Today in History:
Today is Sunday, Jan. 15, the 15th day of 2023. There are 350 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 15, 1929, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta.
On this date:
In 1559, England’s Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
In 1892, the original rules of basketball, devised by James Naismith, were published for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts, where the game originated.
In 1919, in Boston, a tank containing an estimated 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst, sending the dark syrup coursing through the city’s North End, killing 21 people.
In 1943, work was completed on the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of War (now Defense).
In 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League 35-10 in the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, known retroactively as Super Bowl I.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam, citing progress in peace negotiations.
In 1974, the situation comedy “Happy Days” premiered on ABC-TV.
In 1978, two students at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, were slain in their sorority house. (Ted Bundy was later convicted of the crime and was sentenced to death. But he was executed for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl, which occurred 3 weeks after the sorority slayings.)
In 1981, the police drama series “Hill Street Blues” premiered on NBC.
In 1989, NATO, the Warsaw Pact and 12 other European countries adopted a human rights and security agreement in Vienna, Austria.
In 1993, a historic disarmament ceremony ended in Paris with the last of 125 countries signing a treaty banning chemical weapons.
In 2009, US Airways Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger ditched his Airbus 320 in the Hudson River after a flock of birds disabled both engines; all 155 people aboard survived.
Ten years ago: New York state enacted the nation’s toughest gun restrictions and the first since the Connecticut school massacre, including an expanded assault-weapon ban and background checks for buying ammunition. Twin blasts ripped through a university campus in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, killing more than 80 people, most of them students, in the government-controlled part of the city.
Five years ago: Singer Dolores O’Riordan of the Irish rock band The Cranberries died at a London hotel at the age of 46; a coroner found that she had accidentally drowned in a bathtub after drinking. American women lost nine of their ten first-round matches on the opening day of the Australian Open; they included Venus Williams and U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens.
One year ago: A man held four hostages for hours at a Texas synagogue as he demanded the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan; one hostage was released and the other three fled as an FBI tactical team moved in and killed the hostage-taker, Malik Faisal Akram, a British citizen. A huge undersea volcanic eruption near the Pacific island nation of Tonga sent tsunami waves crashing across the shore as people fled to higher ground; three people died in Tonga and two in Peru after the tsunami crossed the ocean. Fashion designer Nino Cerruti, credited with revolutionizing menswear in the 1960s, died at 91.
Today’s birthdays:
Actor Margaret O’Brien is 85. Actor Andrea Martin is 76. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Randy White is 70. Actor-director Mario Van Peebles is 66. Rock musician Adam Jones (Tool) is 58. Actor James Nesbitt is 58. Actor Chad Lowe is 55. Alt-country singer Will Oldham (aka Bonnie Prince Billy) is 53. Actor Regina King is 52. Actor Dorian Missick is 47. Actor Eddie Cahill is 45. Former NFL quarterback Drew Brees is 44. Rapper/reggaeton artist Pitbull is 42. Actor Victor Rasuk is 38. Actor Jessy Schram is 37. Electronic dance musician Skrillex is 35. Actor/singer Dove Cameron is 27. Singer-songwriter Grace VanderWaal (TV: “America’s Got Talent”) is 19.
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