On This Day:
Saturday January 7, 2012
This is the 7th day of the year, with 359 days remaining
in 2012.
Fact of the Day: birthstone meanings
As far back as 1400 BC, the Assyrians believed that rare and
beautiful gemstones possessed magical properties. Some
minerals were thought to possess a force or contain certain
values and powers. Tradition associates a gem with each sign
of the zodiac based on a color system. Color was thought to
release the power attributed to the stone. Later,
birthstones became associated with calendar months rather
than the zodiac. People began selecting birthstones in
colors other than the original colors. The Roman, Arabic,
Jewish, Polish, Russian and Italian lists were all
different. In 1912, the American National Association of
Jewelers, which later became Jewelers of America, adopted
the list as we now know it.
Holidays
Feast day of St. Valentine, St. Raymund of Peñafort, St.
Aldric, St. Lucian of Antioch, St. Tillo, St. Canute Lavard,
and St. Reinold.
Ethiopia:
Ganna.
Japan:
Nanakusa no sekku (Seven Medicinal Herbs Festival).
Russia:
Christmas Observance.
Events
1610
- Astronomer Galileo
Galilei sighted four of Jupiter's
moons, naming them Io, Europa,
Ganymede,
and Callisto.
1782
- First commercial American bank, the Bank
of North America, opened in Philadelphia.
1785
- Frenchman Jean-Pierre
Blanchard and American John
Jeffries traveled from Dover,
England,
to Calais,
France,
in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English
Channel by air.
1789
- The first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans
voted for electors who, a month later, chose George
Washington to be the nation's first President.
1830
- The Baltimore
& Ohio Railroad Company began rail service.
1913
- A patent was obtained for the process to get gasoline from
crude oil by William
M. Burton of Chicago.
1927
- Commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated
between New
York and London.
1953
- President Harry
Truman announced in his State of the Union address
that the United
States had developed a hydrogen
bomb.
1955
- Contralto Marian
Anderson made her debut at the Metropolitan
Opera in New
York, the first African-American to do so.
1959
- The United
States recognized Fidel
Castro's new government in Cuba.
1975
- OPEC
decided to raise crude oil prices by 10%, which began a
tidal wave of world economic inflation.
1979
- Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom
Penh, overthrowing the Khmer
Rouge government and its ruler, Pol
Pot.
1999
- The impeachment trial of President Bill
Clinton, formally charged with lying under oath and
obstructing justice, began in the Senate.
2000
- The 17th Karmapa, a 14-year-old Tibetan Buddhist leader,
fled Chinese-ruled Tibet
for India,
becoming the most significant defector since his
predecessor, the current Dalai
Lama, in 1959.
Births
1745
- Etienne
Montgolfier, French inventor of hot-air
balloon.
1800
- Millard
Fillmore, 13th President of the United
States of America (1850-1853).
1873
- Adolph
Zukor, American entrepreneur of Paramount
Pictures movie empire.
1912
- Charles
Addams, American cartoonist, creator of the Addams
Family.
Deaths
1989
- Michinomiya
Hirohito, Emperor of Japan.
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