January 23
It’s National Pie Day, National Handwriting Day AND Measure Your Feet Day
ON THIS DAY…
0638 The start of Islamic calendar
1368 In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries
1510 Henry VIII of England, then 18 years old, appears incognito in the lists at Richmond, and is applauded for his jousting before he reveals his identity
1571 The Royal Exchange in London, founded by financier Thomas Gresham, was opened by Queen Elizabeth I
1719 The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire
1775 London merchants petition Parliament for relief from the financial hardship put upon them by the curtailment of trade with the North American colonies
1789 Georgetown College was established as the first Catholic college in the US
1845 The US Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November
1855 The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, MN
1849 Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded her MD by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, thus becoming America’s first woman doctor
1870 In Montana, US cavalrymen kill 173 Indians, mostly women and children, in the Marias Massacre
1897 Elva Zona Heaster was found dead at her home in Greenbrier County, WV and the court drama that arose from her death is possibly the only time in US history that the testimony of a ghost was accepted at a murder trial
1907 Charles Curtis of Kansas became the first person of American Indian ancestry to serve in the US Senate
1911 In New York City, novelist David Graham Phillips is shot by a man (who then shoots himself) who believes that Phillips based a character in his best-seller The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig on his sister
1911 Marie Curie’s nomination to the French Academy of Sciences, having already won one Nobel Prize, is nevertheless voted down by the Academy’s all-male membership; she would go on to win a second Nobel Prize
1920 The Netherlands refuses to surrender ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies
1928 Disney’s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon Neck ‘n’ Neck is released
1941 Artie Shaw and his orchestra recorded “Moonglow” for Victor Records
1941 Charles Lindbergh testifies before the US Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler
1943 Casablanca is released in the US
1943 British forces under Field Marshal Montgomery captured Tripoli in Libya from the Nazis
1960 The US Navy bathyscaphe Trieste descended to a record depth of 35,820 feet (10,750 meters) in the Pacific Ocean
1964 The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified
1964 The first animal to human heart transplant was made by Dr. James Hardy at the University of Mississippi who transplanted the heart of a chimpanzee (named Bino) into the chest of Boyd Rush (age 68) in a last-ditch effort to save the man’s life because no human was heart available
1968 The USS Pueblo was seized by North Koreans in the Sea of Japan amid claims the ship was spying
1969 Cream’s farewell LP “Goodbye” is released
1971 In Prospect Creek Camp, AK, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the US was reported as minus 80 degrees
1973 President Nixon announced the success of a peace accord in Vietnam
1975 Barney Miller debuts on ABC-TV
1977 Carole King’s album “Tapestry” begins its 302nd week on the Billboard Charts
1977 The first episode of the ABC-TV mini-series Roots premiered, pulling in 130 million viewers
1978 Sweden banned aerosol sprays because of damage to environment
1983 The A-Team debuts on ABC-TV
1985 The proceedings of the House of Lords were televised for the first time
1985 O.J. Simpson became the first Heisman Trophy winner to be elected to pro footballs Hall of Fame
1986 The members of the inaugural Rock & Roll Hall of Fame are inducted: Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, disc jockey Alan Freed, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, and Elvis Presley
1988 The experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first nonstop, around the world flight without refueling
1989 James Brown was sentenced in Georgia to 6 years in jail in connection with a police chase through two states
1996 The first version of the Java programming language is released
1997 Spice World, the only movie to star The Spice Girls, opened in theaters in the US
1999 Terry Pratchett informed fen of his policy regarding fan fiction based on his universe when he said: “I don’t actually object to fan fiction, which by its very nature uses copyrighted and trademarked material, provided that it’s put somewhere where I don’t trip over it (so not to a.f.p. or a.b.p, please) isn’t done for money, and isn’t passed off as ‘official’ in any way. I can’t really object to people writing their own DW scenarios, etc, for other gamers — the problems would only begin if they got too proprietorial about them. Everything works if people are sensible.”
