Today in History 1/8

1324: Marco Polo dies.
1746: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.
1790: George Washington delivers the first State of the Union Address.
1815: Andrew Jackson leads American forces to victory over the British in the War of 1812.
1825: Eli Whitney dies.1835: US national debt is zero for the first and only time.
1909: Jose Ferrer is born. He was in classics like The Caine Mutiny and stinkers like The Big Bus and Dracula's Dog.
1909: Evelyn Wood is born. She is known as "the Pioneer of Speed Reading."
1916: Allied forces withdraw from Gallipoli.
1918: Woodrow Wilson announces his Fourteen Points.1923: Larry Storch is born. He is most famous for his role on F-Troop, but he also provided the voice for Mr. Whoopee on Tennessee Tuxedo.
1926: Soupy Sales is born. On New Year's Day, 1955 he told his viewers to sneak into their parents' bedrooms and send all the "funny green pieces of paper" to him.
1935: Elvis is born.
1937: Shirley Bassey is born.
1938: Bob Eubanks is born.
1941: Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, dies.
1941: Graham Chapman is born.
1941: Boris Vallejo is born. I loved his work when I was a teenager. I wonder why...1942: Stephen Hawking is born.
1944: Terry Brooks is born. He wrote the Shanarra series.
1947: David Bowie, rocker and Sovereign of the Guild of Calamitous Intent is born.
1964: Lyndon Johnson announces the War on Poverty.
1965: Michelle Forbes is born. She played the eternally ticked off Ensign Ro on Star Trek: The Next Generation.1975: Ella T. Grasso becomes the Governor of Connecticut. She is the first woman to serve as governor in the US who did not succeed her husband.1979: The tanker Betelgeuse explodes in Bantry Bay, Ireland killing 50 people.
1979: Sarah Polley is born. She was in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.
1984: Jeff Francoeur, right fielder for the Braves, is born.1992: George H.W. Bush, suffering from stomach flu, urps on the Japanese Prime Minister.
1994: Pat Buttram dies. He is best known for playing Mr. Haney on Green Acres but he also played the shifty used-car salesman in MST3K episode 622 Angel's Revenge which I was just watching this very morning while I got ready for work. 2007: Yvonne De Carlo dies. She played Lily Munster.