On This Day:
Thursday January 5, 2012
This is the 5th day of the year, with 361 days remaining
in 2012.
Fact of the Day: Van Gogh
Van Gogh sold exactly one painting while he was alive, Red
Vineyard at Arles.
Holidays
Feast day of St. Simeon Stylites, St. Gerlac, St. Dorotheus
the Younger, St. Apollinaris, St. Convoyon, St. Syncletica,
and St. John Nepomucene Neumann.
Twelfth Night/ Twelfth Eve.
Events
1477
- Charles
the Bold, last of the great dukes of Burgundy,
was killed at the Battle
of Nancy.
1643
- The first legal divorce in the American colonies was
granted, to Anne
Clarke of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony, from her absent and adulterous husband, Denis
Clarke, by the Quarter Court of Boston,
Massachusetts.
1781
- A British naval expedition led by Benedict
Arnold burned Richmond,
Virginia.
1815
- Federalists from all over New
England, angered over the War
of 1812, drew up the Hartford
Convention, demanding several important changes in the
Constitution
of the United States of America.
1895
- French Capt. Alfred
Dreyfus, convicted of treason, was publicly stripped
of his rank. (He was eventually vindicated.)
1914
- Henry
Ford announced that he would pay a minimum wage of $5
a day and would share with employees $10 million in the
previous year's profits.
1919
- In Germany,
the German
Workers' Party (later the National
Socialist German Workers' Party) was formed in Munich;
Adolf
Hitler attended.
1920
- GOP
women demanded equal representation at the Republican
National Convention.
1949
- In his State of the Union address, President Harry
Truman called his administration's reform package the
"Fair
Deal."
1968
- A brief period of freedom known as "Prague
Spring" began in Czechoslovakia
under Alexander
Dubcek, a Slovak supporting liberal reform.
1970
- The soap opera "All
My Children" debuted on television.
1972
- President Richard
Nixon ordered development of the space shuttle.
1979
- Vietnamese troops occupied Phnom
Penh and the Cambodian ruler Pol
Pot was ousted.
1997
- Russian troop withdrawal from the separatist Republic
of Chechnya was completed.
2004
- Following 14 years of denials, Pete Rose
publicly admitted that he'd bet on baseball while manager of
the Cincinnati
Reds.
Births
1779
- Stephen
Decatur, American naval hero who fought against the
Barbary pirates and in the War
of 1812.
1855
- King
Camp Gillette, U.S. inventor of safety razor.
1863
- Constantin
Sergeyevich Stanislavsky, Russian founder of Moscow
Art Theatre, actor, producer.
1928
- Walter
"Fritz" Mondale, U.S. Senator, Vice President
(1977-81), Democratic presidential nominee 1984.
1931
- Alvin
Ailey, American choreographer, dancer, and founder of
Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater.
1932
- Umberto
Eco, Italian novelist.
1938
- Juan
Carlos, King of Spain.
1945
- Diane
Keaton, American film actress, director, and producer.
1969
- Marilyn
Manson, (born Brian Hugh Warner), American musician
and the lead vocalist of the band Marilyn
Manson.
Deaths
1922
- Antarctic explorer Sir
Ernest Shackleton, at South
Georgia, Antarctica,
on his fourth expedition.
1933
- Calvin
Coolidge, 30th President of the United States (1923-1929).
1943
- George
Washington Carver, American agricultural chemist.
1994
- Former US House Speaker Thomas
P. "Tip" O'Neill.
1998
- Sonny
Bono, American record producer, singer, actor, and
politician.
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