Today in History, 1/12

1592: Titus Andronicus is first staged at the Rose Theater.
1729: Edmund Burke, Irish statesman, is born. He's famous for a lot of things, but perhaps is most known for writing Reflections on the Revolution in France, repudiating the horrors of the French Revolution. He also was a staunch supporter of the Colonials during the American Revolution. He said (working from memory here): "The speaker desires to know when the colonies were emancipated. I desire to know when they were made slaves!" His more famous quote is, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," although there is some question that he actually said it. Actually, you could write a book (and I'm sure people have) on all of Burke's great lines.1737: John Hancock is born. As a kid, I used to love his florid signature on the Declaration of Independence. Yeah, I was kind of nerdy.1856: John Singer Sargent, painter is born. Here's his painting of Frederick Law Olmstead (the designer of Central Park) in 1856:1876: Jack London is born. To Build a Fire always gave me the creeps.
1893: Hermann Goering is born. He was the pill-popping lummox who ran the Luftwaffe during WWII. He famously said, "If one Allied bomb falls on Berlin, you can call me Meyer!" Once the Allies started plastering Berlin "Meyer" swiftly became his nickname among Berliners. Not to his face of course.1905: Tex Ritter is born.
1908: The Eiffel Tower is used as a radio transmitter for the first time.
1908: Clement Hurd is born. He did the illustrations for Goodnight Moon.1915: The Rocky Mountain National Park is formed by an act of Congress.
1917: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is born. He was the spiritual guru of The Beatles.
1923: Ira Hamilton Hayes is born. He was one of the Marines pictured in the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima photograph. Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal said of the photopgraph, "...the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years," meaning that an image like that insured that the Marines would never be disbanded or folded into the Navy.

Hayes is farthest to the left.

1926: The radio program Sam 'n' Henry premieres. It is considered to be the first situation comedy.
1932: Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the US Senate.1935: Kreskin is born.

"Sleeeep!"

1942: President Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board. It's purpose was to provide binding arbitration between labor and management during the war without all the messy strikes that had caused so much trouble during WWI.
1945: The Soviets begin a large offensive against the Nazis in Eastern Europe.
1951: Kirstie Alley is born.1964: Jeff Bezos, founder of amazon.com, is born.
1966: Batman the TV series premieres on ABC. The reason why it's never been released on DVD is because Fox own the rights to Batman, the live action series, but Warner Brothers owns the rights to everything else Batman-related. And, because huge, hulking multinational corporations have about the same maturity level as the average three year-old neither of them can see the benefits of cooperation.

1967: Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with the intent of future resuscitation.
1969: Led Zeppelin released their first album.
1969: Joe Namath and the New York Jets defeat the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl III. This was the one where Namath guaranteed a victory before the game.
1971: All in the Family debuts on CBS.
1976: Agatha Christie dies.
1999: Betty Lou Gerson dies. She did, among others, the voice of Cruella de Vil in One Hundred and One Dalmations.


Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up