January 15......

January 15 is the 15th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 350 (351 in leap years) days remaining in the year on this date.

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

EVENTS

● 588 BC - Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah's reign. The siege lasts until July 18, 586 BC.

● 69 - Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, but only survives for three months before committing suicide.

● 708 - Sisinnius begins his reign as Catholic Pope (dies 20 days later)

● 946 - Caliph al-Mustaqfi blinded/ousted

● 1346 - Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria gives his wife Margaretha, Holland/Zealand

● 1535 - Henry VIII declares himself head of English Church

● 1552 - France signs secret treaty with German Protestants

● 1559 - Elizabeth I of England is crowned in Westminster Abbey by Owen Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle, instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

● 1562 - 3rd sitting of Council of Trente opens

● 1582 - Russia cedes Livonia and Estonia to Poland.

● 1586 - Battle at Boxum Spanish troops under Tassis beat state army

● 1680 - French explorer Sieur de la Salle builds Fort Crèvecoeur

● 1697 - The citizens of Massachusetts spent a day of fasting and repentance for their roles in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Judge Samuel Sewall, who had presided over many of those 20 capital judgments, published a written confession acknowledging his own "blame and shame."

● 1752 - Tobias Smollett publishes pamphlet accusing Fielding of plagiarism

● 1754 - Riot at burial of doelist Daniel Raap in Amsterdam

● 1759 - British Museum opens in Montague House, London

● 1762 - Fraunces Tavern opens in New York City NY

● 1771 - "Bloody Act" passes North Carolina assembly, making rioters guilty of treason.

● 1777 - The people of New Connecticut declared their independence from Great Britain. The tiny republic later became the state of Vermont.

● 1780 - Continental Congress establishes court of appeals

● 1782 - Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.

● 1809 - Birth of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, France. Philosopher, economist, sociologist, often referred to as the "father of modern anarchism."

● 1811 - Acting in secret session Congress authorizes Pres. James Madison to annex East Florida without consent of inhabitants. {Something the country makes habit of for many years to come.}

● 1831 - 1st US-built locomotive to pull a passenger train makes 1st run; Mr & Mrs Pierson of Charleston SC make 1st US railroad honeymoon trip

● 1833 - HMS Beagle anchors at Goeree Tierra del Fuego

● 1844 - University of Notre Dame receives its charter from Indiana.

● 1851 - General Arista replaces Mexican President Herrera

● 1852 - Mt. Sinai Hospital was incorporated by Sampson Simson and eight associates in NY City. It was the first Jewish hospital in the U.S.

● 1861 - Steam elevator patented by Elisha Otis

● 1863 - 1st US newspaper printed on wood-pulp paper, Boston Morning Journal

● 1865 - Fort Fisher, NC falls to Union troops

● 1870 - A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly).

● 1873 - Lutheran founder of the Missouri Synod, C.F.W. Walther warned in a letter: 'Inactivity is the beginning of all vice.'

● 1885 - Wilson Bentley takes the first photograph of a snowflake.

● 1877 - Standing Bear, Ponca chief, refuses to move to reservation because it is within lands already given to Lakota.

● 1892 - "Triangle" magazine in Springfield, MA, published the rules for a brand new game. The original rules involved attaching a peach baskets to a suspended board. It is now known as basketball.

● 1895 - French fleet reaches Majunga, Madagascar

● 1907 - 3-element vacuum tube patented by Dr Lee de Forest

● 1907 - Gold dental inlays 1st described by William Taggart, who invented them

● 1908 - Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the first Greek-letter organization by and for Black college women is established.

● 1915 - Japan claims economic control of China

● 1919 - 2 million gallons of molasses "Tidal wave" Boston MA, drowning 21

● 1919 - Semana Tragica (Tragic Week) Bloodbath in Buenos Aires

● 1919 - Ignace Jan Paderewski became the first premier of the newly created republic of Poland.

● 1919 - Peasants in central Russia rise against the Bolsheviks.

● 1919 - Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, libertarian socialists murdered by police. Arrested and taken to the Eden Hotel in Berlin, then taken out, smashed in the head repeatedly with rifle butts before being shot in the head in separate locations. Luxemburg's body was dumped in a canal and not recovered until March.

