January 14
It’s Dress Up Your Pet Day
ON THIS DAY…
1784 The Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris officially establishing the United States as an independent and sovereign nation
1794 Elizabeth Hog Bennett became the first woman in the U.S. to successfully give birth to a child by a Cesarean section
1832 Edgar Allan Poe publishes his first short story, “Metzengerstein”
1873 Celluloid is registered as a trademark
1878 The first demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone to Queen Victoria at her Osborne House estate on the Isle of Wight
1914 Henry Ford announced the newest advance in assembly line production of ‘modern’ cars
1943 Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to travel via airplane while in office
1952 The Today Show debuts on NBC-TV with Dave Garroway and Jack Lescoulie
1954 The Hudson Motor Car Company merges with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation forming the American Motors Corporation
1954 Marilyn Monroe marries Joe DiMaggio
1956 Little Richard’s single “Tutti Frutti” is released
1972 Sanford and Son debuts on NBC-TV
1976 The Bionic Woman debuts on ABC-TV
1978 The Sex Pistols last concert with Sid Vicious is held at Winterland in San Francisco
1997 The discovery in Athens of the lyceum where the philosopher Aristotle taught 2,500 years ago was confirmed by Greece’s Minister of Culture
2005 The Huygens space probe lands on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon
BORN:
1741 Benedict Arnold, traitor
1806 Matthew Fontaine Maury, U.S. naval officer and a pioneer hydrographer; he was the first person to undertake a systematic and comprehensive study of the ocean
1861 David Wesson, inventor of Wesson Oil
1875 Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian theologian / philosopher / physician / 1953 Nobel Peace Prize recipient
1886 Hugh Lofting, author (Doctor Dolittle, Victory for the Slain)
1890 Rolla Harger, toxicologist and biochemist who invented the first successful machine for testing human blood alcohol content, called the Drunkometer (1931)
1892 Hal Roach, two-time Academy Award-winning short subject director / producer (Bored of Education, The Music Box)
1896 John Dos Passos, author (The Devil Is a Woman)
1901 Bebe Daniels, actress (Rio Rita, Dangerous Female)
1906 William Bendix, actor (The Life of Riley, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)
1915 Mark Goodson, producer (Match Game, The Price is Right, To Tell the Truth)
1919 Andy Rooney, Emmy Award-winning news writer (60 Minutes, CBS News Hour)
1924 Guy Williams, actor (Lost in Space, Zorro)
1926 Tom Tryon, actor (Winchester 73, The Longest Day, Texas John Slaughter)
1934 Richard Briers, actor (Monarch of the Glen, Peter Pan, Good Neighbors)
1938 Jack Jones, singer / actor (The Love Boat)
1940 Trevor Nunn, director (The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Lady Jane)
1941 Faye Dunaway, Academy Award-winning actress (Network, Chinatown, Bonnie and Clyde)
1948 Carl Weathers, actor (Rocky, Force 10 from Navarone)
1949 Lawrence Kasdan, writer / director (Silverado, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi)
1963 Steven Soderbergh, Academy Award-winning director (sex, lies and videotape, Ocean’s Eleven, Traffic)
1964 Shepard Smith, FOX News anchor
1964 Mark Addy, actor (A Knight’s Tale, Full Monty, Still Standing)
1967 Emily Watson, actress (Equilibrium, Red Dragon, Angela’s Ashes)
1968 LL Cool J, rapper / actor
1969 Dave Grohl, musician (Nirvana, The Foo Fighters)
1969 Jason Bateman, actor (The Hogan Family, Arrested Development, Smokin’ Aces)
DIED:
1742 Edmund Halley, astronomer / geophysicist / mathematician / meteorologist / physicist, dies at 85
1898 Lewis Carroll [Rev. Charles Dodgson], author, (Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass), dies at 65
1947 Elizabeth Short, infamous murder victim dubbed “The Black Dahlia” by the press, is killed at 22
1957 Humphrey Bogart, Academy Award-winning actor (Casablanca, The African Queen), dies at 57
1965 Jeanette MacDonald, singer / actress (The Merry Widow, San Francisco), dies at 61
1966 Sergey Pavlovich Korolev, designer of guided missiles, rockets, and spacecraft, dies at 59
1977 Peter Finch, Academy Award-winning actor (Network, Lost Horizon, The Trials of Oscar Wilde), dies at 64
1977 Anthony Eden, British Prime Minister (1955-57), dies at 79
1977 Anaïs Nin, author (Delta of Venus, Henry and June), dies at 73
1986 Donna Reed, Academy Award-winning actress (From Here to Eternity, It’s a Wonderful Life), dies at 64
1987 Douglas Sirk, director (A Scandal in Paris, Sleep, My Love), dies at 89
2004 Ron O’Neal, actor (Super Fly, A Force of One), dies at 66
2004 Uta Hagen, actress (The Other, The Boys from Brazil) dies at 84
2006 Shelley Winters, two-time Academy Award-winning actress (A Patch of Blue, The Diary of Anne Frank), dies at 85