2002 Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan
2005 Numb3rs premiered on CBS-TV
BORN:
1719 John Landen, mathematician who made important contributions on elliptic integrals
1737 John Hancock, President of the Second Continental Congress and of the Congress of the Confederation, the first Governor of Massachusetts, and the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence
1832 Edouard Manet, pivotal artist in the transition from Realism to Impressionism
1840 Ernst Abbe, physicist who made theoretical and technical innovations in optical theory including an improved microscope design, such as the use of a condenser lens to provide strong, even illumination
1857 Andrija Mohorovi?i?, meteorologist and geophysicist who discovered the boundary between the Earth’s crust and mantle, a boundary now named the Mohorovicic discontinuity
1862 David Hilbert, mathematician who reduced geometry to a series of axioms and contributed substantially to the establishment of the formalistic foundations of mathematics
1872 Paul Langevin, physicist who was the first scientist to explain the effects of paramagnetism and diamagnetism (the weak attraction or repulsion of substances in a magnetic field)
1876 Alfredo Niceforo, sociologist, criminologist, and statistician who posited the theory that every person has a “deep ego” of antisocial, subconscious impulses that represent a throwback to precivilized existence
1878 William Desmond, actor (Captain of His Soul, Around the World in Eighteen Days)
1888 Paul Peter Ewald, physicist and crystallographer whose theory of X-ray interference by crystals was the first detailed, rigorous theoretical explanation of the diffraction effects
1888 Leadbelly [Huddie William Ledbetter], folk and blues musician/songwriter (“Midnight Special,” “Goodnight Irene”)
1893 Franklin Pangborn, brilliant comedic actor (The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, George Washington Slept Here, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break)
1898 Randolph Scott, actor (The Last of the Mohicans, Captain Kidd, Ride the High Country)
1898 Sergei Eisenstein, director (Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky)
1903 Fred Niblo Jr., screenwriter (Nine Lives Are Not Enough, Hell’s Kitchen, The Game That Kills)
1907 Dan Duryea, actor (China Smith, The Pride of the Yankees, Winchester ’73)
1907 Hideki Yukawa, physicist who shared the 1949 Nobel Prize for Physics for “his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces”
1910 Django Reinhardt, one of the most important and greatest jazz guitarists of all time, despite having only two functional fingers on his left hand
1918 Gertrude B. Elion, pharmacologist who shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 (with George H. Hitchings and Sir James W. Black) for the development of drugs used to treat several major diseases which produced the first drugs specifically designed for cancer therapy, as well as drugs to combat rejection of transplanted organs, gout, malaria and bacterial and viral infections
1919 Ernie Kovacs, author, actor, comedian, composer and producer (Sail a Crooked Ship, North to Alaska, Silents Please)
1924 Sir James Lighthill, mathematician who contributed to supersonic aerofoil theory and, aeroacoustics which became relevant in the design of the Concorde supersonic jet, and reduction of jet engine noise
1929 John C. Polanyi, chemist and educator who shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1986 (with Dudley R. Herschbach and Yuan T. Lee) for contributions to the “development of a new field of research in chemistry – reaction dynamics”
1939 Sonny Chiba, actor / martial artist (The Street Fighter, Karate Kiba)
1943 Gil Gerard, actor (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Airport ’77, The Doctors)
1944 Rutger Hauer, actor (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade Runner, Ladyhawke, Soldier of Orange)
1950 Richard Dean Anderson, actor (Stargate SG-1, MacGyver, Legend)
1953 Robin Zander, musician (Cheap Trick)
1954 Craig Miller, marketing consultant/writer/producer (Pocket Dragon Adventures, The Wicker Man, Star Wars)
1963 Gail O’Grady, actress (Boston Legal, American Dreams, NYPD Blue)
1964 Mariska Hargitay, daughter of Jayne Mansfield and “Mr. Universe” Mickey Hargitay / Emmy Award-winning actress (Law & Order SVU, ER)
DIED:
1744 Giambattista Vico, philosopher of cultural history and law, who is recognized today as a forerunner of cultural anthropology, or ethnology, dies at 75
1766 William Caslon, typefounder who designed (1720-26) the typeface that bears his name, dies at 73
1803 Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer and the founder of the Guinness Brewery, dies at 77
1805 Claude Chappe, engineer who invented the semaphore visual telegraph, dies at 41
1806 William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister of Great Britain (1783-1801), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1804-1806), Chancellor of the Exchequer (1782-83, 1783-1801, 1804-06), dies at 46
1810 Johann Wilhelm Ritter, physicist who discovered the ultraviolet region of the spectrum (1801) and thus helped broaden man’s view beyond the narrow region of visible light to encompass the entire electromagnetic spectrum from the shortest gamma rays to the longest radio waves, dies at 33
1883 Gustave Doré, artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor, dies at 51
1943 Alexander Woollcott, Doyen of the Algonquin Round Table and credited with the creation of the “Brandy Alexander,” dies of heart attack while appearing on the radio program “The People’s Forum” at 56
1961 Wilhelm Koppers, Roman Catholic priest and cultural anthropologist who advocated a comparative, historical approach to understanding cultural phenomena and whose investigations of hunting and food-gathering tribes produced theories on the origin and development of society, dies at 74
1976 Paul Robeson, actor/singer (King Solomon’s Mines, The Emperor Jones), dies at 77
1989 Salvador Dali, surrealist painter, dies at 84
1992 Freddie Bartholomew, actor (David Copperfield, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Kidnapped), dies at 67
2003 Nell Carter, Emmy Award-winning actress (Ain’t Misbehavin’, Gimme a Break!), dies at 54
2004 Bob Keeshan, 4-time Emmy Award-winning host (Captain Kangaroo, The Howdy Doody Show), dies at 76
2004 Helmut Newton, fashion photographer, dies at 83
2005 Johnny Carson, legendary “King of Late Night TV,” dies at 79