● 1922 - Irish Free State forms; Michael Collins becomes 1st premier

● 1923 - Lithuania seizes & annexes the country of Memel

● 1924 - 3rd Dutch government Ruijs de Beerenbrouck forms

● 1925 - Hans Luther forms German government, with DNVP

● 1927 - Tennessee Supreme Court upholds law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools.

● 1929 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , the black Baptist minister who led the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's and '60's with his doctrine of nonviolent resistance , was born in Atlanta, Georgia.

● 1929 - Congress passes the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact, signed by 62 nations outlawing war. Yup.

● 1934 - 8.4 earthquake in India/Nepal, 10,700 die

● 1935 - 300 Dutch ice cream salesmen protest against Italian competition

● 1936 - The first, all glass, windowless building was completed in Toledo, OH. The building was the new home of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company Laboratory.

● 1936 - Non-profit Ford Foundation incorporates

● 1939 - Birth of Agustin Gomez Arcos (1939-1998), Almeria, Andalusia. Spanish anarchist dramatist/novelist. Because of censorship he took refuge in England, then Paris, where he wrote many many novels about pro-Franco Spain.

● 1940 - German U-Boot torpedoes Dutch trade ship Arendskerk (Eagle's Church)

● 1942 - Jawaharlal Nehru succeeded Mohandas K. Gandhi as head of India's National Congress Party.

● 1942 - FDR asks commissioner to continue baseball during WWII

● 1943 - 1st transport of Jews from Amsterdam to concentration camp Vught

● 1943 - The Pentagon, originally planned as a research hospital and then built as a military facility in eleven months during World War II, is completed in Arlington, Virginia. It is the world's largest office building just outside Washington, DC, in Arlington, VA. The structure covers 34 acres of land and has 17 miles of corridors.

● 1943 - World War II: Japanese driven off Guadalcanal.

● 1943 - World War II: Soviet counter-offensive at Voronezh begun.

● 1944 - European Advisory Commission decides to divide Germany

● 1944 - General Eisenhower arrives in England

● 1944 - Vught Concentration Camp puts 74 women in 1 cell, 10 die

● 1945 - Every Amsterdammer gets 3 kg sugar beets

● 1945 - Red Army frees Crakow-Plaszow concentration camp

● 1947 - The brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short ("The Black Dahlia") is found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. Her murderer has never been found and it has become a notorious case in the history of American crime.

● 1949 - Mao's Red army conquers Ten-tsin

● 1950 - 4,000 attend National Emergency Civil Rights Conference in Washington DC

● 1951 - Supreme Court rule "clear & present danger" of incitement to riot is not protected speech & can be a cause for arrest

● 1951 - Ilse Koch, The "Bitch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany.

● 1951 - "Cloud of Death" rolls down Mount Lamington, New Guinea. The three-day volcanic eruption kills 3-5,000.

● 1953 - Harry S. Truman became the first U.S. President to use radio and television to give his farewell as he left office.

● 1953 - 16 car Federal Express train loses brakes & crashes in Washington DC station

● 1953 - East German purge begins; The East German authorities begin a purge of senior officials, accused of plotting against the state and spying for imperialistic powers.

● 1955 - The first solar-heated, radiation-cooled house was built by Raymond Bliss in Tucson, AZ.

● 1955 - 1st official act of Princess Beatrice, launches tanker Vasum

● 1955 - USSR ends state of war with German Federal Republic

● 1961 - U.S. Air Force "Texas Tower" radar station topples into the Atlantic, sinks off the coast of New Jersey, killing all 28 men aboard. A Senate subcommittee report charged the Navy with the major responsibility for the "defects, deficiencies, and inadequacies that led to the structure's failure."

● 1962 - Dutch & Indonesian navy encounter in Etna Bay New Guinea

● 1964 - Teamsters negotiate 1st national labor contract

● 1966 - First Military Coup in Nigeria, government of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa is overthrown.

● 1967 - In the first ever Super Bowl, the Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.

● 1968 - Jeannette Rankin Brigade--a coalition of women's peace groups led by 87-year-old Rankin, the first U.S. Congresswoman and the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. entry to both World Wars, marches on Washington to protest war in Vietnam. The New York Radical Women (no relation to the Freedom Socialist Party group) staged a "Burial of Traditional Womanhood." This was the first use of phrase "Sisterhood is Powerful."

● 1969 - Trial of Janet McCloud (Tulalip) and others for "fish-in" on Nisqually River in 1965; all are found not guilty.

