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This Day In History

January 18

1896 - H. L. Smith exhibits an x-ray machine for the first time.

1945 - The Red Army liberates Krakow, Poland.

1977 - A previously unknown bacterium is identified as the cause of Legionnaire's disease.

Birthdays

1882 - A. A. Milner, English author of the Winnie-the-Pooh books.

1892 - Oliver Hardy, actor and comedian.

1904 - Cary Grant, actor.

1911 - Danny Kaye, actor, singer, and dancer.

1955 - Kevin Costner, actor, director, and producer.
 
January 20

Presidential Inaugurations

1937 - Franklin D. Roosevelt
1953 - Dwight D. Eisenhower
1961 - John F. Kennedy
1969 - Richard M. Nixon
1971 - Jimmy Carter
1981 - Ronald Reagan
1989 - George H. W. Bush
1993 - Bill Clinton
2000 - George W. Bush
2009 - Barack Obama
2017 - Donald Trump

Birthdays

1888 - Lead Belly, folk/blues musician and songwriter.

1894 - Harold Gray, cartoonist. Created Little Orphan Annie.

1896 - George Burns, actor, comedian, and producer.

1906 - Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate.

1920 - Federico Fellini, Italian director and screenwriter.

1930 - Buzz Aldrin, astronaut.

1934 - Tom Baker, English actor. He was the 4th Dr. Who (and imo, the best).

1953 - Jeffrey Epstein, financier and convicted sex offender.
 
January 20, 1936 - "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months." Thus said King George V, who died on this day, making the "boy," Edward VIII, king. On December 11, 1936, Edward VIII would abdicate, leaving the throne to his brother, George VI.
 
January 21

1793 - One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris.

1924 - Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Bolshevik Revolution and the first leader of the Soviet Union, dies of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 54.

1968 - One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the Vietnam War begins at Khe Sanh, 14 miles below the DMZ and six miles from the Laotian border.
 
January 22


1890 - The United Mine Workers of America is founded in Coalumbus, Ohio.

1984 - The Apple Macintosh computer is introduced.

Birthdays

1561 - Francis Bacon, English philosopher and politician.

1788 - Lord Byron, English poet and playwright.

1898 - Sergei Eisenstein, Russian director and screenwriter.

1906 - Robert E. Howard, author and poet. He created Conan the Barbarian.

1932 - Piper Laurie, actress.

1937 - Joseph Wambaugh, author.

1959 - Linda Blair, actress.

1965 - DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ and producer..
 
January 24

1908 - The first Boy Scout troop is organized in Engla,nd by Robert Baden-Powell.

1989 - Serial killer Ted Bundy (more than 30 victims) is executed in the electric chair in Florida.

Birthdays

1868 - Edith Wharton, novelist and short story writer. Works include The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome.

1941 - Aaron Neville, singer.

1941 - Neil Diamond, singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

1943 - Sharon Tate, actress. She was murdered by the Manson Family in 1969.

1949 - John Belushi, actor and screenwriter.
 
Also on January 24:

41 - He hid behind a curtain. The guards had just killed his nephew, then killed his nephew's immediate family as well, and he had watched them kill some of his friends. It was there, behind the curtains, that the guards found him. They carried him from the city - and made him emperor. His name was Claudius, uncle of the emperor Caligula.

Conspiracy theories are nothing new, and it was rumored that Claudius hatched the plot against his nephew, and was advised by a fellow named Herod Agrippa. Yes, that Herod. Agrippa was raised with the son of Tiberius and had connections. Was Claudius involved? Who knows? But he did hide behind that curtain.

There's another interesting tie with Jerusalem besides Agrippa. When Caligula ordered his image placed in the Jewish Temple, Agrippa talked him out of it, but then Caligula changed his mind and decided to do it anyway. Before it could be done, Caligula was assassinated, and his statue never brought into the temple.

1918 - Russia adopts the Gregorian Calendar. January 31, 1918 was immediately followed by February 14. This is why the day the Bolshevics seized power is sometimes called Red October. It took place on October 25, 1917 by the Julian Calendar, which was November 7, 1917 by the Gregorian Calendar.

The Soviets would later try to set up their own calendar, just like the French Revolutionaries attempted, but ended up with even less success. They ended up just sticking with the Gregorian Calendar and calling it a day.
 
January 26

1926 - TV is demonstrated by the engineer John Logie Baird.

1945 - Audie Murphy displays valor and bravery in action for which he will be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Birthdays

1880 - General Douglas MacArthur.

1918 - Phillip Jose Farmer, author.

1925 - Paul Newman, actor and businessman.

1929 - Jules Feiffer, cartoonist.

1944 - Angela Davis, activist and author.

1958 - Ellen DeGeneres, comedian and talk show host.

1961 - Wayne Gretzky, ice hockey player and coach.
 
January 20

Presidential Inaugurations

1937 - Franklin D. Roosevelt
1953 - Dwight D. Eisenhower
1961 - John F. Kennedy
1969 - Richard M. Nixon
1971 - Jimmy Carter
1981 - Ronald Reagan
1989 - George H. W. Bush
1993 - Bill Clinton
2000 - George W. Bush
2009 - Barack Obama
2017 - Donald Trump

Birthdays

1888 - Lead Belly, folk/blues musician and songwriter.

1894 - Harold Gray, cartoonist. Created Little Orphan Annie.

