On this day in history

[darlowolf64]

12th January

1918 – The Minnie Pit Disaster coal mining accident occurs in Halmer End, Staffordshire


The Minnie Pit disaster was a coal mining accident that took place on 12 January 1918 in Halmer End, Staffordshire, in which 155 men and boys died. The disaster, which was caused by an explosion due to firedamp, is the worst ever recorded in the North Staffordshire Coalfield. An official investigation never established what caused the ignition of flammable gases in the pit.

On Saturday, 12 January 1918, 248 men and boys were working underground when a huge explosion tore apart the Bullhurst and Banbury Seams. Within minutes 155 workers died from the effects of the explosion, roof falls, or inhaling poisonous gases. Rescue teams from across the North Staffordshire Coalfield were quickly mobilised to search for survivors. During the rescue attempts, Hugh Doorbar, Captain of the Birchenwood Colliery No. 1 rescue team, was killed in the operation. His death brought the final death toll to 156; 44 of the dead were boys aged under 16.

The explosions caused severe damage to the underground workings. Large sections of the pit had collapsed and methane remained an ongoing problem. Search and recovery teams were at all times aware that further roof falls or explosions might occur. It took 18 months to recover all the bodies from the pit.

Also on 12th January...

1808 – The organizational meeting leading to the creation of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is held in Edinburgh.
1848 – The Palermo rising takes place in Sicily against the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
1866 – The Royal Aeronautical Society is formed in London.
1895 – The National Trust is founded in the United Kingdom.
1915 – The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to require states to give women the right to vote.
1916 – Both Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann, for achieving eight aerial victories each over Allied aircraft, receive the German Empire's highest military award, the Pour le Mérite as the first German aviators to earn it.
1932 – Hattie Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.
1962 – Vietnam War: Operation Chopper, the first American combat mission in the war, takes place.
1967 – Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.
1986 – Space Shuttle program: Congressman and future NASA Administrator Bill Nelson lifts off from Kennedy Space Center aboard Columbia on mission STS-61-C as a payload specialist.
1991 – Persian Gulf War: An act of the U.S. Congress authorizes the use of American military force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.
1997 – Space Shuttle program: Atlantis launches from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-81 to the Russian space station Mir, carrying astronaut Jerry M. Linenger for a four-month stay on board the station, replacing astronaut John E. Blaha.
2004 – The world's largest ocean liner, RMS Queen Mary 2, makes its maiden voyage.

 

[darlowolf64]

13th January

1968 – Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison.

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is the first live album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records on May 6, 1968. After his 1955 song "Folsom Prison Blues", Cash had been interested in recording a performance at a prison. His idea was put on hold until 1967, when personnel changes at Columbia Records put Bob Johnston in charge of producing Cash's material. Cash had recently controlled his drug abuse problems, and was looking to turn his career around after several years of limited commercial success. Backed by June Carter, Carl Perkins, and the Tennessee Three, Cash performed two shows at Folsom State Prison in California on January 13, 1968. The initial release of the album consists of 15 songs from the first show and two from the second.

Despite little initial promotion by Columbia, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison was a hit in the United States, reaching number one on the country charts and the top 15 of the national album chart. The lead single, a live version of "Folsom Prison Blues", was a top 40 hit, Cash's first since 1964's "Understand Your Man". At Folsom Prison received positive reviews and revitalized Cash's career, becoming the first in a series of live albums recorded at prisons that includes At San Quentin (1969), På Österåker (1973), and A Concert Behind Prison Walls (1976).

Also on 13th January...

1547 – Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is sentenced to death for treason, on the grounds of having quartered his arms to make them similar to those of the King, Henry VIII of England.
1793 – Nicolas Jean Hugon de Bassville, representative of Revolutionary France, is lynched by a mob in Rome.
1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: A naval battle between a French ship of the line and two British frigates off the coast of Brittany ends with the French vessel running aground, resulting in over 900 deaths.

1840 – The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.
1842 – Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 camp followers when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
1893 – U.S. Marines land in Honolulu, Hawaii from the USS Boston to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.
1898 – Émile Zola's J'accuse…! exposes the Dreyfus affair.
1942 – Henry Ford patents a soybean car, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.
1942 – World War II: First use of an aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.
2012 – The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off the coast of Italy due to the captain Francesco Schettino's negligence and irresponsibility. There are 32 confirmed deaths.

2021 – Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump is impeached for a second time on a charge of incitement of insurrection following the January 6 United States Capitol attack one week prior.

