Thursday 31 December 2009

January 1, 2010

410 years ago
1600


Britannica
Scotland adopted January 1 as New Year's Day.

260 years ago
1750


Born on this date
Frederick Muhlenberg
. U.S. clergyman and politician. Rev. Muhlenberg was a Lutheran minister who was a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress (1779-1780), and sat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (1780-1783). He represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives (1789-1797), and was the first Speaker of the House (1789-1791, 1793-1795). Rev. Muhlenberg was the first signer of the Bill of Rights, and in 1789 cast the deciding vote for the nation's new capital. He died on June 4, 1801 at the age of 51.

230 years ago
1780


Died on this date
Johann Ludwig Krebs, 66
. German musician and composer. Mr. Krebs played various instruments, but specialized in the organ, studying with Johann Sebastian Bach. He wrote works for organ as well as chamber and choral works, but his Baroque compositions were unfashionable in his time.

200 years ago
1810


Politics and government
Major-General Lachlan Macquarie took office as Governor of New South Wales.

150 years ago
1860


Europeana
The first Polish stamp was issued, replacing the Russian stamps previously in use.

120 years ago
1890


Africana
Eritrea was consolidated into a colony by the Italian government.

100 years ago
1900


Born on this date
Chiune Sugihara
. Japanese diplomat. Mr. Sugihara held various posts, but was known for his time as Japanese vice-consul in Kaunas, Lithuania (1939-1941), when he arranged transit visas for 6,000 Jews, enabling them to flee Europe through Japanese territory. He was forced to resign from the Japanese foreign service in 1947, and died on July 31, 1986 at the age of 86.

Xavier Cugat. Spanish-born U.S. bandleader. Mr. Cugat, born Francisco de Asís Javier Cugat Mingall de Bru y Deulofeu, moved to Cuba with his family at the age of 5 and to the United States at the age of 15. He led the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel's orchestra in New York City for 16 years, covering the time before and after World War II. Mr. Cugat died on October 27, 1990 at the age of 90.

100 years ago
1910


Defense
Captain David Beatty was promoted to Rear Admiral, and became the youngest admiral in the British Royal Navy (except for royal family members) since Horatio Nelson.

Hockey
CHA
Quebec 7 @ Montreal Shamrocks 6

This was the first game for both teams in the new Canadian Hockey Association.

80 years ago
1930


At the movies
Party Girl, co-written, produced, and directed by Victor Halperin (directing under the pseudonym Rex Hale), and starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Jeanette Loff, and Marie Prevost, received its premiere screening in New York City shortly after midnight as 1929 passed into 1930.



Football
NCAA
Rose Bowl
Southern California 47 Pittsburgh 14

75 years ago
1935


Football
NCAA
Orange Bowl
Bucknell 26 U of Miami 0

Sugar Bowl
Tulane 20 Temple 14

Sun Bowl
El Paso All-Stars 25 Ranger (Texas) 21

These were the first Sugar Bowl and Sun Bowl games ever played.

Rose Bowl
Alabama 29 Stanford 13

70 years ago
1940


On the radio
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, on NBC
Tonight’s episode: The Blue Carbuncle

Died on this date
William A. Ashbrook, 72
. U.S. politician. Mr. Ashbrook founded the newspaper The Johnstown (Ohio) Independent in 1884. A Democrat, he represented Licking County in the Ohio House of Representatives (1906-1907), and represented Ohio's 17th District in the U.S. House of Representatives (1907-1921, 1935-1940). Mr. Ashbrook's son John, a Republican, held the same seat from 1961-1982, and also died in office.

War
Canada's National Defence Department announced that the Canadian Army's 1st Division had arrived in Britain, as King George VI signed a proclamation providing for the military conscription of all British males aged 19-28. Soviet planes bombed Jyvaskyla, Finland. Japanese troops advanced in the southern Chinese province of Kwangtung.

Diplomacy
Vladimir Sokolina was dismissed as under-secretary general of the League of Nations after he refused to resign as instructed by the Soviet government.

Politics and government
Yellowknife enacted the first municipal government in the Northwest Territories.

Economics and finance
Dutch fiscal authorities forecast an increase in the world's gold flow to the United States because of World War II.

In his annual report, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace said that World War II would hinder rather than help American farmers.

Disasters
Nearly 60 towns and villages were washed away as floods spread across Turkey from the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea.

