On This Day:
Saturday January 21, 2012
This is the 21st day of the year, with 345 days remaining
in 2012.
Fact of the Day: gun salute
Gun or cannon salutes, used to honor distinguished persons
or to mark special occasions, originate from the practice of
firing all guns of a battery, fort or ship as a token of
disarming them, because early guns were not speedily
reloaded. Modern gun salutes are fired with blank cartridges
or charges. The number of shots is prescribed by
international custom and agreement. Referred to as the royal
salute, the 21-gun salute is fired for chiefs of state,
heads of government, members of a reigning royal family and
others of comparable rank. Salutes of 17, 15, 13, 11, seven,
and five shots are fired for people of lesser rank. Firing
an odd number of shots is believed to stem from an ancient
naval superstition that an even number of shots is unlucky.
Holidays
Feast day of St. Agnes, St. Fructuosus of Tarragona, St.
Patroclus of Troyes, St. Alban or Bartholomew Roe, St.
Epiphanius of Pavia, and St. Meinrad.
Events
1785
- Chippewa,
Delaware,
Ottawa,
and Wyandot
Indians signed the treaty of Fort McIntosh, ceding
present-day Ohio
to the United
States.
1861
- The future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson
Davis of Mississippi,
and four other Southerners resigned from the U.S. Senate.
1908
- New
York City prohibited women from smoking in public.
1950
- Former State Department official Alger
Hiss, accused of being part of a Communist spy ring,
was found guilty of lying to a grand jury.
1954
- The USS
Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, was
launched at Groton,
Connecticut.
1976
- The first supersonic Concordes with commercial passengers
simultaneously took off from London's
Heathrow and the Paris
Orly airports.
1977
- President Jimmy
Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam
War draft evaders.
1998
- President Bill
Clinton angrily denied reports he'd had an affair with
former White
House intern Monica
Lewinsky and had tried to get her to lie about it.
2003
- The U.S. Census
Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed blacks
as America's largest minority group.
Births
1738
- Ethan
Allen, American soldier, frontiersman.
1813
- John
Fremont, American mapmaker.
1824
- Stonewall
(Thomas) Jackson, famous Confederate General of the Civil
War.
1884
- Roger
Nash Baldwin, American founder of the American
Civil Liberties Union.
1905
- Christian
Dior, French fashion designer.
1925
- Benny
Hill, British comedian.
1927
- Telly
Savalas, American Emmy
Award-winning actor.
1938
- Wolfman
Jack (born Bob Smith), a gravelly-voiced disc
jockey, born in Brooklyn,
New
York.
1940
- Jack
Nicklaus, American golf champion.
1941
- Placido
Domingo, Spanish operatic tenor.
1953
- Paul
Allen, American entrepreneur, and co-founder of Microsoft.
1957
- Geena
Davis, American film actress.
1976
- Emma
Bunton, an English pop singer and songwriter.
Deaths
1793
- King
Louis XVI executed by guillotine in the Place de la
Revolution in Paris,
one day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign
powers and sentenced to death by the French National
Convention.
1924
- Vladimir
Lenin, Russian
revolutionary.
1950
- George
Orwell (pseudonym for Eric
Arthur Blair), Indian-born British novelist and
essayist.
1959
- Cecil
B. de Mille, American film maker.
1997
- "Colonel"
Tom Parker (born Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk), manager
of Elvis
Presley.
2002
- Peggy
Lee (born Norma Dolores Engstrom), popular singer,
songwriter, and film actress.
2006
- Ibrahim
Rugova, President of Kosovo.
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