 

[leedswolf]

1877 Wolves (St Luke's) played their first ever game against Stafford Road reserves.

 

[Keef]

17 jan 2004
Kenny miller scores the only goal against Manchester United,
I go out on the piss to celebrate, get a phone call from the gorgeous Estonian I was going out with asking where I was, tell her I’m out on the piss I’ll be back tomorrow.
About 1/2 hour later another phone call screaming and crying saying I have to come home NOW! Thomasz the mad scary Russian is whacking one of her housemates with an axe, and they’re next.
Heard the sound of broken glass as they escaped out the window then the phone goes dead.
I can’t do a lot as they’re in Lincoln, sister did offer to take me but being a dick I said no.
Got there the next day, doors open never seen so much blood in a room, no sign of the lad that got whacked, never saw him again.
Jelena the gorgeous Estonian was in a bnb in Lincoln, we broke up not long after, unsurprisingly.

 

[darlowolf64]

14th January

1973 – Elvis Presley's concert Aloha from Hawaii is broadcast live via satellite, and sets the record as the most watched broadcast by an individual entertainer in television history.

Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite is a concert starring Elvis Presley that took place at the Honolulu International Center and was broadcast live via satellite to audiences in Asia and Oceania on January 14, 1973. The show was presented with a delay in Europe. In the United States, to avoid a programming conflict with Super Bowl VII and Elvis on Tour which was playing in cinemas at the time, NBC opted to air a ninety-minute television special of the concert on April 4.

Presley returned to performing tours throughout the United States in 1970. Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China inspired Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, to promote a live broadcast concert featuring Presley and he arranged a deal with RCA Records and the NBC network to produce one. The show benefited the Kui Lee Cancer Fund.

Marty Pasetta produced the program. A filmed rehearsal concert took place on January 12. The show earned good ratings in the countries targeted by the live broadcast. The television special presented in the United States became NBC's highest-rated program of the year, and it received a favorable reception from critics. Its soundtrack album became Presley's last chart-topper on Billboard's album chart

Also on 14th January...

1236 – King Henry III of England marries Eleanor of Provence.
1858 – Napoleon III of France escapes an assassination attempt made by Felice Orsini and his accomplices in Paris.
1899 – RMS Oceanic, the largest ship afloat since SS Great Eastern, is launched.
1911 – Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition makes landfall on the eastern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf.
1943 – World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill begin the Casablanca Conference to discuss strategy and study the next phase of the war.

1969 – USS Enterprise fire: An accidental explosion aboard the USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 28 people.
1972 – Queen Margrethe II of Denmark ascends the throne, the first Queen of Denmark since 1412 and the first Danish monarch not named Frederik or Christian since 1513.
2024 – Queen Margrethe II abdicates as Queen of Denmark and is succeeded by her son, Frederik X.

 

[darlowolf64]

15th January

1947 – The Black Dahlia murder: The dismembered corpse of Elizabeth Short was found in Los Angeles.
Elizabeth Short known posthumously as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1947. Her case became highly publicized owing to the gruesome nature of the crime, which included the mutilation of her corpse, which was bisected at the waist.

A native of Boston, Short spent her early life in New England and Florida before relocating to California, where her father lived. It is commonly held that she was an aspiring actress, though she had no known acting credits or jobs during her time in Los Angeles. She would acquire the nickname of the Black Dahlia posthumously, as newspapers of the period often nicknamed particularly lurid crimes; the term may have originated from a film noir murder mystery, The Blue Dahlia (1946). After the discovery of her body, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) began an extensive investigation that produced over 150 suspects but yielded no arrests.

Short's unsolved murder and the details surrounding it have had a lasting cultural intrigue, generating various theories and public speculation. Her life and death have been the basis of numerous books and films, and her murder is frequently cited as one of the most famous unsolved murders in U.S. history, as well as one of the oldest unsolved cases in Los Angeles County. It has likewise been credited by historians as one of the first major crimes in postwar America to capture national attention.

Also on 15th January...

1559 – Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England and Ireland in Westminster Abbey, London.
1759 – The British Museum opens to the public.
1889 – The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is incorporated in Atlanta.
1892 – James Naismith publishes the rules of basketball.
1943 – The Pentagon is dedicated in Arlington County, Virginia.
1967 – The first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles. The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10.
1969 – The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5.
1991 – Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Queen of Australia, signs letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth realm to institute its own Victoria Cross in its honours system.
2019 – Theresa May's UK government suffers the biggest government defeat in modern times, when 432 MPs voting against the proposed European Union withdrawal agreement, giving her opponents a majority of 230.