● 1969 - The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5.

● 1969 - Nuclear test at Pacific Ocean

● 1970 - After a 32-month fight for independence from Nigeria, Biafra surrenders.

● 1970 - Israeli archaeologists reported uncovering the first evidence supporting the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by military forces of the ancient Roman Empire.

● 1970 - Muammar al-Qaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya.

● 1971 - Seven months after it began, the jury starts deliberations in the trial of Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Leslie VanHouten, and Patricia Krenwinkel for the brutal, arrogant Tate/LaBianca murders, Los Angeles.

● 1971 - Aswan Dam official opens in Egypt

● 1973 - 4 Watergate burglars plead guilty in federal court

● 1973 - Pope Paul VI has an audience with Golda Meir at Vatican

● 1973 - Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President of the United States Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.

● 1974 - An expert testifies before the House Judiciary Committee that an 18-1/2-minute gap discovered during a critical subpoenaed recording of a White House conversation between President Richard M. Nixon and White House staff member H. R. Haldeman was caused by deliberate and repeated erasures. The White House fails to satisfactorily explain the long silence during the key conversation between Nixon and Haldeman. {Nixon did try to scapegoat his poor secretary however, going so far as to have her "demonstrate" how she could have done it accidentally.}

● 1974 - Happy Days premieres on ABC.

● 1975 - Portugal grants independence to Angola.

● 1976 - Gerald Ford's would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison.

● 1976 - US-German Helios B solar probe launched into solar orbit

● 1976 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakstan/Semipalatinsk USSR

● 1977 - The Kälvesta air disaster kills 22 people, the worst air crash in Sweden's history.

● 1978 - The brutal Shah of Iran (installed in a CIA-engineered 1953 coup and then continuously supported by the CIA) flees Peacock Throne of Iran, leading to Islamic overthrow.

● 1978 - Theodore Bundy kills Florida State University co-eds Lisa Levy & Margaret Bowman

● 1982 - Mark Thatcher found safe and well; The prime minister's son, Mark Thatcher, is on his way home after being missing in the Sahara for six days.

● 1983 - Dutch political party DS'70 disbands

● 1984 - Benn back on road to Westminster; The leftwing rebel, Tony Benn, beats off the competition to win Labour's nomination for the Chesterfield by-election.

● 1985 - Tancredo Neves becomes 1st elected President of Brazil in 21 years

● 1986 - The Living Seas opens at EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World, Florida.

● 1986 - The HBO and Cinemax pay cable television services initiate scrambling of their national satellite feeds on Galaxy 1 with the Videocipher II system.

● 1987 - Officer cleared in Groce shooting case; A police officer who mistakenly shot and paralysed an innocent woman is cleared of all criminal charges.

● 1987 - Paramount Home Video reported that it would place a commercial at the front of one of its video releases for the first time. It was a 30-second Diet Pepsi ad at the beginning of "Top Gun."

● 1988 - Arab uprising in Israel begins

● 1988 - Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder makes racist remarks about black athletes

● 1990 - AT&T's long distance telephone network suffers a cascade switching failure.

● 1991 - Vigils around the world mark expiry of US/UN deadline for military attack on Iraq if they don't leave Kuwait.

● 1991 - President Bush restores $42.5 million in military aid to El Salvador.

● 1991 - The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.

● 1992 - The international community recognizes the independence of Slovenia and Croatia from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

● 1992 - Supreme Court rules 5-3 that Joseph Doherty isn't entitled to asylum

● 1992 - Bulgaria recognizes Macedonia

● 1992 - Cleaning woman finds intimate photos of Sarah Ferguson with US man

● 1993 - District Court judge grants gay rights activists' injunction keeping discriminatory Colorado Amendment 2 from being enforced until a trial is held.

● 1993 - Salvatore Riina, the Mafia boss known as 'The Beast', is arrested in Sicily after three decades as a fugitive

● 1993 - 7.5 earthquake strikes northern Japan, 2 die

● 1994 - Hague motorist with .51% alcohol in blood, breaks Dutch record (.47%)

● 1994 - Queen Elizabeth falls off her horse & breaks her left wrist

● 1995 - The first episode of Star Trek: Voyager airs.

