1852 – Alexandre Dumas Jr’s play, an adaptation of his novel “La Dame aux Camélias” premieres in Paris
1869 – American industrialist James Oliver invents removable tempered steel plow blade
1920 – Tarto/Dorpat peace treaty: USSR recognizes Estonian independence
1922 – James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses” first published by Sylvia Beach in Paris (1,000 copies)
1944 – Edward Chodorov’s play “Decision” premieres in NYC
1956 – Despite a severe ankle injury Tenley Albright leads an American 1-2 in the women’s figure skating at the Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics; Carol Heiss takes the silver medal
1977 – Toronto Maple Leafs Ian Turnbull scores 5 goals, NHL record for a defenseman
1980 – FBI releases details of Abscam, a sting operation that targeted 31 elected and public officials for bribes for political favors
1980 – Mexican boxer Salvador Sánchez dethrones Danny “Little Red” Lopez as WBC world featherweight champion with a 13th-round TKO in Phoenix, AZ; Lopez champion since November 1976, 8th defense
1982 – Government troops and Muslim fundamentalists battle in Hamah, Syria
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 1st February 2024
1814 – Lord Byron’s “Corsair” sells 10,000 copies on day of publication
1892 – Mrs William Astor invites 400 guests to a grand ball at her mansion thus beginning use of “400” to describe socially elite
1918 – Russia adopts the Gregorian calendar (making the day February 14)
1937 – Stapleton, Staten Island, becomes a customs-free port
1951 – 1st X-ray moving picture process demonstrated
1972 – Reprise Records releases “Harvest”, the 4th studio album by Neil Young; becomes best selling album in US, 1972
1979 – American publishing heiress Patty Hearst is released from prison for bank robbery
1987 – NFL Pro Bowl, Aloha Stadium, Honolulu, HI: AFC beats NFC, 10-6; MVP: Reggie White, Philadelphia Eagles, DE
2005 – Arsenal’s English Premier League record 33-game unbeaten streak at home ends when the Gunners go down, 4-2 to Manchester United at Highbury
2013 – The Nigerian Army bombs a Boko Haram camp, killing 18 people
Historical Events for 31st January 2024
1849 – Corn Laws abolished in Britain
1854 – Dutch KNMI established (Royal Meteorological Institute)
1901 – Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Winnipeg Victorias edge Montreal Shamrocks, 2-1 to sweep challenge series, 2-0
1906 – Strongest instrumentally recorded earthquake, Colombia, 8.6 Richter
1945 – Soviet troops reach the Oder River, less that 50 miles from Berlin
1948 – Magnetic tape recorder developed by Wireway
1955 – RCA demonstrates 1st music synthesizer
1966 – Australian Championships Women’s Tennis: Margaret Smith wins her 7th consecutive Australian singles title; beats American Nancy Richey in a walkover, Richey injured
1978 – “Elvis: The Legend Lives!” opens at Palace Theater NYC for 101 performances
2001 – In the Netherlands, a Scottish court convicts a Libyan and acquits another for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which crashed into Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988
Historical Events for 30th January 2024
1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world’s first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales is opened.
1889 – Victoria beat NSW after following on (NSW all out 63 needed 76)
1892 – Bobby Abel carries his bat for 132* for England in SCG Test
1930 – Vladimir Mayakovsky’s drama “The Bathhouse (Bunya)” premieres in Leningrad
1945 – American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied POWs from Japanese at Cabanatuan
1963 – Ivan Sutherland submits a thesis containing his Sketchpad program, a forerunner to modern-day graphic user interfaces and computer-aided design programs
1981 – 8th American Music Awards: Barbra Streisand and Kenny Rogers win
1996 – Gino Gallagher, the suspected leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, is killed while waiting in line for his unemployment benefit.
2000 – 16th Sundance Film Festival: “Girlfight” and “You Can Count on Me” (tie) win Grand Jury Prize Dramatic
2005 – 21st Sundance Film Festival: “Forty Shades of Blue”, directed by Ira Sachs, wins Grand Jury Prize Dramatic
Historical Events for 29th January 2024
1728 – John Gays’ satiric work “The Beggar’s Opera” premieres at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in London, England [NS=Feb 9]
1892 – The Coca-Cola Company is incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia
1961 – US female Figure Skating championship won by Laurence Owen
1964 – Unmanned Apollo 1 Saturn launcher test attains Earth orbit
1975 – West Indies win fifth test against India to win an exciting series 3-2
1987 – William J. Casey term as 13th director of the CIA ends
1993 – Test debut of Vinod Kambli, prolific Indian batsman
2002 – US President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address describes “regimes that sponsor terror” an “Axis of Evil”, which includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea
2017 – NFL Pro Bowl, Orlando, FL: AFC beats NFC, 20-13; MVPs: Travis Kelce, KC Chiefs, TE; Lorenzo Alexander, Buffalo Bills, LB
2018 – Toronto police arrest landscaper Bruce McArthur for murder after remains of at least 5 people found in potted plants
Historical Events for 28th January 2024
1624 – Sir Thomas Warner founds the first English colony in the Caribbean, on Saint Kitts.