 

[leedswolf]

1991 – Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Queen of Australia, signs letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth realm to institute its own Victoria Cross in its honours system.

The first Victoria Cross for Australia was awarded to Trooper Mark Donaldson of the Special Air Service Regiment by Governor-General Quentin Bryce at Government House, Canberra, on 16 January 2009.

 

[darlowolf64]

16th January

1707 – The Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain.

The Acts of Union were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act 1707 passed by the Parliament of Scotland. They put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706, following negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. By the two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states in a personal union—were, in the words of the Treaty, "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain".

The two countries had shared a monarch since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne from his double first cousin twice removed, Queen Elizabeth I. Although described as a Union of Crowns, and in spite of James's acknowledgement of his accession to a single Crown, England and Scotland were officially separate Kingdoms until 1707. Prior to the Acts of Union, there had been three previous attempts in 1606, 1667, and 1689 to unite the two countries by Acts of Parliament, but it was not until the early 18th century that both political establishments came to support the idea, albeit for different reasons.

The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707. On this date, the Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament united to form the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster in London, the previous home of the English Parliament. This specific process is sometimes referred to as the "union of the Parliaments" in Scotland.
Also on 16th January...

27 BC – Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire.
1537 – Bigod's Rebellion, an armed insurrection attempting to resist the English Reformation, begins.
1572 – Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried and found guilty of treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.
1909 – Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.
1920 – The League of Nations holds its first council meeting in Paris, France.
1942 – Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard.
1945 – World War II: Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
1969 – Space Race: Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the first-ever docking of crewed spacecraft in orbit, the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another, and the only time such a transfer was accomplished with a space walk.
1979 – Iranian Revolution: The last Iranian Shah flees Iran with his family for good and relocates to Egypt.
2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.

 

[darlowolf64]

17th January

1977 – Capital punishment in the United States resumes after a ten-year hiatus, as convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in Utah.

Gary Mark Gilmore was an American criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his death sentence for two murders he had admitted to committing in Utah. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision Gregg v. Georgia, he became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States. These new statutes avoided the problems under the 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia, which had resulted in earlier death penalty statutes being deemed "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had previously ordered all states to commute death sentences to life imprisonment after Furman. Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in 1977. His life and execution were the subject of the 1979 nonfiction novel The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, and 1982 TV film of the novel starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gilmore.

Many musicians have explored the Gilmore case. In 1977, the Adverts had a top 20 hit in the UK with the song "Gary Gilmore's Eyes". The lyrics describe an eye donor recipient realizing his new eyes came from the executed murderer. The song was later covered by German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen and a country version of the song was recorded by Dean Schlabowske. In 1978, Los Angeles punk band the Deadbeatz released a song called "Let's Shoot Maria" which featured the chorus, "Gonna finish off what Gary Gilmore started." In 1977, New York City experimental punk band Chain Gang released the song "Gary Gilmore and the Island of Dr. Moreau" as the B-side to their single "Son of Sam" about David Berkowitz. The Police's song "Bring on the Night", from their 1979 album Reggatta de Blanc, speculated on Gary Gilmore's possible feelings on the evening before the execution took place. In 1980, the Judy's released the song "How's Gary?" on their album Wonderful World of Appliances.

Also on 17th January...

1648 – England's Long Parliament passes the "Vote of No Addresses", breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.
1773 – Captain James Cook leads the first expedition to sail south of the Antarctic Circle.
1899 – The United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
1917 – The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
1920 – Alcohol Prohibition begins in the United States as the Volstead Act goes into effect.
1943 – World War II: Greek submarine Papanikolis captures the 200-ton sailing vessel Agios Stefanos and mans her with part of her crew.
1944 – World War II: Allied forces launch the first of four assaults on Monte Cassino with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome, an effort that would ultimately take four months and cost 105,000 Allied casualties.
1950 – The Great Brink's Robbery: Eleven thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car company's offices in Boston.[18]
1966 – Palomares incident: A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, killing seven airmen, and dropping three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea.
1991 – Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begins early in the morning as aircraft strike positions across Iraq, it is also the first major combat sortie for the F-117. LCDR Scott Speicher's F/A-18C Hornet from VFA-81 is shot down by a Mig-25 and is the first American casualty of the War. Iraq fires eight Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.
1998 – Clinton–Lewinsky scandal: Matt Drudge breaks the story of the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair on his Drudge Report website.

 

[darlowolf64]

18th January

1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.