● 1997 - Princess Diana sparks landmines row; The Princess of Wales angers government ministers after calling for an international ban on landmines. {Something she was still fighting for at the time of her death; and something no closer to reality today than it was in 1997.}

● 1997 - Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with Mir Space Station

● 1998 - Lance Carvin, a stalker of Howard Stern, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for threatening to kill Stern and his family.

● 1998 - NASA announces John Glenn, 76, may fly in space again

● 1999 - The Racak incident: 45 Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak were killed by Yugoslav security forces.

● 2001 - Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopedia, goes online.

● 2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Congress had permission {I assume the word should be power.} to repeatedly extend copyright protection.

● 2004 - The NASA Spirit rover rolled onto the surface of Mars for the first time since the vehicle bounced to a landing nearly two weeks earlier.

● 2005 - A military court at Fort Hood, Texas, sentenced Army Specialist Charles Graner Jr. to 10 years behind bars for physically and sexually mistreating Iraqi prisoners.

● 2005 - Mahmoud Abbas was sworn in as Palestinian president.

● 2005 - An intense solar flare blasted X rays across the solar system. ESA's SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovered elements such as calcium, aluminum, silicon, iron, and other surface elements on the moon.

● 2006 - After a seven-year journey, a NASA space capsule, Stardust, returned safely to Earth with the first dust ever fetched from a comet.

● 2006 - Michelle Bachelet was elected Chile's first woman president.

● 2007 - Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging in Iraq.

● 2007 - The 2007 Australian Open commences in Melbourne.

BIRTHS

● 1342 - Philip II, Duke of Burgundy (d. 1404)

● 1432 - King Afonso V of Portugal (d. 1481)

● 1481 - Ashikaga Yoshizumi, Japanese shogun (b. 1511)

● 1538 - Maeda Toshiie, Japanese general (d. 1599)

● 1622 - (Jean B. Poquelin) Molière, French playwright (d. 1673)

● 1671 - Abraham de la Pryme, English antiquarian (d. 1704)

● 1674 - Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, French writer (d. 1762)

● 1716 - Philip Livingston, American founding father (d. 1778)

● 1747 - John Aikin, English doctor and writer (d. 1822)

● 1754 - Richard Martin, Irish founder of the SPCA (d. 1834)

● 1779 - Jean Coralli, French dancer/choreographer (d. 1854)

● 1791 - Franz Grillparzer, Austrian writer (d. 1872)

● 1795 - Alexandr Griboyedov, Russian playwright (d. 1829)

● 1809 - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French anarchist (d. 1865)

● 1810 - Abigail Kelley Foster, American feminist/abolitionist (d. 1887)

● 1812 - Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Norwegian writer (d. 1885)

● 1816 - Marie LaFarge, French murderer (d. 1852)

● 1841 - Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, Governor General of Canada (d. 1908)

● 1842 - Josef Breuer, Austrian psychologist (d. 1925)

● 1850 - Mihai Eminescu, Romanian poet (d. 1889)

● 1850 - Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian mathematician (d. 1891)

● 1863 - Wilhelm Marx, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1946)

● 1866 - Nathan Söderblom, Swedish archbishop, Nobel laureate (d. 1931)

● 1869 - Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist (d. 1907)

● 1870 - Pierre Samuel du Pont, American businessman (d. 1954)

● 1872 - Arsen Kotsoyev, Russian writer (d. 1944)

● 1875 - Tom Burke, American runner (d. 1929)

● 1879 - Mazo de la Roche, Canadian author (d. 1961)

● 1885 - Huang Yuanyong, Chinese writer (d. 1915)

● 1885 - Lorenz Böhler, Austrian physician (d. 1973)

● 1885 - Grover Lowdermilk, baseball player (d. 1968)

● 1891 - Ray Chapman, baseball player (d. 1920)

● 1891 - Osip Mandelstam, Russian poet (d. 1938)

● 1892 - Rex Ingram, Irish director (d. 1950)

● 1893 - Ivor Novello, Welsh actor (d. 1951)

● 1895 - Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, Finnish chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 1973)

● 1899 - Goodman Ace, American actor (d. 1982)

● 1901 - Luis Monti, Argentine-Italian footballer (d. 1983)

● 1906 - Aristotle Onassis, Greek businessman (d. 1975)

● 1908 - Edward Teller, Hungarian-born physicist (d. 2003)

● 1909 - Jean Bugatti, German-born automobile designer (d. 1939)

