Today in History.....

On this day: 17th January

In 1929, Popeye makes first appearance, in Elzie Crisler Segar's comic strip "Thimble Theater". The comic strip was started in 1919 and revolved around the character Olive Oyl. After the addition of the popular character Popeye the title of the comic strip was changed to "Thimble Theater Featuring Popeye The Sailor."


Photo: Popeye, first appearance in the Thimble Theatre daily strip (Jan. 17, 1929)

On this day: 18th January

In 1886, the foundation of The Hockey Association in England formalized a modern version of the game that had already been played in ancient times. The roots of hockey are buried deep in antiquity. Historical records show that a crude form of the game was played in Egypt 4,000 years ago and in Ethiopia around 1,000BC. The modern game of hockey emerged in England in the mid-18th century and is largely attributed to the growth of public schools, such as Eton. Today, the International Hockey Federation consists of five Continental Associations, 132 National Associations and is still growing.


Photo: Base of a funerary kouros, found in Kerameikos (Greece); approx. 600 BC

On this day: 20th January

In 1961, the Democrat J.F. Kennedy is inaugurated as President of the United States. He was the last president to wear the traditional stovetop hat to his inauguration. His inaugural address, the first delivered to a televised audience in color, is considered among the best presidential inaugural speeches in American history.

On this day: 21st January

In 1924, Benny Hill, an English comedian and actor, was born in Southampton, on the south coast of England. He started appearing on British television in 1955 with the earliest version of The Benny Hill Show. A prominent figure in British culture for nearly four decades, his show proved to be one of the great success stories of television comedy. In 1990, The Benny Hill Show was on in 97 countries around the world. A multi-faceted talent, Benny even had a #1 British single at Christmastime with "Ernie, the Fastest Milkman in the West."

On this day: 24th January

In 1935, first canned beer went on sale. In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Two brands were sold, Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale.

The technology for canning beer existed long before it actually occurred. Prohibition put those efforts on hold. Once Prohibition for beer was repealed in April of 1933, American Can Company renewed its efforts to entice brewers to can their product. The first fish to take the bait was not the biggest. In fact it was a moderately sized brewer in Newark, New Jersey, the Gottfried Kreuger Brewing Company.

Today, canned beer accounts for approximately half of the $20 billion U.S. beer industry. Not all of this comes from the big national brewers: Recently, there has been renewed interest in canning from microbrewers and high-end beer-sellers, who are realizing that cans guarantee purity and taste by preventing light damage and oxidation.


Photo: Krueger's cans from 1935

On this day: 25th January

In 1959, American Airlines begins its first coast-to-coast flight service on a Boeing 707. Subsequent nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco took only 5 hours-3 hours less than by the piston-engine DC-7. The one-way fare, including a $10 surcharge for jet service, was $115.50, or $231 round trip-almost 25 percent cheaper than flying by piston-engine airliners.


Photo: the first jet service by any U.S. airline began on October 26, 1958, when this Pan American World Airways Boeing 707, the Clipper America, left New York for Paris.

On this day: 26th January

In 2005, Condoleezza Rice is appointed to the post of secretary of state. The post makes her the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in a U.S. presidential cabinet.

On this day: 27th January

In 1924, Lenin's body is laid in a marble tomb on Red Square near the Kremlin. The leader of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution died on 21 January 1924. In October 1930, he was placed in the marble and granite mausoleum that for 60 years became the ‘mecca’ of communism and where it still remains to this day.


Photo: Mourners gather by the Kremlin walls for the funeral of Lenin

haiducii said:

In 1924, Lenin's body is laid in a marble tomb on Red Square near the Kremlin. The leader of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution died on 21 January 1924. In October 1930, he was placed in the marble and granite mausoleum that for 60 years became the ‘mecca’ of communism and where it still remains to this day.

Photo: Mourners gather by the Kremlin walls for the funeral of Lenin

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I have a vague memory that Lenin's widow Nadeshda Krupskaya was very much against her husband getting mummified like an ancient Egyptian Pharao.

On this day: 28th January

In 1985, USA for Africa recorded “We Are the World” at A&M Recording Studios in Hollywood.

Singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte was the initiator of the events that led to the recording of “We Are the World.” Inspired by the recent success of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”—the multimillion-selling charity record by the British-Irish collective Band Aid—Belafonte talked Lionel Ritchie, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones into helping him organize an American response under the name “USA for Africa.” Ritchie and Jackson wrote the song over the course of several days in January, and Belafonte’s manager, Ken Kragen, came up with the plan to hold the session on the night of the AMA’s in order to guarantee that the greatest number of big names would be able to participate.

Among the 45 stars who sang on “We Are the World” that night were huge-in-the-80s figures like Cyndi Lauper and Huey Lewis; Country stars like Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson; pop icons like Smokey Robinson, Tina Turner and Paul Simon; and musical giants like Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Bob Dylan. The group laid down the chorus and solos before sunrise on the 29th, and “We Are the World” was in the stores and on the airwaves just five weeks later. A worldwide commercial success, it topped music charts throughout the world and became the fastest-selling American pop single in history. Over 20 million copies of the charity single were sold.

On this day: 29th January

In 1845, Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem “The Raven” was published in the New York Evening Mirror. It was an instant hit and made Poe famous, although it did not earn him much money. More than 170 years later, “The Raven” remains one of the best-known poems in the English language. It has appeared in numerous editions and is a favorite with illustrators.

