Happy Birthday to Jack London (1876-1916).
Today is Friday, January 12, 2017, the 12th day of the year with 353 days remaining.
- Sunrise: 7:25am
- Sunset: 5:12pm
...giving us 9 hours and 47 minutes of daylight. 23% of the waning crescent moon will be visible, setting at 2:12pm.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 8:05am/10:23pm
- Low: 1:40am/3:02pm
Special international celebrations today…
- Arbor Day - Jordan
- Commemoration or Remembrance Day - Turkmenistan
- National Pharmacist Day - US
- Stephen Foster Memorial Day - US
- Youth Day - India
- Zanzibar Revolution Day - Tanzania
It’s also…
- Kiss A Ginger Day
- National Hot Tea Day
- National Marzipan Day
- National Curried Chicken Day
On this day in…
1519 - Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I died.
1773 - The first public museum in America was established in Charleston,SC.
1866 - The Royal Aeronautical Society was founded in London.
1875 - Kwang-su was made emperor of China.
1879 - The British-Zulu War began when the British invaded Zululand.
1882 - Thomas Edison's central station on Holborn Viaduct in London began operation.
1895 - The first performance of King Arthur took place at the Lyceum Theatre.
1896 - At Davidson College, several students took x-ray photographs. They created the first X-ray photographs to be made in America.
1904 - Henry Ford set a new land speed record when he reached 91.37 miles per hour.
1908 - A wireless message was sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
1915 - TheU.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.
1915 - TheU.S. Congress established the Rocky Mountain National Park.
1926 - "Sam ‘n’ Henry" debuted on WGN Radio in Chicago,IL.
1932 - Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to theU.S. Senate.
1938 - Austria recognized the Franco government in Spain.
1940 - Soviet bombers raided cities in Finland.
1942 -U.S. President Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board.
1943 - The Office of Price Administration announced that standard frankfurters/hot dogs/wieners would be replaced by 'Victory Sausages.'
1945 - During World War II, Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe.
1948 - TheU.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not discriminate against law-school applicants because of race.
1949 - "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends" was debuted on CBS-TV. The show stayed on the network for seven years.
1949 - "Kukla, Fran and Ollie", the Chicago-based children’s show, made its national debut on NBC-TV.
1955 - Rod Serling’s career began with the TV production of "Patterns."
1960 - Dolph Schayes of the Syracuse Nationals became the first pro basketball player in the NBA to score more than 15,000 points in his career.
1964 - Leftist rebels in Zanzibar began their successful revolt against the government and a republic was proclaimed.
1966 -U.S. President Johnson said in his State of the Union address that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there was ended.
1966 - "Batman" debuted on ABC-TV.
1967 - "Dragnet" returned to NBC-TV after being off the network schedule for eight years.
1970 - The breakaway state of Biafra capitulated and the Nigerian civil war came to an end.
1970 - Nigeria's civil war ended.
1971 - "All In the Family" debuted on CBS-TV.
1973 - Yassar Arafat was re-elected as head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
1986 - Space shuttle Columbia blasted off with a crew that included the first Hispanic-American in space, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz.
1991 - TheU.S. Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to use military power to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
1995 - Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew announced that as of January 16 British troops would no longer carry out daylight street patrols in Belfast.
1998 - Tyson Foods Inc. pled guilty to giving $12,000 to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. Tyson was fined $6 million.
1998 - 19 European nations agreed to prohibit human cloning.
1998 - Linda Tripp provided Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's office with taped conversations between herself and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
1999 - Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball was sold at auction in New York for $3 million to an anonymous bidder.
2000 - TheU.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, gave police broad authority to stop and question people who run at the sight of an officer.
2005 - NASA launched "Deep Impact". The spacecraft was planned to impact on Comet Tempel 1 after a six-month, 268 million-mile journey.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
- Edmund Burke 1729
- Johann Pestalozzi 1746
- Jack London 1876
- John Singer Sargent 1856
- Herman Goering 1893
- Joe E. Lewis (Klewan) 1902
- Tex (Woodward) Ritter 1905
- Luise Rainer 1910
- Martin Agronsky 1915
- P.W. Botha 1916
- Ray Price 1926
- Ruth Brown 1928
- Lloyd Ruby 1928
- Tim Horton 1930
- Glenn Yarbrough (The Limeliters) 1930
- James Fergason 1934
- The "Amazing Kreskin" 1935
- Ron Harper 1936
- William Lee Golden (The Oak Ridge Boys) 1939
- Tucker (Ivan) Frederickson 1943
- Joe Frazier 1944
- Maggie Bell (Stone the Crows) 1945
- Cynthia Robinson (Sly and the Family Stone) 1946
- Anthony Andrews 1948
- Wayne Wang 1949
- Drew Pearson 1951
- Rush Limbaugh 1951
- Ricky Van Shelton 1952
- Howard Stern 1954
- Kirstie Alley 1955
- George Duke 1956
- Tommy Ardolino (NRBQ) 1957
- Per Gessle (Roxette) 1959
- Charlie Gillingham (Counting Crows) 1960
- Jeffrey Bezos 1964
- Rob Zombie (White Zombie) 1966
