| Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, "is the oldest Catholic literary establishment in the United States. It was founded immediately after the Revolutionary War, by the incorporated Catholic Clergy of Maryland, who selected from their Body Trustees, and invested them with full power to choose a President and appoint Professors. Since the year 1805, it has been under the direction of Society of Jesus" |
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| In December of 1811, the largest earthquake ever recorded in American History started. This earthquake, called the New Madrid Earthquake because of its primary location on the New Madrid Fault, near New Madrid, Missouri. From the effects of the 1811-1812 earthquakes, it can be estimated that they had a magnitude of 8.0 or higher on the not yet invented Richter scale. Large areas sank into the earth, new lakes were formed, and the Mississippi River changed its course due to the earthquakes. The meizoseismal area was characterized by general ground warping, ejections, fissuring, severe landslides, and caving of stream banks. |
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| On January 23, 1845, an act was passed designating the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every even-numbered year as election day. |
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| When she graduated from New York's Geneva Medical College, in 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to earn the M.D. degree. She supported medical education for women and helped many other women's careers. By establishing the New York Infirmary in 1857, she offered a practical solution to one of the problems facing women who were rejected from internships elsewhere but determined to expand their skills as physicians. |
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| Charles Curtis, who would become a U.S. representative, senator, and vice president, was directly descended from White Plume, a Kaw chief, and Pawhuska, an Osage chief. In 1892 Curtis was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and was returned six times. He moved to the U.S. Senate in 1907 to fill an unexpired term. Closely identifying with his ancestry, Curtis authored legislation beneficial to Native Americans during his 20 years in the Senate. He also served as chairman of the Committee on Indian Depredations. |
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| Early in the morning of 23 January 1909, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner “Florida” was off course in the dense fog of the Atlantic. Suddenly there was a crash—the Florida had collided with another liner, the White Star liner “Republic.” Jack Binns, the Republic’s 25-year old radio operator, rushed to his radio cabin, which had one of its walls ripped away in the collision. Fortunately, the antenna was still intact and emergency batteries supplied enough power to transmit a signal 95 kilometers (60 miles). The nearest land receiving station on the island of Nantucket was just about that distance away. Binns transmitted the Morse code distress signal of the day, CQD (“seek you;” the D stood for urgent). A Nantucket station retransmitted the message and several ships in the area steamed towards the ships in peril. |
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| Tombaugh's discovery involved painstaking use of a blink comparator to compare photographs of sections of sky taken several nights apart. Comparing the two images, a moving object such as a planet would appear to jump from one position to another, while the more distant objects such as stars would appear stationary. Tombaugh noticed such a moving object in his search, and subsequent observations showed it to be the planet we call Pluto. The discovery was made on February 18, 1930, using images taken in January of the same year. |
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| The proposed amendment, sometimes called the “Lame Duck Amendment,” was sent to the states March 3, 1932, by the Seventy-second Congress. It was ratified January 23, 1933; but, in accordance with Section 5, Sections 1 and 2, did not go into effect until October 15, 1933. The term "Lame Duck" originates in the mid 1700's. It is applied to an elected official who has not been reelected, but still holds office. |
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| In an article published in "Literary Digest", Edgar Bergen mentioned that he made his dummy pal, Charlie McCarthy, the beneficiary of a $10,000 trust fund to keep him in serviceable condition and repair. Bergen also bequeathed ten thousand dollars to the Actor's Fund of America to establish a Charlie McCarthy Fund. This money was to be used to provide ventriloquist entertainment for underprivileged and handicapped children. | ![]() |
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| Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was established in 1941, and its purpose was to develop and improve aircraft engines. The laboratory came into existence because of World War II, with the United States government hoping to create better engines for its military planes. |
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| In March of 1940 he re-emerged with a recording of Frenesi, which became another smash hit. For this recording session, he used a large studio band with woodwinds, French horns, and a full string section along with the normal dance band instrumentation -- another first in big band jazz history. Later that year he formed a touring band with a good-sized string section, with which he recorded several more smash hits, among them his by now classic version of "Star Dust," plus a number of other fine musical recordings such as "Moonglow," "Dancing in the Dark," "Concerto for Clarinet," and many others. |
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| The sentimental story, originally structured as a one-set play, was based on an unproduced play entitled Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison - the film's original title. Its collaborative screenplay was mainly the result of the efforts of Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. | ![]() |
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| Ellington and his band regularly performed in concert in Europe during the '30s, but hadn't played the most prestigious American stages until his 1943 appearance in Carnegie Hall. The fact that he was finally allowed to play that venue was quite significant in itself, but became even more auspicious when it became the place he debuted his most ambitious composition, "Black, Brown and Beige," a 45-minute suite subtitled "A Tone Parallel to the History of the American Negro." The rest of the program contained impressive, if more conventional, Ellington performances. |
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| Israel moved on to consolidate its control of the large traits of land annexed in 1948/49 when the Parliament (Knesset) proclaimed Jerusalem the capital of Israel on January 23, 1950. Israeli ministries were also moved to the newly demarcated city in 1951. |
