On This Day:
Friday January 27, 2012
This is the 27th day of the year, with 339 days remaining
in 2012.
Fact of the Day: Dow Jones
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is compiled by averaging
closing prices of 30 actively traded blue chip stocks
(including AT&T, Coca Cola, Walt Disney, Exxon,
Goodyear, Texaco, Fed Ex, and USAir - to name a few) and
adjusting by the current appropriate divisor appearing under
the Dow's Half-Hourly Averages. The divisor is "adjusted for
splits and stock dividends equal to 10% or more of the
market value of an issue..." (Barron's)
Holidays
Feast day of St. Julian of Le Mans, St. Marius or May, St.
Angela Merici, and St. Vitalian, pope.
United
Kingdom: Holocaust Memorial Day.
Germany:
Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nazism.
Events
1785
- The first state-chartered school, the University
of Georgia, was incorporated.
1825
- Congress
approved Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma),
clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern
Indians on the "Trail
of Tears."
1862
- President Abraham
Lincoln issued General War Order No. 1, setting in
motion the Union armies.
1880
- Thomas
Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent
lamp.
1888
- The National
Geographic Society was incorporated in Washington
D.C.
1924
- Vladimir
Lenin's body was laid in a marble tomb on Red
Square near the Kremlin.
1926
- John
Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor, gave the first
public demonstration of a true television system, in London.
1945
- Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz
and Birkenau
in Poland.
1951
- The era of atomic testing in Nevada's
desert began as an Air
Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman
Flats.
1973
- The Vietnam
peace accords were signed in Paris.
The U.S. military draft ended.
1975
- The Senate
began an investigation of activities by the FBI
and the CIA.
(On November 20, the committee released its report, charging
both U.S. government agencies with illegal activities.)
1996
- Germany
first observes International
Holocaust Remembrance Day.
1998
- First
Lady of the United States Hillary
Rodham Clinton appears on The
Today Show, calling the attacks against her husband
part of a vast
right-wing conspiracy.
2002
- Several explosions at a military dump in Lagos,
Nigeria
kill more than 1,000.
Births
1756
- Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer.
1832
- Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson, British author who wrote under the
pen name Lewis
Carroll.
1832
- Lewis
Carroll (pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson),
English writer, mathematician, and photographer.
1850
- Samuel
Gompers, American labor union leader, first president
of the American
Federation of Labor.
1859
- Kaiser
Wilhelm II, German emperor during World
War I, forced to abdicate in 1918.
1885
- Jerome
(David) Kern, American musical comedy composer.
1900
- Hyman
Rickover, U.S.
Navy admiral and nuclear engineer ("Father of the
Nuclear Navy").
1908
- William
Randolph Hearst Jr., American media mogul.
1918
- Skitch
(Lyle) Henderson, American bandleader, TV musical
director.
1938
- Troy
Donahue (Merle
Johnson), American actor.
1948
- Mikhail
Baryshnikov, Russian-born American ballet dancer,
ballet director, actor.
1959
- Keith
Olbermann, American news anchor, commentator and radio
sportscaster.
Deaths
1596
- Sir
Francis Drake, an English
privateer,
navigator,
slave
trader, and politician
of the Elizabethan
era.
1910
- Thomas
Crapper, a plumber and inventor who founded Thomas
Crapper & Co. Ltd. in London.
1947
- Al
Capone, American gangster.
1967
- Astronauts Virgil
I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward
H. White II, and Roger
B. Chaffee, in a flash fire during a launch pad test
aboard their Apollo
I spacecraft at Cape
Kennedy, Florida.
1972
- Mahalia
Jackson, an American gospel singer.
1973
- William
Nolde, last American combat casualty of the Vietnam
War.
1989
- Thomas
Sopwith, British aviation
pioneer as well as a celebrated yachtsman.
1993
- André
the Giant (born André René Roussimoff), professional
wrestler and actor.
2004
- Jack
Paar, American talk show host.
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