphia, PA
1770 The first shipment of rhubarb is sent to the United States from London
1787 Astronomer William Herschel discovers the first two moons of Uranus, which he named Titania and Oberon
1794 Robert Forsythe, a US Marshal is killed in Augusta, GA when trying to serve court papers; he is the first US Marshal to die while carrying out his duties
1805 The Michigan Territory is created
1861 Alabama secedes from the United States
1862 Lincoln accepts Simon Cameron’s resignation as Secretary of War
1864 London’s Charing Cross station opens
1878 For the first time, milk is delivered in glass bottles
1879 The Anglo-Zulu war begins following the British invasion of Zululand
1902 Popular Mechanics magazine is published for the first time
1908 Grand Canyon National Monument is created
1913 The first sedan-type car was unveiled at the National Automobile Show in NYC
1917 As a war rationing measure, the French government fixes the price of Gruyere cheese
1919 Romania annexes Transylvania
1921 Women jurors are used for the first time in England
1922 Leonard Thompson (1908-35), age 14, is the very first person to receive an injection of insulin as a treatment for diabetes
1930 The element Fr (francium) is discovered
1935 Amelia Earhart Putnam became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California
1935 The short film, Palooka from Paducah, starring Buster Keaton, as well as his father, mother and sister, is released in the U.S.
1940 Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., becomes the U.S. Army’s first black general
1949 The first recorded snowfall occurs in Los Angeles, CA
1963 The Whiskey-A-Go-Go opens in Los Angeles, CA
1964 Surgeon General Luther Terry released a report that said that smoking cigarettes is a definite health hazard
1966 Daktari premieres on CBS-TV
1972 East Pakistan renames itself Bangladesh
1980 Honda announces it will build the first Japanese-owned passenger-car assembly plant in the U.S.
1982 Filming begins on Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
BORN:
1757 Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Secretary of Treasury
1814 Sir James Paget, surgeon and physiologist who is considered (with Rudolf Virchow) to be a founder of the science of pathology
1864 H. George Selfridge, founder of Selfridge and Co., Ltd., coined the phrase “the customer is always right.”
1875 Frederick Mark Becket, metallurgist who held more than one hundred patents, covering a wide range of electric furnace and chemical products
1885 Alice Paul, chief strategist for the militant wing of the suffrage movement and author of the Equal Rights Amendment
1886 Chester Conklin, actor (Keystone Kops, Hallelujah I’m a Bum)
1889 Calvin Blackman Bridges, geneticist who advanced understanding of the role of chromosomes in heredity using the fruit fly
1890 Monte Blue, actor (Orphans of the Storm, The Lover of Camille)
1895 Laurens Hammond, businessman and inventor of the electronic Hammond organ
1903 Alan Paton, author (Cry, the Beloved Country, Lost in the Stars)
1906 Albert Hofmann, pharmacologist who discovered LSD
1908 Lionel Stander, character actor (Hart to Hart, Treasure Island)
1912 Nick Cravat, acrobatic circus partner of Burt Lancaster (The Crimson Pirate, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier)
1923 Carroll Shelby, race car driver / automobile designer / businessman
1923 Jerome Bixby, writer (Star Trek, Fantastic Voyage)
1925 Grant Tinker, TV producer / founded MTM Enterprises with then-wife Mary Tyler Moore
1928 David L. Wolper, producer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory)
1930 Rod Taylor, actor (The Time Machine, The Birds)
1946 Naomi Judd, five-time Grammy Award-winning singer / songwriter
1946 Tony Kaye, musician (Yes)
1952 Diana Gabaldon, author (Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber)
1953 John Sessions, actor (Spitting Image, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling)
1956 Phyllis Logan, actress (Lovejoy, The Doctor and the Devils)
1958 Vicki Peterson, musician (The Bangles)
1961 Jasper Fforde, author / focus puller (Thursday Next novels, Nursery Crime novels)
1963 Jason Connery, actor / son of Sean (Robin of Sherwood, Merlin)
1972 Amanda Peet, actress (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Syriana)
1972 Marc Blucas, actor (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Jane Austen Book Club)
DIED:
1753 Sir Hans Sloane, physician and naturalist whose collection of books, manuscripts, and curiosities formed the basis for the British Museum, dies at 92
1843 Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” dies at 63
1874 Gail Borden, manufacturer who invented a commercial method of condensing milk, dies at 72
1923 Thomas Hardy, author (Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge), dies at 87
1953 Edna Purviance, actress (The Kid, The Rink, Easy Street), dies at 62
1979 Jack Soo, actor (Barney Miller, The Green Berets, Flower Drum Song), dies at 61
1980 Barbara Pym, author (Quartet in Autumn, The Sweet Dove Died), dies at 66
1984 Jack La Rue, actor (In Old Sacramento, The Sea Hawk), dies at 81
1988 Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, WWII Marine ace / author (Baa Baa Black Sheep), dies at 75
1991 Carl David Anderson, physicist who, with Victor Francis Hess, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1936 for his discovery of the positron, or positive electron, the first known particle of antimatter, dies at 85
1995 Peter Pratt, actor (Doctor Who, The Edwardians), dies at 71
2007 Robert Anton Wilson, author (The Illuminatus! Trilogy), dies at 74
2007 Donald E. Osterbrock, astronomer who was a leading authority on the history of astronomy, and director of the University of California’s Lick Observatory, dies at 82