The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 British ships that took the first British colonists and convicts to Australia. It comprised two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, with over 1400 people convicts, marines, sailors, civil officers and free settlers, left from Portsmouth, England and took a journey of over 15,000 miles and over 250 days to eventually arrive in Botany Bay, New South Wales, where a penal colony would become the first British settlement in Australia.

Lord Sandwich, together with the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, the eminent scientist who had accompanied Lieutenant James Cook on his 1770 voyage, was advocating establishment of a British colony in Botany Bay, New South Wales.[1][2] Banks accepted an offer of assistance from the American Loyalist James Matra in July 1783. Under Banks's guidance, he rapidly produced "A Proposal for Establishing a Settlement in New South Wales", with a fully developed set of reasons for a colony composed of American Loyalists, Chinese and South Sea Islanders (but not convicts). The decision to establish a colony in Australia was made by Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, Secretary of State for the Home Office. This was taken for two reasons: the ending of transportation of criminals to North America following the American Revolution, as well as the need for a base in the Pacific to counter French expansion.

In September 1786, Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed Commodore of the fleet, which came to be known as the First Fleet, which was to transport the convicts and soldiers to establish a colony at Botany Bay. Upon arrival there, Phillip was to assume the powers of Captain General and Governor in Chief of the new colony. A subsidiary colony was to be founded on Norfolk Island, as recommended by Sir John Call and Sir George Young, to take advantage for naval purposes of that island's native flax and timber. The cost to Britain of outfitting and dispatching the Fleet was £84,000 about £9.6m as of 2015.

Also on 18th January...

1486 – King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
1778 – James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands".
1866 – Wesley College is established in Melbourne, Australia.
1871 – Wilhelm I of Germany is proclaimed Kaiser Wilhelm in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles towards the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Wilhelm already had the title of German Emperor since the constitution of 1 January 1871, but he had hesitated to accept the title.
1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
1967 – Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler", is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.
1981 – Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs).
1993 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is officially observed for the first time in all 50 US states.

 

[darlowolf64]

19th January

1883 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.

Roselle is a borough located in Union County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 22,695, an increase of 1,610 from the 2010 census count of 21,085, which in turn reflected a decline of 189 from the 21,274 counted in the 2000 census.

On January 19, 1883, the world's first electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle. It had been built by Thomas Edison to demonstrate that an entire community could be illuminated by electricity. This success encouraged the installation of electric lighting in numerous other villages and cities. The First Presbyterian Church, located on the corner of West 5th Avenue and Chestnut Street, was the first church in the United States to be lit by electricity, and the second in the world after the City Temple church in London.

Also on 19th January...

1419 – Hundred Years' War: Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England, completing his reconquest of Normandy.
1764 – John Wilkes is expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.
not the most flattering portrait ever painted!


1764 – Bolle Willum Luxdorph records in his diary that a mail bomb, possibly the world's first, has severely injured the Danish Colonel Poulsen, residing at Børglum Abbey.
1788 – The second group of ships of the First Fleet arrive at Botany Bay.
1915 – Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.
1915 – German strategic bombing during World War I: German zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom killing at least 20 people, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target.
1917 – Silvertown explosion: A blast at a munitions factory in London kills 73 and injures over 400. The resulting fire causes over £2,000,000 worth of damage.
1946 – General Douglas MacArthur establishes the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals.
1977 – President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a.k.a. "Tokyo Rose".
1978 – The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW's plant in Emden. Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003.
1981 – Iran hostage crisis: United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity.
1983 – Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia.
1983 – The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced.
1986 – The first IBM PC computer virus is released into the wild. A boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain, it was created by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter unauthorized copying of the software they had written.

 

[darlowolf64]

20th January

1265 – The first English parliament to include not only Lords but also representatives of the major towns holds its first meeting in the Palace of Westminster, now commonly known as the "Houses of Parliament".

Simon de Montfort's Parliament was an English parliament held from 20 January 1265 until mid-March of the same year, called by Simon de Montfort, a baronial rebel leader.

Montfort had seized power in England following his victory over Henry III at the Battle of Lewes during the Second Barons' War, but his grip on the country was under threat. To gain more support, he summoned not only the barons and the knights of the shires, as in previous parliaments, but also burgesses from the major towns. They discussed radical reforms and temporarily stabilised Montfort's political situation. Montfort was killed at the Battle of Evesham later that year, but the idea of inviting both knights and burgesses to parliaments became more popular under Henry's son Edward I. By the 14th century, it had become the norm, with the gathering becoming known as the House of Commons.

Also on 20th January...