1855 – The first locomotive runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway
1939 – Australian Championships Men’s Tennis: Australian John Bromwich wins his 1st Australian title; beats doubles partner Adrian Quist 6-4, 6-1, 6-3
1954 – 1954 NFL Draft: Bobby Garrett from University of Stanford first pick by Cleveland Browns
1978 – Ted Nugent autographs a fan’s arm with his knife
1979 – Arthur Kopit’s play “Wings” premieres in NYC
1985 – Charity single “We Are the World” recorded by supergroup USA for Africa (Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, and other pop stars)
1986 – Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all 7 crew members, including Christa McAuliffe who was to be the first teacher in space
1986 – Angolan revolutionary and leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi visits Washington, D.C.
1990 – “Independent on Sunday” begins publishing in London
Historical Events for 27th January 2024
1534 – French King Francis I signs classified treaty with Landgrave of Hesse
1927 – Australian Championships Men’s Tennis: Gerald Patterson wins his only home title; beats countryman John Hawkes 3-6, 6-4, 3-6, 18-16, 6-3
1956 – RCA records releases Elvis Presley’s single “Heartbreak Hotel”, his first million-seller (written by Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden)
1964 – Margaret Chase Smith (Sen-R-Maine) tries for Republican President bid
1969 – 9 Jews publicly executed in Damascus, Syria
1972 – The British Army and the Irish Republican Army engage in gun battles near County Armagh; British troops fire over 1,000 rounds of ammunition
1976 – “Laverne and Shirley” TV spinoff from “Happy Days” starring Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams premieres on ABC TV
1976 – Morocco-Algeria battles in West Sahara
1979 – Islanders ends 23 undefeated games at home streak (15-0-8)
1992 – Mike Tyson goes on trial for rape (he is found guilty)
Historical Events for 26th January 2024
1863 – American Civil War: Massachusetts Governor receives permission from Secretary of War to raise a militia organization for men of African descent (54th Massachusetts Regiment)
1931 – “Cimarron” directed by Wesley Ruggles and starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne premieres in New York. 1st western to win Best Outstanding Production/Picture (1931)
1957 – Francis Poulenc’s opera “Dialogue des Carmelites” premieres at La Scala, in Milan
1958 – Jack Smith takes over from Art Baker as TV host of “You Asked for It”
1959 – Australian Championships Men’s Tennis: American based Peruvian Alex Olmedo wins his first Grand Slam event; beats Neale Fraser of Australia 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3
1969 – Minister of Health and Social Services William Morgan resigns from the Northern Ireland government
1983 – Nazi Gestapo war criminal Klaus Barbie arrested in Bolivia
1988 – Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart’s musical “Phantom of the Opera”, directed by Hal Prince and starring Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, opens at Majestic Theater, NYC ; runs for 13,981 performances, winning 7 Tony Awards, and becoming Broadway’s longest-running shows
1997 – Mario Lemieux ties NHL record with 4 goals in the 3rd period as Pittsburgh wins, 5-2 at Montreal; 39th career hat trick and 13th 4-goal game, tying NHL record shared by Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy
2021 – Antony Blinken confirmed by US Senate as Secretary of State
Historical Events for 25th January 2024
1648 – French theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet obtains his first thesis in theology with Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, as a witness
1721 – Tsar Peter the Great makes the Moscow patriarchate and Russian Orthodox Church subordinate to the state
1904 – 179 die in coal mine explosion at Cheswick, Pennsylvania
1904 – John Millington Synge’s play “Riders to the Sea” premieres in Dublin
1909 – Richard Strauss’ one-act opera “Elektra” premieres in Dresden
1959 – 1st transcontinental commercial jet flight (American) (LA to NY for $301)
1964 – Dale Wasserman’s stage play “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, adapted from the novel by Ken Kesey, starring Kirk Douglas, Ed Ames; Joan Tetzel, and Gene Wilder, closes at Cort Theatre, NYC, after 82 performances
1988 – Ramsewak Shankar sworn in as President of Suriname
1989 – Augusto Alcalde, 1st South American Zen teacher, receives Dharma Transmission
1996 – Ottawa Senators set an NHL record with 16th consecutive home game without a win (0-15-1) in a 4-2 loss to Detroit at the Palladium; old record (15) shared by 1928 Black Hawks and 1939 Canadiens
Historical Events for 24th January 2024
1568 – In Netherlands, Duke of Alva declares William I of Orange an outlaw
1722 – Edward Wigglesworth appointed 1st north American divinity professor (Harvard)
1908 – Lieutenant General Robert Baden-Powell publishes “Scouting for Boys” as a manual for self-instruction in outdoor skills and self-improvement. The book becomes the inspiration for the Scout Movement.
1959 – WHCT TV channel 18 in Hartford, CT (IND) begins broadcasting
1960 – Algeria uprises against French President de Gaulle
1969 – Students protest the erection of steel gates around the London School of Economics
1970 – Valeri Muratov skates world record 500m (38.99 sec)
1985 – 15th Space Shuttle (51-C) Mission-Discovery 3 is launched
1988 – NBC premiere of fact based “The Murder of Mary Phagan”
2023 – Third baseman Scott Rolen (Philadelphia Philleis, St. Louis Cardinals) elected to Baseball Hall of Fame