1896 - George Burns, actor, comedian, and producer.

1906 - Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate.

1920 - Federico Fellini, Italian director and screenwriter.

1930 - Buzz Aldrin, astronaut.

1934 - Tom Baker, English actor. He was the 4th Dr. Who (and imo, the best).

1953 - Jeffrey Epstein, financier and convicted sex offender.


Didn't kill himself...how bout them shaves?
 
January 27

1820 - The first confirmed sighting of mainland Antarctica is attributed to the Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev, discovering an ice shelf at Princess Martha Coast that later became known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf.

1880 - Thomas Edison receives the historic patent embodying the principles of his incandescent lamp that paved the way for the universal domestic use of electric light. Thomas Edison propelled the United States out of the gaslight era and into the electric age.

1945 - Soviet troops enter Auschwitz, Poland, freeing the survivors of the network of concentration camps—and finally revealing to the world the depth of the horrors perpetrated there.

1967 - A launch pad fire during Apollo program tests at Cape Canaveral, Florida, kills astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chafee. An investigation indicated that a faulty electrical wire inside the Apollo 1 command module was the probable cause of the fire. The astronauts, the first Americans to die in a spacecraft, had been participating in a simulation of the Apollo 1 launch scheduled for the next month.
 
January 27
1880 - Thomas Edison receives the historic patent embodying the principles of his incandescent lamp that paved the way for the universal domestic use of electric light. Thomas Edison propelled the United States out of the gaslight era and into the electric age.

That bulb is why North America residential service uses 120/240 volts. The first carbon filament bulbs could handle no more than 120 volts, and Edison designed his grid around direct current (alternating current was still somewhat experimental in 1880). Unfortunately, this meant 120v from the generating station on out. The problem is voltage drop meant you have to use a lot of copper for even small runs. Edison would go to a split system (that I'm fuzzy on) that doubled the voltage to 240v between the two wires, but only 120v to a common wire (I think - see "I'm fuzzy on" above), That cut voltage drop in half, but still limited how far you could run electricity.

Then came Westinghouse and Telsa and all that good stuff. Alternating current made it easy to use transformers. That meant you could run higher voltages, further reducing voltage drops the amount of copper needed. And the move from carbonized thread to metal filament meant bulbs were no longer restricted to 120v. But by then 120v lighting was the standard in the US, and you could apply AC to Edison's split system. And that's why North America residences use 120/240v.

Keep in mind that much higher voltage is run to the transformers serving homes. How high? Highest I've seen in 46,000 volts. I've worked with 12,500 and 25,000 volts, and that on the distribution side of things (the lines that bring electricity to businesses and homes). Transmission line voltage is higher than that. In comparison, electric chairs use 2,000. Just saying.
 
January 28

1878 - The Yale Daily News becomes the first daily college newspaper in the U.S.

1956 - Elvis Presley makes his first national TV appearance on CBS's Stage Show.

1958 - The Lego Company patents its Lego bricks.

Birthdays

1873 - Colette, French novelist and journalist.

1932 - Alan Alda, actor, director, and writer.

1950 - Barbi Benton, actress, singer, and model.
 
"Roger, go at throttle up." That was the last transmission from the space shuttle Challenger, which broke up soon after launch on January 28, 1986.
 
January 29

1856 - The Victoria Cross is introduced by Queen Victoria to honor acts of valor during the Crimean War. Since then, the medal has been awarded 1,358 times to 1,355 individual recipients. Only 15 medals, of which 11 were to members of the British Army and four were to members of the Australian Army, have been awarded since the Second World War.

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.

1936 - The U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame elects its first members in Cooperstown, New York. In preparation for the dedication of the Hall of Fame in 1939—thought by many to be the centennial of baseball—the Baseball Writers’ Association of America chose the five greatest superstars of the game as the first class to be inducted: Ty Cobb was the most productive hitter in history; Babe Ruth was both an ace pitcher and the greatest home-run hitter to play the game; Honus Wagner was a versatile star shortstop and batting champion; Christy Matthewson had more wins than any pitcher in National League history; and Walter Johnson was considered one of the most powerful pitchers to ever have taken the mound.
 
January 30

1968 - The Tet offensive is launched by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the U.S., and their allies.

Birthdays

1882 - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. president.

1941 - Dick Cheney, 46th Vice-President of the U.S.

1951 - Phil Collins, English drummer and singer-songwriter.
 
1856 - The Victoria Cross is introduced by Queen Victoria to honor acts of valor during the Crimean War. Since then, the medal has been awarded 1,358 times to 1,355 individual recipients. Only 15 medals, of which 11 were to members of the British Army and four were to members of the Australian Army, have been awarded since the Second World War.

Prior to this, the highest award for valour was a scarf. Queen Victoria, hearing reports about the fighting in Crimea, wanted to do something as a way of recognizing the "common" soldier. She, and her ladies in waiting, began knitting scarves. The scarves Victoria made were gifted to soldiers who displayed exceptional gallantry in performance of their duties to the Crown. There is one on display in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
 
January 30

1968 - The Tet offensive is launched by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the U.S., and their allies.

Birthdays

1882 - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. president.

1941 - Dick Cheney, 46th Vice-President of the U.S.

1951 - Phil Collins, English drummer and singer-songwriter.
I got married on this day in 1986.
 
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