Football
NCAA
Orange Bowl
Georgia Tech 21 Missouri 7

Cotton Bowl
Clemson 6 Boston College 3

Sun Bowl
Arizona State 0 Catholic 0

Sugar Bowl
Texas A&M 14 Tulane 13

Rose Bowl
Ohio State 17 California 14

60 years ago
1950


Diplomacy
Yugoslavia, Ecuador, and India replaced Argentina, Canada, and Ukraine as temporary members of the United Nations Security Council.

Politics and government
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover expressed "emphatic" opposition to the creation of a national police system with the task of controlling domestic Communists.

Economics and finance
The United States announced plans to supply Yugoslavia with aircraft equipment for civilian use.

50 years ago
1960


Hit parade
#1 single in the U.K. (New Musical Express): What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?--Emile Ford and the Checkmates (3rd week at #1)

#1 single in the U.K. (Record Retailer): What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?--Emile Ford and the Checkmates (3rd week at #1)

On television tonight
The Twilight Zone, on CBS
Tonight’s episode: The Four of Us are Dying, starring Harry Townes, Ross Martin, Philip Pine, and Don Gordon

Died on this date
Margaret Sullavan, 50
. U.S. actress. Miss Sullavan was mainly a stage actress, but was nominated for an Academy Award for her starring performance in Three Comrades (1938), and was known for starring with James Stewart in four films, including The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and The Mortal Storm (1940). She suffered from depression and hearing loss in later years, and died of what was ruled to be an accidental overdose of barbiturates in a hotel room in New Haven, Connecticut, where she was starring in a tryout of the play Sweet Love Remembered.

Africana
Cameroon achieved her independence from France and the United Kingdom.

Journalism
The Toronto-based weekly Canadian Jewish News published its first edition.

Football
NCAA
Orange Bowl
Georgia 14 Missouri 0

Cotton Bowl
Syracuse 23 Texas 14

Sugar Bowl
Mississippi 21 Louisiana State 0

Rose Bowl
U of Washington 44 Wisconsin 8

40 years ago
1970


Yellowknifiana
As the centennial year of the Northwest Territories began, Yellowknife officially became a city, and her first traffic lights began operating.

Canadiana
The cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario officially amalgamated to become Thunder Bay.

Abominations
The price of a chocolate bar in Canada increased from 10c to 15c, prompting this blogger to stop buying them.

War
U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew interrupted a 10-nation, 23-day tour of Asia by making a side trip from Manila, his first stop, to South Vietnam for a 24-hour stay. He visited American troops, including the wounded at an evacuation hospital, and said that his day "confirms to me the wisdom of our policies" and that he is leaving "with the feeling that the new year will bring us closer to our common goal."

Israeli jets knocked out the East Ghor Canal in Jordan for the third time.

World events
The government of France suspended two French officials involved in the December 25 theft of five French gunboats from Cherbourg by an Israeli crew, and expelled an Israeli diplomat said to have negotiated the boats’ sale through a non-existent Norwegian concern.

Politics and government
Pakistani President Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan lifted restrictions on political activity that had been in effect since March 1969.

Religion
Pope Paul VI denounced powerful nations basing their stability on "trading arms to poor nations lacking plows, schools, and hospitals" and "giant industries" prospering on their "capacity to produce arms" in the most spontaneous and fervent peace plea of his papacy.

Society
The age of majority in Great Britain dropped from 21 to 18 as legislation passed in 1969 went into effect. An estimated 2.25-3 million young people were now eligible to vote, marry without their parents’ consent, and enjoy other rights. The Labour government also announced the abolition of the money limit for travel outside Britain.

Environment
U.S. President Richard Nixon signed a bill creating a Council on Environmental Quality, pledging a fight against pollution so that "the decade of the seventies will be known as the time when this country regained a productive harmony between man and nature." Without such a fight, he said, areas such as the one around his California home "will be unfit to live in" by 1980.

Economics and finance
In line with an agreement signed between the government of Chile and Anaconda Co. in June 1969, the first of two stages of "negotiated nationalization" of the firm’s subsidiaries in the country went into effect.

Football
NCAA
Cotton Bowl
Texas 21 Notre Dame 17

Sugar Bowl
Mississippi 27 Arkansas 22

Orange Bowl
Pennsylvania State 10 Missouri 3

Rose Bowl
Southern California 10 Michigan 3



30 years ago
1980


Hit parade
Austria's Top 10 (Ö3)
1 Video Killed the Radio Star--The Buggles
2 Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)--ABBA
3 We Don't Talk Anymore--Cliff Richard
4 Don't Bring Me Down--Electric Light Orchestra
5 Babe it's Up to You--Smokie
6 She's in Love with You--Suzi Quatro
7 Boy Oh Boy--Racey
8 Maybe--Thom Pace
9 Crazy Little Thing Called Love--Queen
10 Tusk--Fleetwood Mac

Singles entering the chart were Crazy Little Thing Called Love; Bang Bang by B.A. Robertson (#13); Todesengel by Frank Duval & Orchestra (#15); I Want You to Want Me by Cheap Trick (#16); Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough by Michael Jackson (#17); Bobby Brown by Frank Zappa (#18); and Lucifer by the Alan Parsons Project (#19).