Poe’s dark and macabre work reflected his own tumultuous and difficult life. Born in Boston in 1809, Poe was orphaned at age three and went to live with the family of a Richmond, Virginia, businessman. Poe enrolled in a military academy but was expelled for gambling. He later studied briefly at the University of Virginia. Poe’s excessive drinking got him fired from several positions.

His macabre work, often portraying motiveless crimes and intolerable guilt that induces growing mania in his characters, was a significant influence on such European writers as Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, and even Dostoyevsky.


Photo: 1st page of the poem

On this day: 30th January

In 1982, the first computer virus was released “into the wild”. Elk Cloner was created by 15-year-old Richard Skrenta as a school prank. The virus didn’t do much damage; it infected the Apple II’s OS and copied itself to other floppies, and every so often would display a tittering message on the screen:

Elk Cloner: The program with a personality

It will get on all your disks
It will infiltrate your chips
Yes it’s Cloner!

It will stick to you like glue
It will modify RAM too
Send in the Cloner!

The computer virus conception story begins in 1981, when a tech-savvy 9th grader named Richard Skrenta got an Apple II for Christmas. Over the following few months he began cooking up ways to trick his friends using the machine.

Skrenta already had a reputation for pranks among his friends because, in sharing computer games and software, he would often alter the floppy disks to shut down or display taunting on-screen messages. Due to this reputation, many of his friends simply stopped accepting floppy disks from him.

Skrenta thought of methods to alter floppy disks without physically touching or harming them. During a winter break from Mt. Lebanon High School in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Skrenta discovered how to launch the messages automatically on his Apple II computer. He developed what is now known as a boot sector virus, and began circulating it on January 30, 1982 among high school friends and a local computer club.

On this day: 31st January

In 1994, Barcelona opera house "Gran Teatro del Liceo" burns down.



The Liceu Theater was founded on the Rambla (orig. Las ramblas; the most wellknown avenue in Barcelona) in 1847 and it has become a symbol of the city through the years. It is one of the biggest opera houses in the world: it’s got 2.292 seats spread over its five-tier auditorium.

On this day: 1st February

In 1968, Eddie Adams took one of the Vietnam War's best-known pictures. The image of the execution of a Vietcong officer in Saigon helped build opposition to the war.



Eddie Adams (June 12, 1933 – September 18, 2004) was an American photographer and photojournalist noted for portraits of celebrities and politicians and for coverage of 13 wars. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969.

haiducii said:

In 1968, Eddie Adams took one of the Vietnam War's best-known pictures. The image of the execution of a Vietcong officer in Saigon helped build opposition to the war.

Eddie Adams (June 12, 1933 – September 18, 2004) was an American photographer and photojournalist noted for portraits of celebrities and politicians and for coverage of 13 wars. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969.

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This is one of the awful images of the late 1960's I got etched into my retina as an eight year old boy. I'll never ever forget

On this day: 3rd February

In 1972, Iran was hit by the deadliest blizzard in history. A week-long period of low temperatures and severe winter storms, lasting February 3 – 9, 1972, dumped more than 10 feet (3.0 m) of snow across rural areas in northwestern, central and southern Iran. The Iran Blizzard of February 1972 resulted in the deaths of approximately 4,000 people.

According to contemporary reports, whole communities were wiped out with the city of Ardakan and outlying villages hit the hardest hit, with no survivors in Kakkan or Kumar. In the northwest, near the border with Turkey, the village of Sheklab and its 100 inhabitants were buried by up to eight metres of snow.


Photo: 1972 Iran blizzard

haiducii said:

In 1972, Iran was hit by the deadliest blizzard in history. A week-long period of low temperatures and severe winter storms, lasting February 3 – 9, 1972, dumped more than 10 feet (3.0 m) of snow across rural areas in northwestern, central and southern Iran. The Iran Blizzard of February 1972 resulted in the deaths of approximately 4,000 people.

According to contemporary reports, whole communities were wiped out with the city of Ardakan and outlying villages hit the hardest hit, with no survivors in Kakkan or Kumar. In the northwest, near the border with Turkey, the village of Sheklab and its 100 inhabitants were buried by up to eight metres of snow.

Photo: 1972 Iran blizzard

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OMG never before I've heard from this meteorological disaster.

So too from this reason: thank you for this always so very interesting topic.

On this day: 4th February

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched a site called TheFacebook, that eventually became just “Facebook” after the company acquired the domain rights to facebook.com for $200,000 in 2005.

On this day: 6th February

In 1959, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments, filed a patent application for the integrated circuit, also known as a microchip. The low cost of integrated circuits revolutionized the electronics industry. It made cheaper computers and mobile phones possible.

Having come up with the technology for pocket calculators as well, Kilby held many patents and was later awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics. He died on June 20, 2005.


Photo: This is Jack Kilby's first integrated circuit.

haiducii said:

In 1959, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments, filed a patent application for the integrated circuit, also known as a microchip. The low cost of integrated circuits revolutionized the electronics industry. It made cheaper computers and mobile phones possible.

Having come up with the technology for pocket calculators as well, Kilby held many patents and was later awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics. He died on June 20, 2005.

Photo: This is Jack Kilby's first integrated circuit.

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I remember very well when pocket calculators started getting seriously powerful and sophisticated in the mid 1970s, without being hopelessly expensive. I entered the Gymnasium in autumn 1976 and bought my first pocket calculator; it was a Casio.