● 1909 - Gene Krupa, American drummer (d. 1973)

● 1912 - Michel Debré, French politician (d. 1996)

● 1913 - Lloyd Bridges, American actor (d. 1998)

● 1914 - Hugh Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton, English historian (d. 2003)

● 1918 - Gamal Abdal Nasser, President of Egypt (d. 1970)

● 1920 - John Cardinal O'Connor, American Catholic cardinal (d. 2000)

● 1920 - Steve Gromek, baseball player (d. 2002)

● 1923 - Lee Teng-hui, Taiwanese politician

● 1923 - Ivor Cutler, Scottish poet (d. 2006)

● 1926 - Maria Schell, Swiss actress (d. 2005)

● 1926 - Florence Buchsbaum, theater director (d. 1996)

● 1927 - Phyllis Coates, American actress

● 1929 - Martin Luther King Jr, American civil rights leader, Nobel laureate (d. 1968)

● 1930 - Eddie Graham, wrestler (d. 1985)

● 1933 - Ernest J. Gaines, American author

● 1937 - Margaret O'Brien, American actress

● 1941 - Captain Beefheart, American singer

● 1945 - Vince Foster, American lawyer (d. 1993)

● 1947 - Andrea Martin, Canadian actress

● 1948 - Ronnie VanZant, American singer (Lynyrd Skynyrd) (d. 1977)

● 1949 - Luis Alvarado, baseball player (d. 2001)

● 1950 - Marius Trésor, French footballer

● 1951 - Charo, Spanish-born singer

● 1953 - Kent Hovind, Creation Science Evangelist

● 1955 - Nigel Benson, British author

● 1957 - Marty Lyons, American professional football player

● 1957 - Mario Van Peebles, American actor

● 1957 - Patrick Dixon, British entrepreneur

● 1958 - Boris Tadić, President of Serbia

● 1959 - Pete Trewavas, British bass guitarist (Marillion)

● 1960 - Aaron Jay Kernis, American composer

● 1960 - Kelly Asbury, American director and actor

● 1961 - Yves P. Pelletier, Quebec comedian (Rock et Belles Oreilles), actor and film director

● 1964 - Osmo Tapio Räihälä, Finnish composer

● 1965 - Bernard Hopkins, American boxer

● 1965 - Adam Jones, American musician (Tool)

● 1965 - James Nesbitt, Northern Irish actor

● 1965 - Maurizio Fondriest, Italian cyclist

● 1967 - Lisa Lisa, Singer (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam)

● 1968 - Chad Lowe, American actor

● 1968 - Iñaki Urdangarín, Spanish royalty

● 1969 - Delino DeShields, baseball player

● 1970 - Shane McMahon, American professional wrestler

● 1971 - Teanna Kai, porn star

● 1971 - Max Beesley, British musician and actor

● 1971 - Regina King, American actress

● 1972 - Kobe Tai, American porn star

● 1972 - Claudia Winkleman, British television presenter

● 1974 - Ray King, baseball player

● 1975 - Mary Pierce, French tennis player

● 1975 - Edith Bowman, British television and radio presenter

● 1975 - Greg Strause, American artist

● 1976 - Corey Chavous, American football player

● 1978 - Franco Pellizotti, Italian cyclist

● 1978 - Eddie Cahill, actor, CSI:NY Detective Flack

● 1979 - Drew Brees, American football player

● 1980 - Matt Holliday, American baseball player

● 1981 - El Hadji Diouf, Senegalese footballer

● 1981 - Howie Day, American pop singer

● 1982 - Benjamin Agosto, American skater

● 1982 - Megan Quann, American swimmer

● 1982 - Philip and Alexander, American-born princes of the Yugoslav Royal Family

● 1983 - Jermaine Pennant, English footballer

● 1984 - Victor Rasuk, American actor

● 1987 - Michael Seater, Canadian actor

● 1987 - Kelly Kelly, WWE Diva

DEATHS

● 69 - Galba, Roman Emperor (b. 3 BC)

● 570 - Saint Ita, Irish nun

● 1595 - Murat III, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1546)

● 1672 - John Cosin, English clergyman (b. 1594)

● 1683 - Philip Warwick, English writer and politician (b. 1609)

● 1781 - Marianne Victoria of Borbón, queen regent of Portugal (b. 1718)

● 1790 - John Landen, English mathematician (b. 1719)