Died on this date
Pietro Nenni, 88
. Italian politician. Mr. Nenni, a Republican from 1908-1921 and a Socialist thereafter, held various cabinet posts, including Minister of Foreign Affairs (1946-1947, 1968-1969) and Deputy Prime Minister (1963-1968). He favoured close ties with the Communist Party, and received the Stalin Peace Prize in 1951, but broke with the Communists after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, and returned the prize money.

Adolph Deutsch, 82. U.K.-born U.S. composer. Mr. Deutsch, a native of London, moved to the United States in 1910. He composed music for Broadway plays before moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s, where he began composing film scores for Warner Brothers Pictures. He was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning for his scoring of Annie Get Your Gun (1950); Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Oklahoma! (1955). Mr. Deutsch's other scores included those for High Sierra (1941); The Maltese Falcon (1941); and The Apartment (1960). He was a founder and president of the Screen Composers Association.

War
There was heavy fighting between Soviet forces and Afghan army units at the town of Bala Zhar in Afghanistan. Soviet forces killed or interned 700 soldiers of the Afghan Army’s 26th Parachute Regiment when they refused a Soviet request to disarm. The U.S.S.R. said it had sent troops to Afghanistan to help repel "reactionary bands" armed, trained, and directed by the U.S.A. and China. The Soviets also accused Pakistan of training officers to command Afghan Muslim groups to fight in Afghanistan.

Europeana
A constitutional provision went into effect in Sweden providing for royal succession by absolute, or equal, primogeniture. It meant that King Carl XVI's infant son Carl Philip was now displaced as heir by the king's daughter Victoria, who was two years older than the prince.

Disasters
44 were reported killed when fire swept through a crowded social club in Chapais, Quebec at a New Year’s Eve party.

An earthquake registering 7.0 on the Richter scale hit Portugal’s Azore Islands, crumbling building, killing at least 52 people, and injuring more than 300.

Football
NCAA
Cotton Bowl
Houston 17 Nebraska 14

Rose Bowl
Southern California 17 Ohio State 16

Orange Bowl
Oklahoma 24 Florida State 7

Sugar Bowl
Alabama 24 Arkansas 9

Hockey
International exhibition
Czechoslovakia 1 @ Canadian Olympic Team 5

25 years ago
1985


Football
NCAA
Fiesta Bowl
U of California at Los Angeles 39 U of Miami 37

Cotton Bowl
Boston College 45 Houston 28

Rose Bowl
Southern California 20 Ohio State 17

Orange Bowl
U of Washington 28 Oklahoma 17

Sugar Bowl
Nebraska 28 Louisiana State 10

20 years ago
1990


Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Australian Music Report): Love Shack--The B-52's (2nd week at #1)

#1 single in Japan (Oricon Singles Chart): Christmas Eve--Tatsuro Yamashita

Abominations
Salary raises for Canadian Members of Parliament went into effect, with MPs to get a minimum $82,700 per year, plus a $20,000 tax free allowance. The Prime Minister's salary increased to $153,700 per year.

Politics and government
David Dinkins was sworn in as New York City's first Negro mayor.

Football
NCAA
Fiesta Bowl
Florida State 41 Nebraska 17

Cotton Bowl
Tennessee 31 Arkansas 27

Rose Bowl
Southern California 17 Michigan 10

Orange Bowl
Notre Dame 21 Colorado 6

Sugar Bowl
U of Miami 33 Alabama 25

10 years ago
2000


Died on this date
Y2K
. Worldwide crisis. A computer programming problem that was supposed to threaten the existence of us all, it died and was quickly forgotten when January 1, 2000 came and nothing unusual happened, even in countries that had done little or nothing to prepare for it. Governments and industry had spent $350 billion U.S. to prepare. It was reported that The Gambia had experienced some problems, but I have it on good authority that even that report was bogus. U.S. authorities did lose contact with a spy satellite for two or three hours.

Football
NCAA
Cotton Bowl
Arkansas 27 Texas 6

Rose Bowl
Wisconsin 17 Stanford 9

Orange Bowl
Michigan 35 Alabama 34 (OT)

No comments: