Saturday, January 13, 2018

TODAY IN HISTORY ― JANUARY 13

January 13 is the 13th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 352 days remaining until the end of the year (353 in leap years). This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Wednesday, Friday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Monday or Tuesday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Thursday or Saturday (56).

STEPHEN FOSTER MEMORIAL DAY (Probably the last time you'll hear of this)

1099 ― Crusaders set fire to Ma'arra (Maarat al-Nu'man), Syria.

1128 ― Pope Honorius II recognizes the Knights Templar.


1404 ― The Act Against Multipliers is passed by the English Parliament forbidding alchemists to use their knowledge to create precious metals . It was feared that if any alchemist should succeed it would bring ruin upon the state. Of course, not accomplished the feat.


1559 ― Elizabeth I, King Henry III's only living heir, is crowned Queen of England and Ireland in Westminster Abbey.

1610 ― Galileo Galilei discovers Callisto, a fourth satellite of Jupiter.

1695 ― Satirist, Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal) is ordained an Anglican priest in Ireland.

1785 ― John Walter publishes the first issue of the London Times, now just the Times.


1840 ― The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.

1854 ― As my HS classmate Frank knows, Anthony Foss patents the accordion.

1898 ― French journalist Emile Zola publishes his open letter (J'accuse) in defense of Alfred Dreyfus.

1906 ― The first radio (crystal) set is advertised (Telimco for $7.50, in Scientific American) which claimed to receive signals up to one mile.

1912 ― A low temperature of -40°F (-40°C) is reached in Oakland, MD (state record).

1913 ― Delta Sigma Theta, the world's largest Black Women's Sorority, is founded at Howard University, Washington, D.C.

1938 ― The Church of England accepts the theory of evolution.

1939 ― Arthur “Doc” Barker of the notorious “Bloody Barkers” gang, is killed while trying to escape from Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay.

1942 ― Representatives of nine German-occupied countries meet in London to declare that all those found guilty of war crimes would be punished after the war ended.

1954 ― Egypt, then under military rule, arrests 318 Muslim Brotherhood members.

1958 ― American-born Peter Manuel, is arrested in Glasgow, Scotland, after a series of attacks over two years that left between seven and 15 people dead.


1962 ― Ernest Edward "Ernie" Kovacs, a comedian who hosted his own television shows during the 1950s and is said to have influenced such TV hosts as Johnny Carson and David Letterman, dies at the age of 42 after crashing his Chevrolet Corvair into a telephone pole in Los Angeles, CA.

1964 ― Karol Józef Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, becomes archbishop of Krakow.

1966 ― Economist, Robert C. Weaver, becomes the first black man is selected for the presidential cabinet by President Lyndon Johnson (HUD).

1975 ― Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, hints at military action against oil countries in case of "actual strangulation of the industrialized world" in the wake of oil shock.

1978 ― NASA select its first American women astronauts.


1982 ― An Air Florida Boeing 727 plunges into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., killing 78 people. The crash, caused by bad weather, took place only two miles from the White House which was occupied by President Ronald Reagan. Coincidentally, the airport from which it attempted takeoff was later renamed Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport. I guess the crash was his fault, too.

1990 ― The first elected African American governor since Reconstruction, Lawrence Douglas Wilder (VA), is inaugurated.

1992 ― Japan formally apologizes for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II.

2012 ― Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia runs aground at Isola de Giglio, Italy, causing 32 deaths.


TODAY'S BIRTHS

1808 – Salmon P. Chase, American jurist and politician, 6th Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1873)

1887 – Sophie Tucker, Russian-born American singer and actress (d. 1966)

1926Carolyn Gold Heilbrun, American author and academic, first woman to receive tenure in the English Department at Clumbia University (d. 2003)

Wikipedia and Google, ex as noted.

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