Wednesday, January 3, 2018

TODAY IN HISTORY ― JANUARY 3

January 3 is the third day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 362 days remaining until the end of the year (363 in leap years). This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Friday or Saturday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Monday or Wednesday (56). Perihelion, the point during the year when the Earth is closest to the Sun, occurs around this date.

NATIONAL DRINKING STRAW DAY 


1431 ― Joan of Arc is handed over to Catholic Bishop Pierre Cauchon to stand trial for heresy in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation.

1521 ― Catholic priest, Martin Luther, is excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Leo X in papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.

1749 ― English Colonial Governor, Benning Wentworth, issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of the state of Vermont.


1777 ― General George Washington's revolutionary army defeats British forces at the Battle of Princeton, NJ.



1823 ― Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.



1848 ― Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first President of the independent African Republic of Liberia. Roberts was born free in Norfolk VA.


1870 ― Construction begins on the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River in New York City. German immigrant, John Roebling, designed the bridge and supervised its construction. 
The bridge was opened on May 24, 1883.

1919 ― Future U.S. President, Herbert Clark Hoover, is placed in charge of war relief in Europe by President Woodrow Wilson.

1938 ― The March of Dime Foundation is established to fight polio.



1944 ― Top WWII Ace, Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, is shot down in his Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Zero. Boyington would receive the Medal of Honor from President Franklin Roosevelt later in that year.

1945 ― Planes from U.S. aircraft carriers attack the Japanese island Okinawa for the first time in WWII. The island would be conquered by the U.S. in the subsequent Battle of Okinawa that began on April 1, 1945.

1947 ― The first opening session of Congress to be televised takes place.


1958 ― Edmund Hillary reaches the South Pole over land.

1959 ― Alaska is admitted as 49th state of the United States.

1961 ― The United States government officially breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba.



1964 ― The Jack Paar Show shows a clip of the Beatles singing "She Loves You". The first viewing of the group in America.



1972 
― The Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb in Callender Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland, injuring over 60 people.

1977 ― Apple Computer incorporates.

1987 ― The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducts the first female artist, Aretha Franklin.

1988 ― Margaret Hilda Thatcher becomes longest-serving British PM this century.

1993 ― In Moscow, the Start II arms reduction treaty is signed by President George Bush and Boris Yeltsin.

1997 ― The People's Republic of China announces it will spend $US27.7 billion to fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys.

2013 ― A total of 27 Shiite pilgrims are killed and 60 are injured by a suicide bombing in Musayyib, Iraq.





TODAY'S BIRTHS

106 BCCicero, Roman philosopher, lawyer, and politician (d. 43 BC)

1886John Gould Fletcher, American Imagist poet and author (d. 1950)

1892 J.R.R. Tolkien, English writer, poet, and philologist (d. 1973)

1924 Nell Rankin, American soprano and educator (d. 2005)

1926George Martin, English composer, conductor, and producer (The Beatles) (d. 2016)

From Wikipedia and Google, ex as noted.


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