1356 – Edward Balliol surrenders his claim to the Scottish throne to Edward III in exchange for an English pension.
1649 – The High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I begins its proceedings.


1783 – The Kingdom of Great Britain signs preliminary articles of peace with the Kingdom of France, setting the stage for the official end of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War later that year.
1788 – The third and main part of First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay, beginning the British colonization of Australia. Arthur Phillip decides that Port Jackson is a more suitable location for a colony.
1841 – Hong Kong Island is occupied by the British during the First Opium War.
1887 – The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
1909 – Newly formed automaker General Motors (GM) buys into the Oakland Motor Car Company, which later becomes GM's long-running Pontiac division.
1929 – The first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, In Old Arizona, is released.
1936 – King George V of the United Kingdom dies. His eldest son succeeds to the throne, becoming Edward VIII. The title Prince of Wales is not used for another 22 years.
1937 – Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Nance Garner are sworn in for their second terms as U.S. President and U.S. Vice President; it is the first time a Presidential Inauguration takes place on January 20 since the 20th Amendment changed the dates of presidential terms.
1942 – World War II: At the Wannsee Conference held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, senior Nazi German officials discuss the implementation of the "Final Solution to the Jewish question".
1981 – Twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States of America, Iran releases 52 American hostages.

 

[darlowolf64]

21st January

1854 – The RMS Tayleur sinks off Lambay Island on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Australia with great loss of life.

RMS Tayleur was a full-rigged iron clipper ship chartered by the White Star Line. She was large, fast and technically advanced. She ran aground off Lambay Island and sank, on her maiden voyage, in 1854. Of more than 650 aboard, only 280 survived. She has been described as "the first Titanic".

Tayleur left Liverpool on 19 January 1854, on her maiden voyage, for Melbourne, Australia, with a complement of 627 passengers and 25 crew crew. She was mastered by 29-year-old Captain John Noble. During the inquiry, it was determined that her crew of 25 had only had 12 trained seamen amongst them, of which 8 could not speak English. It was reported in newspaper accounts that many of the crew were seeking free passage to Australia. Most of the crew were able to survive.

Her compasses did not work properly because of the iron hull. The crew believed that they were sailing south through the Irish Sea, but were actually travelling west towards Ireland. On 21 January 1854, within 48 hours of sailing, Tayleur found herself in a fog and a storm, heading straight for the island of Lambay. The rudder was undersized for her tonnage, so that she was unable to tack around the island. The rigging was also faulty; the ropes had not been properly stretched, so that they became slack, making it nearly impossible to control the sails. Despite dropping both anchors as soon as rocks were sighted, ran aground on the east coast of Lambay Island, about 5 miles from Dublin Bay

Also on 21st January...

1861 – American Civil War starts, and Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate.
1908 – New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only to have the measure vetoed by the mayor.
1911 – The first Monte Carlo Rally takes place.
1919 – A revolutionary Irish parliament is founded and declares the independence of the Irish Republic. One of the first engagements of the Irish War of Independence takes place.
1931 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.
1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady of the United States.
1963 – The Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad ends operation.

1968 – A B-52 bomber crashes near Thule Air Base, contaminating the area after its nuclear payload ruptures. One of the four bombs remains unaccounted for after the cleanup operation is complete.
1971 – The current Emley Moor transmitting station, the tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, begins transmitting UHF broadcasts.
1976 – Commercial service of Concorde begins with the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.
1981 – Production of the DeLorean sports car begins in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

2004 – NASA's MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The problem lies in the management of its flash memory and is fixed remotely from Earth on February 6.

 

[darlowolf64]

22nd January

1879 – The Battle of Isandlwana during the Anglo-Zulu War results in a British defeat.
Zulu King Cetshwayo

The Battle of Isandlwana was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British invaded Zululand in Southern Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of approximately 1,800 British, colonial and native troops with approximately 350 civilians. The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields, but also had a number of muskets and antiquated rifles.

The British and colonial troops were armed with the modern Martini–Henry breechloading rifle and two 7-pounder mountain guns deployed as field guns, as well as a Hale rocket battery. The Zulus had a vast disadvantage in weapons technology, but they greatly outnumbered the British and ultimately overwhelmed them, killing over 1,300 troops, including all those out on the forward firing line. The Zulu army suffered anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 killed.

The battle was a decisive victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion of Zululand. The British Army had suffered its worst defeat against an indigenous foe equipped with vastly inferior military technology. Isandlwana resulted in the British taking a much more aggressive approach in the Anglo–Zulu War, leading to a heavily reinforced second invasion, and the destruction of King Cetshwayo's hopes of a negotiated peace.

