January 4
It’s Trivia Day
ON THIS DAY…
1493 Christopher Columbus leaves the New World, ending his first journey
1610 Galileo Galilei points his newly developed telescope at the sky and observes craters and mountains on the Moon, moving spots on the Sun, four moons revolving around Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and the almost innumerable stars of the Milky Way
1794 While other physicians fled, Dr. Benjamin Rush fought the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, PA
1850 The Airy Transit Circle was first used at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich
1863 Four-wheeled roller skates were patented by James Plimpton of NY
1885 Dr. William West Grant performed what is believed (sources disagree) to be the first successful appendectomy in the US
1896 Utah is admitted as the 45th state
1902 The Carnegie Institute was founded to promote research in the humanities and sciences
1904 Thomas Edison’s movie crew filmed the electrocution of an elephant
1912 The closest approach to earth by the moon was 221,441 miles apart center to center
1936 Billboard magazine publishes its first pop music charts
1948 The British colony of Burma (now Myanmar) became an independent nation after more than sixty years of colonial rule
1958 The Russian Sputnik I satellite, the first man-made object to orbit the earth, fell back into the atmosphere and disintegrated, after 92 days in space
1962 The first unmanned subway train controlled automatically ran in New York City
1973 The first episode of The Last of the Summer Wine airs on the BBC; it holds the record for the longest running sitcom
1974 President Nixon refuses to hand over tapes subpoenaed by Watergate Committee
1975 Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first American-born saint
1981 British police arrest Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper
2004 Mars Exploration Rover Spirit lands in Gusev Crater on Mars
2007 Nancy Pelosi is elected as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history
BORN:
1643 Sir Isaac Newton, mathematician / philosopher
1746 Benjamin Rush, physician / signer of the Declaration of Independance
1747 Dominique Vivant Denon, artist / archaeologist / museum official who played an important role in the development of the Louvre collection
1785 Jakob Grimm, philologist / jurist / mythologist (The Brothers Grimm)
1797 Wilhelm Beer, banker / amateur astronomer who co-published the first lunar map divided in quadrants
1809 Louis Braille, educator who developed a tactile form of printing and writing, known as braille
1838 General Tom Thumb [Charles Sherwood Stratton], circus performer who was discovered by P.T. Barnum
1846 Edward Hibberd Johnson, electrical engineer who, in 1882, created the first electric lights on a Christmas tree
1905 Sterling Holloway, actor / voice actor (Dumbo, Bambi, The Jungle Book, Winnie-the-Pooh)
1916 Lionel Newman, Oscar Award-winning film composer (Hello Dolly!, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)
1918 Tex Harding, character actor (Blazing the Western Trail, Texas Panhandle)
1927 Barbara Rush, actress (Flamingo Road, Robin and the 7 Hoods)
1930 Iain Cuthbertson, actress (Children of the Stones, Sutherland’s Law)
1930 Don Shula, two-time Super Bowl-winning NFL coach (Miami Dolphins)
1930 Sorrell Booke, actor (The Dukes of Hazzard, Freaky Friday)
1937 Dyan Cannon, actress (The Last of Sheila, Deathtrap, Heaven Can Wait)
1941 George P. Cosmatos, director (Leviathan, Rambo: First Blood Part II)
1943 Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author / Presidential Historian (No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln)
1956 Bernard Sumner, musician (Joy Division, New Order)
1958 Matt Frewer, actor (Max Headroom, The Stand)
1958 Julian Sands, actor (Gothic, Warlock, Boxing Helena)
1960 Michael Stipe, musician (R.E.M.)
1962 Harlan Coben, author (Deal Breaker, Drop Shot)
1962 Robin Guthrie, musician (Cocteau Twins)
1963 Dave Foley, actor / writer (The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio)
1965 Julia Ormond, actress (First Knight, Smilla’s Sense of Snow)
1970 Andrew Lowery, actor (My Boyfriend’s Back, A Different World)
DIED:
1882 John William Draper, chemist who pioneered in photochemistry, dies at 70
1955 Clyde Bruckman, director / writer (Welcome Danger, The Fatal Glass of Beer), commits suicide at 60
1958 Sir Alliott Verdon Roe, aviator who was the first in Britain to construct and fly his own airplane, at 80
1960 Albert Camus, writer (The Stranger, Caligula), is killed in a road accident at 46
1961 Erwin Schrödinger, theoretical physicist / Nobel Laureate, dies at 73
1965 T.S. Eliot, writer / poet (Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, The Waste Land), dies at 76
1976 Mal Evans, road manager / bodyguard for the Beatles, was shot and killed by the LAPD at 40
1986 Phil Lynott, musician (Thin Lizzy), dies at 36
1986 Christopher Isherwood, novelist (Goodbye to Berlin, All the Conspirators), dies at 81
1999 Iron Eyes Cody, actor (How the West Was Won, A Man Called Horse), dies at 91
2004 Joan Aiken, author (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Stolen Lake), dies at 79
2004 Brian Gibson, director (Breaking Glass, Poltergeist II: The Other Side), dies at 59
2004 John Toland, historian / author (Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945), dies at 91