● 1804 - Dru Drury, English entomologist (b. 1725)

● 1915 - Mary Slessor, Scottish missionary (b. 1848)

● 1919 - Karl Liebknecht, German politician (b. 1871)

● 1919 - Rosa Luxemburg, German politician (b. 1870)

● 1945 - Wilhelm Wirtinger, Austrian mathematician (b. 1865)

● 1947 - Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia (b. 1924)

● 1955 - Yves Tanguy, French painter (b. 1900)

● 1964 - Jack Teagarden, American musician (b. 1905)

● 1967 - David Burliuk, Ukrainian artist (b. 1882)

● 1973 - Ivan Petrovsky, Russian mathematician (b. 1901)

● 1973 - Coleman Francis, American film director (b. 1919)

● 1983 - Meyer Lansky, Russian-born gangster (b. 1902)

● 1987 - Ray Bolger, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1904)

● 1988 - Seán MacBride, Irish statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1904)

● 1990 - Gordon Jackson, Scottish actor (b. 1923)

● 1992 - Dee Murray, English bassist (b. 1946)

● 1993 - Sammy Cahn, American songwriter (b. 1913)

● 1994 - Harry Nilsson, American musician (b. 1941)

● 1996 - Les Baxter, American musician and composer (b. 1922)

● 1996 - Paramount Chief Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho (b. 1938)

● 1998 - Junior Wells, American musician (b. 1934)

● 2000 - Željko Ražnatović, widely known as Arkan, Serbian paramilitary leader (b. 1952)

● 2000 - Fran Ryan, American actress (b. 1916)

● 2000 - Georges-Henri Lévesque, French Canadian Dominican priest and sociologist (b. 1903)

● 2001 - Ted Mann, American screenwriter (b. 1916)

● 2002 - Steve Gromek, baseball player (b. 1920)

● 2003 - Doris Fisher, American singer and songwriter (b. 1915)

● 2005 - Deem Bristow, American video game voice actor (b. 1947)

● 2005 - Victoria de los Angeles, Catalan soprano (b. 1923)

● 2005 - Walter Ernsting, German author (b. 1920)

● 2005 - Elizabeth Janeway, American author (b. 1913)

● 2005 - Dan Lee, Canadian animator (b. 1969)

● 2005 - Ruth Warrick, American actress (b. 1915)

● 2006 - Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait (b. 1926)

● 2007 - Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein (b. 1951) (executed by hanging, botched hanging resulted in decapitation)

● 2007 - Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Iraqi Revolutionary Court (b. 1945) (executed by hanging)

● 2007 - James Hillier, Canadian inventor of electron microscope (b. 1915)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Bonitus
● St. Ita, virgin
● St. Blaithmaic
● St. Tarsicia
● St. Teath
● St. Sawl
● St. Secundina
● St. Ceolwulf
● St. Emebert
● St. Ephysius
● St. Eugyppius
● St. John Calabytes
● St. Liewellyn & Gwrnerth
● St. Lleudadd
● St. Macarius the Great
● St. Malard
● St. Maura & Britta
● St. Maximus of Nola
● St. Paul of Thebes, the 1st Hermit
● Bl. Peter of Castelnau
● Bl. Arnold Jansen
● Bl. Frances de Capillas

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for January 3 (Civil Date: January 15)
● Prophet Malachias.
● Martyr Gordius at Caesarea in Cappadocia
● St. Genevieve of Paris.
● Repose of Schema-hierodeacon Elder Pantileimon, founder of Kostychev Convent (1884).

● Roman Empire - Second day of the Carmentalia in honor of Carmenta.

● Malawi - John Chilembwe Day.

● North Korea - Korean Alphabet Day.

● United States - Traditionally, Martin Luther King Day.

● Kerala in India - Makaravilakku or Makara Sankranthy at Sabarimala.

● Jallikattu in South India.

● Pongal in Tamil Nadu (2007).

● Guatemala : Esquipulas

● Japan : Adults Day/Seijin-No-Hi

● Jordan : Arbor Day

● Venezuala : Teachers' Day/Dia Del Maestro

● These Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
● US : Martin Luther King Jr Day (1929) - ( Monday )
● Virginia: Lee-Jackson Day - ( Monday )
● Florida: Arbor Day - ( Friday )


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:

On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

Permanent Backlink to Post