1879 – The Battle of Rorke's Drift, just some 15 km away from Isandlwana, results in a British victory.
Sketch of Rorke's Drift defences

The Battle of Rorke's Drift, also known as the Defence of Rorke's Drift, was an engagement in the Anglo-Zulu War. The successful British defence of the mission station of Rorke's Drift, under the command of Lieutenants John Chard of the Royal Engineers and Gonville Bromhead, of the 24th Regiment of Foot began when a large contingent of Zulu warriors broke off from the main force during the final hour of the British defeat at the day-long Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879, diverting 6 miles to attack Rorke's Drift later that day and continuing into the following day.

Just over 150 British and colonial troops defended the station against attacks by 3,000 to 4,000 Zulu warriors. The massive but piecemeal attacks by the Zulu on Rorke's Drift came very close to overwhelming the much smaller garrison, but were consistently repelled.

Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to individual defenders, along with a number of other decorations and honours.
Lieutenant John Rouse Merriott Chard, 5th Field Coy, Royal Engineers
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead; B Coy, 24th (The 2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot (2nd/24th Foot)
Corporal William Wilson Allen; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private Frederick Hitch; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private Alfred Henry Hook; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private Robert Jones; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private William Jones; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private John Williams; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Surgeon-Major James Henry Reynolds; Army Medical Department
Acting Assistant Commissary James Langley Dalton; Commissariat and Transport Department

Corporal Christian Ferdinand Schiess; 2nd/3rd Natal Native Contingent
In 1879, there was no provision for the posthumous granting of the Victoria Cross, and so it could not be awarded to anyone who had died in performing an act of bravery. Private Joseph Williams, B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot, was killed during the fight in the hospital and was mentioned in despatches that "had he lived he would have been recommended for the Victoria Cross."

 

[darlowolf64]

Also on 22nd January...

1506 – The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrives at the Vatican.

1689 – The Convention Parliament convenes to determine whether James II and VII, the last Roman Catholic monarch of England, Ireland and Scotland, had vacated the thrones of England and Ireland when he fled to France in 1688.
1901 – Edward VII is proclaimed King of the United Kingdom after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.
1905 – Bloody Sunday in Saint Petersburg, beginning of the 1905 revolution.
1906 – SS Valencia runs aground on rocks on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, killing more than 130.
1917 – American entry into World War I: President Woodrow Wilson of the still-neutral United States calls for "peace without victory" in Europe.
1924 – Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1927 – Teddy Wakelam gives the first live radio commentary of a football match, between Arsenal F.C. and Sheffield United at Highbury.
1941 – World War II: British and Commonwealth troops capture Tobruk from Italian forces during Operation Compass.
1957 – The New York City "Mad Bomber", George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut and charged with planting more than 30 bombs.
1968 – Apollo Program: Apollo 5 lifts off carrying the first Lunar module into space.
1968 – Operation Igloo White, a US electronic surveillance system to stop communist infiltration into South Vietnam begins installation.
1970 – The Boeing 747, the world's first "jumbo jet", enters commercial service for launch customer Pan American Airways with its maiden voyage from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport.
1973 – The Supreme Court of the United States delivers its decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, legalizing elective abortion in all fifty states.
1973 – The crew of Apollo 17 addresses a joint session of Congress after the completion of the final Apollo Moon landing mission.
1973 – In a bout for the world heavyweight boxing championship in Kingston, Jamaica, challenger George Foreman knocks down champion Joe Frazier six times in the first two rounds before the fight is stopped by referee Arthur Mercante.
1984 – The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, is introduced during a Super Bowl XVIII television commercial.
1992 – Space Shuttle program: The space shuttle Discovery launches on STS-42 carrying Dr. Roberta Bondar, who becomes the first Canadian woman and the first neurologist in space.
1998 – Space Shuttle program: space shuttle Endeavour launches on STS-89 to dock with the Russian space station Mir.

 

[darlowolf64]

23rd January

1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, is assassinated by firearm, the first recorded instance of such.

On Thursday, 19 January 1570, Moray was at Stirling Castle, where he had invited the English diplomat Sir Henry Gates and the soldier Sir William Drury, Marshal of Berwick, for dinner in the Great Hall. Later, in his bedchamber, he told the English visitors he would meet them and certain Scottish nobles at Edinburgh on Monday or Tuesday to discuss the rendition of English rebels. Moray was troubled by the problem of Dumbarton Castle, which was held against him by supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots. On 21 January, he sent letters to summon the Earl of Morton, Lindsay and Home to the meeting in Edinburgh.