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| The Boston Braves sat in last place at 33-43, 15-1˛2 games behind the first place Giants on July 19th. Unrevealed to the rest of the baseball realm, the Miracle Man, George Stallings, had his rowdies ready to take 51 of their next 67 games. While the 1914 Braves batted .251 with 35 home runs, very respectable Deadball Era numbers, their stellar pitching staff led the Miracle Braves in the second half. The Miracle Braves, with a 68-19 record after July 4, two 26 game winning pitchers, and a National League pennant, received the praise of every fan, but the Tribe had a fairytale ending to write to a phenomenal story. The fearless, hard-nosed Braves were heavy underdogs against the Philadelphia Athletics’ $100,000 infield and the pitching staff of Chief Bender, Eddie Plank, and Joe Bush. The World Series sweep and the Miracle were complete along with the 1914 Braves’ chapter in baseball history. |
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| In 1949 he gained nationwide exposure on Eddie Cantor's radio show. Signed to RCA-Victor Records, and accompanied by Hugo Winterhalter, Fisher had a string of US Top 10 hits through to 1956, including "Thinking Of You", "A Man Chases A Girl (Until She Catches Him)", "Turn Back The Hands Of Time", "Tell Me Why", "I'm Yours", "Maybe"/"Watermelon Weather" (duets with Perry Como), "Wish You Were Here" (number 1), "Lady Of Spain", "I'm Walking Behind You" (number 1), "Oh My Pa-Pa" (number 1), "I Need You Now" (number 1), "Count Your Blessings", "Heart", "Dungaree Doll" and "Cindy, Oh Cindy." |
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| In 1957, and was brought to the attention of Mercury Records by disc jockey and singer, the Big Bopper (Jape Richardson). Among the tracks Richardson wrote and produced for him was the novelty "Running Bear", a sad tale of Red Indian love gone wrong. The record took four months to chart Stateside but it then went on to became a chart-topper in the US and UK during 1959/60. | ![]() |
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| In 1961, in Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, the city's censorship code was once again contested and upheld. The United States Supreme Court ruled that municipal censors could screen and, therefore, prevent a movie from being shown if it was found “obscene.” However, during the 1960s, community censorship laws slowly eroded under other legal challenges. |
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| When told that there was fresh evidence against him, he confessed immediately without even asking what that evidence was. The confession sent shock waves through Whitehall and the British intelligence community but the neither prospect of arresting him immediately nor of kidnapping him to Britain was considered necessary. Although a further interrogation was scheduled in the last week of January 1963, Philby disappeared on January 23. |
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| The winningest lefthanded pitcher of all time with 363 wins, and possibly the best as well, Warren Spahn was a complete player who helped himself at bat and in the field. He was the mainstay of the Braves' pitching staff for two decades. Spahn won 20 games a ML record-tying 13 times, pitched two no-hitters, and led the NL in strikeouts four consecutive years. | ![]() |
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| "Downtown" was Petula Clark's first hit in the US. She was the first female singer from England to hit #1 in the US during the Rock era (after 1955). This won a Grammy in 1965 for Best Rock & Roll Recording, making Clark the first British singer to win a Grammy. | ![]() |
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| The USS Pueblo was a U. S. Navy vessel sent on an intelligence mission off the coast of North Korea. On January 23, 1968, the USS Pueblo was attacked by North Korean naval vessels and MiG jets. One man was killed and several were wounded. The Eighty-two surviving crew members were captured and held prisoner for 11 months. |
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| When this was recorded, there was no Dawn. A group called Hot Buttered Soul sang backup with Telma Hopkins sitting in for one of their regular singers. She ended up joining Orlando, and along with Joyce Vincent, they started recording as "Tony Orlando And Dawn." | ![]() |
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| A landscape of cooled lava, created by the 1973 eruption of the Helgafell volcano, on the Icelandic island of Heimaey. The eruption created a new peak, Eldfell, and a 3 km/1.9 mi lava flow, Eldfellshraun. Magma, rocks, ash, and soot were ejected. Since the eruption, the volcano has stabilized, and vegetation has begun to colonize the slopes. | ![]() |
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| Roots remains one of television's landmark programs. The twelve-hour mini-series aired on ABC from 23-30 January 1977. For eight consecutive nights it riveted the country. ABC executives initially feared that the historical saga about slavery would be a ratings disaster. Instead, Roots scored higher ratings than any previous entertainment program in history. | ![]() |
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| Songwriters Steve Kipner and Terry Shaddick came up with this. Instead of writing about the emotions of love, they decided to write this about the physical side, which many listeners found very refreshing in a pop song. This was #1 in the US for 10 weeks. The only song to that point that stayed at #1 longer was Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog." | ![]() |
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| At the end of their stint in Viet Nam, Col. John "Hannibal" Smith and his team were framed for robbing the Bank of Hanoi (which they had done, but under orders), and sent to a US military prison. They escaped and went on the run, pursued first by Col. Lynch and later by Col. Decker. While on the lam, they became heroes for hire, working as good-guy vigilantes around the US or the world. | ![]() |
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| The number one singles off the “Bad” album were: "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Man in the Mirror", and "Dirty Diana." The album was supported by a world tour which lasted for over a year and visited 15 countries. | ![]() |
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| “Seinfeld” aired on NBC from 1991 to 1998 and was one of the most successful programs in television history. Created by comedian Jerry Seinfeld and writer Larry David , the series focused on the daily life of a moderately successful New York stand-up comic named Jerry Seinfeld. The main character was self-obsessed, immature, and concentrated on trivial matters and small details. | ![]() |
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| During the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 mi off Kuwait. The spill had little military significance. On January 27, U.S. warplanes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil. | ![]() |
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