January 19th
Today in America's Present Past
1749 | Journalist Isaiah Thomas was born.
1770 | Revolutionary War: Battle of Golden Hill (Manhattan)
1807 | Robert E. Lee was born.
1808 | Philosopher Lysander Spooner was born.
1809 | Novelist Edgar Allan Poe was born.
1813 | Inventor Henry Bessemer was born.
1837 | Brain Surgeon William Williams Keen was born.
1851 | Founding Stanford University President David Starr Jordan was born.
1861 | Civil War: George succeeds.
1861 | Civil War: Mississippi forces capture Fort Massachusetts.
1862 | Civil War: Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky.
1865 | Civil War: Union forces recapture Fort Anderson, North Carolina.
1871 | Civil Rights: First African American admitted into a US Mason’s chapter (New Jersey).
1883 | First commercial electrical lighting system using overhead wired deployed (New Jersey).
1886 | First sky club founded (Aurora, Minnesota).
1887 | Author Alexander Wollcot was born.
1898 | First intercollegiate hockey game - Brown beat Harvard.
1903 | First transatlantic radio broadcast between the U.S. and Great Britain.
1904 | Medical inventor James Watts was born.
1910 | National Institute of Arts & Letters founded by Congress.
1913 | Billiards professional Minnesota Fats was born.
1915 | George Claude patients the Neon Tube sign.
1918 | Publisher John H. Johnson was born.
1921 | Author Patricia Highsmith was born.
1930 | Civil Rights: Race riots start in Watsonville, California.
1937 | Howard Hughes sets transcontinental aviation record.
1938 | General Motors begins mass production of diesel engines.
1943 | Musician Janis Joplin was born.
1944 | Entrepreneur Peter Lynch was born.
1946 | Musician Dolly Parton was born.
1947 | Entrepreneur Paula Dean was born.
1955 | Alfred Butts introduces the board game “Scrabble.”
1955 | POTUS: Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower films the first TV press conference.
1958 | Painter Thomas Kinkade was born.
1960 | POTUS: Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the US-Japan Security Treaty.
1961 | TV: The first episode of “The Dick Van Dyke” TV show was filmed.
1970 | SCOTUS: Republican President Richard Nixon nominates G. Harrold Carswell to SCOTUS.
1971 | The Beatle’s “Helter Skelter” is played at Charles Manson’s criminal trial.
1977 | POTUS: Republican President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D’Aquino (Tokyo Rose).
1979 | POTUS: Democrat President Jimmy Carter posthumously awards Margaret Mead with the Medal of Freedom.
1980 | SCOTUS: Justice William Douglas died.
1981 | Boxer Muhammad Ali talks a depressive 21-year-old out of suicide.
1981 | POTUS: Republican President Ronald Reagan secures the release of 52 American hostages from Iran.
1988 | TV: CBS-TV debuts “48 Hours.”
1989 | POTUS: Republican President Ronald Reagan pardons George Steinbrenner for illegal campaign funding.
1990 | SCOTUS: Justice Arthur Goldberg died.
1991 | Eastern Airlines ceases operations.
1998 | Musician Carl Perkins died.