Moray was assassinated in Linlithgow on 23 January 1570 by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a supporter of his half-sister Mary. As Moray was passing in a cavalcade in the main street below, Hamilton fatally wounded him with a carbine shot from a window of his uncle Archbishop Hamilton's house. He was the first head of government to be assassinated by a firearm.

Also on 23rd January...

1571 – The Royal Exchange opens in London.
1719 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: The Battle of Rorke's Drift ends.
1909 – RMS Republic, a passenger ship of the White Star Line, becomes the first ship to use the CQD distress signal after colliding with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that kills six people. The Republic sinks the next day.

1920 – The Netherlands refuses to surrender the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.
1937 – The trial of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist center sees seventeen mid-level Communists accused of sympathizing with Leon Trotsky and plotting to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime.
1941 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
1945 – World War II: German admiral Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal.
1957 – American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the "Frisbee".
1967 – Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty-one villages. The area to be developed was largely farmland, with evidence of continuous settlement dating back to the Bronze Age.
1986 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.

 

[darlowolf64]

24th January

1908 – The first Boy Scout troop is organized in Sunderland, England by Robert Baden-Powell known as "Vaux's Own" named after the troops founder Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Vaux.

Baden Powell Ernest Vaux

In 1907, Robert Baden-Powell, a lieutenant general in the British Army held a Scouting encampment on Brownsea Island in England. The trigger for the Scouting movement was the 1908 publication of Scouting for Boys written by Baden-Powell.

At Charterhouse, one of England's most famous public schools, Baden-Powell had an interest in the outdoors. Later, as a military officer, Baden-Powell was stationed in British India in the 1880s where he took an interest in military scouting and in 1884 he published Reconnaissance and Scouting.

At the beginning of 1908, Baden-Powell published Scouting for Boys in six fortnightly parts, setting out activities and programmes which existing youth organisations could use. The reaction was phenomenal, and quite unexpected. In a very short time, Scout Patrols were created up and down the country, all following the principles of Baden-Powell's book. In 1909, the first Scout Rally was held at Crystal Palace in London, to which 11,000 Scouts came—and some girls dressed as Scouts and calling themselves "Girl Scouts". Baden-Powell retired from the Army and, in 1910, he formed The Boy Scouts Association, and later The Girl Guides. By the time of The Boy Scouts Association's first census in 1910, it had over 100,000 Scouts.

Scouting for Boys was published in England later in 1908 in book form. The book is now the fourth-bestselling title of all time, and was the basis for the later American version of the Boy Scout Handbook.

At the time, Baden-Powell intended that the scheme would be used by established organizations, in particular the Boys' Brigade, from the founder William A. Smith. However, because of the popularity of his person and the adventurous outdoor games he wrote about, boys spontaneously formed Scout patrols and flooded Baden-Powell with requests for assistance. He encouraged them, and the Scouting movement developed momentum. In 1910 Baden-Powell formed The Boy Scouts Association in the United Kingdom. As the movement grew, Sea Scouts, Air Scouts, and other specialized units were added to the program.

 

[darlowolf64]

Also on 24th January...

41 – Claudius is proclaimed Roman emperor by the Praetorian Guard after they assassinate the previous emperor, his nephew Caligula.
1536 – King Henry VIII of England suffers an accident while jousting, leading to a brain injury that historians say may have influenced his later erratic behavior and possible impotence.
1679 – King Charles II of England dissolves the Cavalier Parliament.
1848 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento.
1900 – Second Boer War: Boers stop a British attempt to break the Siege of Ladysmith in the Battle of Spion Kop.
1915 – World War I: British Grand Fleet battle cruisers under Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty engage Rear-Admiral Franz von Hipper's battle cruisers in the Battle of Dogger Bank.
1916 – In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., the Supreme Court of the United States declares the federal income tax constitutional.
1918 – The Gregorian calendar is introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective February 14 (New Style).
1935 – Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company starts selling the first canned beer.
1943 – World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conclude a conference in Casablanca.
1946 – The United Nations General Assembly passes its first resolution to establish the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.
1961 – Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost.
1972 – Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.
1984 – Apple Computer places the Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States.

1989 – Notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, with over 30 known victims, is executed by the electric chair at the Florida State Prison.
2003 – The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation.

 

[darlowolf64]

25th January

1971 – Charles Manson and four "Family" members, three of them female are found guilty of the 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders.

