Monday, January 29, 2018

TODAY IN HISTORY ― JANUARY 29

January 29 is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 336 days remaining until the end of the year (337 in leap years). This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Friday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Wednesday or Thursday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Monday or Saturday (56).

NATIONAL PUZZLE DAY  

1777 – Facing a surprise British counter-assault in the bitter cold and with a snowstorm approaching, American commander Major General William Heath and his army of 6,000 abandon their siege on Fort Independence, in Bronx County, New York, on this day in 1777.


1802 – John James Beckley of Virginia appointed the first Librarian of Congress.

1820 – 
Ten years after mental illness forced him to retire from public life, King George III, the British king who lost the American colonies, dies at the age of 82. 

1834 – President Andrew Jackson orders first use of U.S. troops to suppress a labor dispute.  

1861 – On this day in 1861, Kansas is admitted to the Union as free state. It was the 34th state to join the Union. The struggle between pro- and anti-slave forces in Kansas was a major factor in the eruption of the Civil War.


1879 – The Custer Battlefield National Monument is established in Montana. ― Photo mine


1886 – First successful gasoline-driven car patented, Karl Benz, Karlsruhe, Germany.

1915 – On January 29, 1915, in the Argonne region of France, German lieutenant Erwin Rommel leads his company in the daring capture of four French block-houses, the structures used on the front to house artillery positions.


1936 – First MLB players elected to Baseball Hall of Fame: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson

1942 – 
On this day, Britain and the USSR secure an agreement with Iran that offers the Iran protection while creating a "Persian corridor" for the Allies—a supply route from the West to Russia.

1944 – The USS Missouri, the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy, is launched.

1963 – Jim Thorpe, Red Grange and George Halas elected to NFL Hall of Fame.

1979 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter commuted Patricia Hearst's 7 year sentence to 2 years.


1990 – Exxon Valdez Captain, Joseph Hazelwood, goes on trial due to wreck and subsequent major oil spill in Prince William Sound, AK. The Valdez was a single-hull design that was subsequently banned from service in most of the world.



TODAY'S BIRTHS

1756 – Henry Lee III, American general and politician, 9th Governor of Virginia (d. 1818)

1843 – William McKinley, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 25th President of the United States (d. 1901)

1860 – Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short story writer (d. 1904)

1874 – John D. Rockefeller, Jr., American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1960)

1929 – Joseph Kruskal, American mathematician and computer scientist (d. 2010)

1947 – Linda B. Buck, American biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted.

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