On This Day:
Monday January 30, 2012
This is the 30th day of the year, with 336 days remaining
in 2012.
Fact of the Day: jazz and blues
Jazz is a musical form, often improvisational, developed by
African-Americans and influenced by both European harmonic
structure and African rhythmic complexity. It also is often
characterized by its use of blues and speech intonations.
Blues denotes a secular folk music of African-Americans. It
has origins in the Mississippi Delta in the early 20th
century. As a musical style the blues are characterized by
expressive pitch inflections (blue notes), a three-line
textual stanza of the form AAB, and a 12-measure form.
Typically the first two and a half measures of each line are
devoted to singing, the last measure and a half consisting
of an instrumental "break" that repeats, answers, or
complements the vocal line. Blues and jazz are closely
related; such seminal jazzmen as Jelly Roll Morton and Louis
Armstrong employed blues elements in their music.
Holidays
Feast day of St. Martina, St. Bathildis, St. Adelelmus or
Aleaume, St. Aldegundis, St. Barsimaeus, and St. Hyacintha
Mariscotti.
Greece:
Holiday of the Three Hierarchs.
Events
1781
- Maryland
became the last of the 13 original states to adopt the Articles
of Confederation.
1835
- President Andrew
Jackson, the seventh president of the United
States, survived the first attempt against the life of
a U.S. President, when shots were fired in the U.S. House
of Representatives.
1862
- The USS
Monitor was launched at Greenpoint,
Long
Island.
1933
- Adolf
Hitler became chancellor of Germany.
1933
- The first episode of the "Lone
Ranger" radio program was broadcast on station WXYZ in
Detroit.
1968
- The Vietcong launched the Tet
offensive against South Vietnamese cities.
1969
- The Beatles
made their last public appearance together, on the roof of
their Apple Studios in London.
1972
- In Londonderry,
Northern
Ireland, 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators were
shot dead by British Army paratroopers, a day later known as
"Bloody
Sunday."
1996
- Gino
Gallagher, the reputed leader of the Irish
National Liberation Army, was shot and killed while
waiting in line for his unemployment benefit.
2003
- Richard
Reid, also known as the "shoe
bomber," was found guilty on terrorism charges in a
federal court in Boston.
2005
- Iraqis
voted in their country's first free election in a
half-century.
Births
1882
- Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United
States of America (1933-1945).
1937
- Vanessa
Redgrave, English actress.
1941
- Dick
Cheney, 46th Vice President of the United States.
1951
- Phil
Collins, English rock and pop musician.
Deaths
1649
- King
Charles I, beheaded for treason. The Commonwealth
of England was established.
1948
- Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi, political and spiritual leader of
the Indian independence movement, assassinated in New
Delhi by a Hindu
fanatic.
1948
- Orville
Wright, American aviation pioneer.
1995
- Gerald
Durrell, English zoologist, traveller, writer, and
broadcaster, born in Jamshedpur,
India.
1999
- Huntz
Hall, radio, theatrical, and motion picture performer
perhaps best known for his acting roll in the "Dead
End Kids" movies.
2006
- Coretta
Scott King, wife of the assassinated civil rights
activist Martin
Luther King, Jr. She was 78.
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