The Tate–LaBianca murders were a series of murders perpetrated by members of the Manson Family during August 9–10, 1969, in Los Angeles, California, United States, under the direction of Tex Watson and Charles Manson. The perpetrators killed five people on the night of August 8–9: pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her companions Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski, along with Steven Parent. The following evening, the Family also murdered supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, at their home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.

On the night of August 8–9, four members of the Manson Family – Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian – drove from Spahn Ranch to 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, the home of Sharon Tate and her husband, film director Roman Polanski. The group murdered Tate, who was 8½ months pregnant; guests Jay Sebring, a celebrity hairdresser; Abigail Folger, a coffee heiress; her boyfriend Wojciech Frykowski, an aspiring screenwriter; and Steven Parent, an 18-year-old visiting the property's caretaker. Polanski was working on a film in Europe. Manson was a cult leader and aspiring musician who had tried to get a contract with record producer Terry Melcher, who had previously rented the house.

The following night, those four people, in addition to Manson, Leslie Van Houten and Steve "Clem" Grogan, committed two more murders. Manson had allegedly said he would "show them how to do it": After they considered various options: 258–269  Kasabian drove the group to 3301 Waverly Drive in the Los Feliz neighborhood, the home of the LaBiancas. Manson left with Atkins, Grogan, and Kasabian. Watson, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten killed the couple in the early morning hours of August 10.

The five perpetrators – Atkins, Krenwinkel, Manson, Van Houten, and Watson – were each tried and convicted for their roles in the Tate–LaBianca murders. Originally, each defendant received a death sentence. However, in 1972, the Supreme Court of California ruled in People v. Anderson that the state's then-current death penalty laws were unconstitutional.

Atkins remained in prison until her death from brain cancer at age 61 in 2009.

Imprisoned in 1971, Krenwinkel remains incarcerated. Following the 2009 death of fellow Manson gang member Susan Atkins, Krenwinkel is now the longest-incarcerated female inmate in the California penal system. She has been denied parole 14 times, most recently in 2017.

Manson remained imprisoned until his death from cardiac arrest resulting from respiratory failure and colon cancer on November 19, 2017. He was just a few days past his 83rd birthday, and had spent all but 13 years of his life in some sort of supervised setting.

Van Houten became the youngest woman ever put on California's death row, as well as the youngest member of the Manson Family convicted of murder. She was released on parole on July 11, 2023, after being denied parole 22 times.

Watson remains incarcerated. He has been denied parole 17 times, most recently in 2021. While imprisoned, Watson claims that he became a born-again Christian.

 

[darlowolf64]

Also on 25th January...

1533 – Henry VIII of England secretly marries his second wife Anne Boleyn.
1554 – São Paulo, Brazil, is founded by Jesuit priests.
1585 – Walter Raleigh is knighted, shortly after renaming North America region "Virginia", in honor of Elizabeth I, Queen of England, sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
1765 – Port Egmont, the first British settlement in the Falkland Islands near the southern tip of South America, is founded.
1787 – Shays' Rebellion: The rebellion's largest confrontation, outside the Springfield Armory, results in the killing of four rebels and the wounding of twenty.
1791 – The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791 and splits the old Province of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada.
1819 – University of Virginia chartered by Commonwealth of Virginia, with Thomas Jefferson one of its founders.
1858 – The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is played at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia, and becomes a popular wedding processional.
1881 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.
1890 – Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
1915 – Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates U.S. transcontinental telephone service, speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
1917 – Sinking of the SS Laurentic after hitting two German mines off the coast of Northern Ireland. There were 3,211 gold bars secretly carried in the 2nd class hold, to buy munitions from Canada and the USA. At the time they were worth £5 million.
1918 – The Ukrainian People's Republic declares independence from Soviet Russia.
1924 – The 1924 Winter Olympics opens in Chamonix, in the French Alps, inaugurating the Winter Olympic Games.
1945 – World War II: The Battle of the Bulge ends.
1947 – Thomas Goldsmith Jr. files a patent for a "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device", the first ever electronic game.
1949 – The first Emmy Awards are presented in the United States; the venue is the Hollywood Athletic Club.
1960 – The National Association of Broadcasters in the United States reacts to the "payola" scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accept money for playing particular records.
1964 – Blue Ribbon Sports, which would later become Nike, is founded by University of Oregon track and field athletes.
1971 – Idi Amin leads a coup deposing Milton Obote and becomes Uganda's president.
1980 – Mother Teresa is honored with India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.
1996 – Billy Bailey becomes the last person to be hanged in the United States.