| The Americans brought with them a long history of lime manufacturing. Their countries of origin in Europe all made lime. Shell-lime was made by the Spanish at St. Augustine, Florida, and by the settlers at Jamestown, who used oyster shell dredged from a nearby estuary. In January of 1662, permission to burn lime was given by the town of providence, Rhode Island, to Thomas Hackelton. |
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| Chartered by the Georgia General Assembly in 1785, University of Georgia at Athens was the first university in America to be created by a state government, and the principles undergirding its charter helped lay the foundation for the American system of public higher education. |  |
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| In the 1870s, coeds strove to be successful in their studies and to not bring undue attention to themselves. Theta's founders wore plain calico to class. For special performances they also selected simple school frocks, rather than silk, signaling their serious purpose. |
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| In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp he invented on November 21, 1879. Edison's invention of the light bulb had a major impact on the electronics and computer industries. During the two years of research it took to develop the bulb, one of Edison's assistants noticed a flow of energy from one electrode to another in a pattern later known as the Edison effect. Later, the Edison effect was discovered to be an electron flow, which laid the basis for the electron tube and thence the entire electronics industry. |
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| The National Geographic Society was founded in the United States on January 27, 1888, by 33 men who were interested in "organizing a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge." They had begun discussing forming the Society two weeks earlier on January 13, 1888. Gardiner Greene Hubbard became its first president and his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, eventually succeeded him. |
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| The University of Chicago played its first college basketball game, defeating the Chicago YMCA Training School 19-11. The University of Chicago was the first basketball team to play a full schedule of games, winding up with a 6-1 record. |
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| John and Alice Clayton take ship for Africa. Mutineers maroon them. After his parents die the newborn Tarzan is taken by a great Ape, Kala. Later the boy finds his father's knife and uses it to become King of Apes. Binns, the sailor who saved the Claytons and who has been held by Arab slavers for ten years, finds the young Tarzan and then heads for England to notify his kin. A scientist arrives to check out Binns' story. Tarzan, now a man, kills the native who killed Kala; when their chief is killed the black villagers appease Tarzan with gifts and prayers. The scientist's daughter Jane is carried off by a native, rescued by Tarzan (who has burnt the native village), aggressively loved by him , and at last accepts him with open arms. |
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| In 1926, John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor, gave the first public demonstration of a true television system in London, launching a revolution in communication and entertainment. Baird's invention, a pictorial transmission machine he called a "televisor," used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electronic impulses. This information was then transmitted by cable to a screen where it showed up as a low-resolution pattern of light and dark. Baird's first television program showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of view of the audience. |
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| CBS history started on January 27, 1927, as United Independent Broadcasters, Inc. Even before United got started, the Columbia Phonograph Co. had become interested in the venture. The Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System, which was to act as sales agent for United, was organized in April of 1927. United contracted to pay each of the original 16 stations $500 per week for 10 hours of radio time. Soon the Sales agent could not sell enough air time and the network was near collapse after only a few months. The Columbia phonograph company then withdrew from the project with the sale of all capital stock which United bought and then renamed the company the Columbia Broadcasting System. |
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| On Tuesday, January 27, 1931, the first broadcast of CLARA, LU, 'n EM aired on NBC's Blue Network for Super Suds. There was no real story to this program, but there was a lot of gossip and chatter among 3 women who lived in a small town duplex. The 3 ladies, Clara Roach, Lu Casey, and Emma Krueger, talked about anything and everything from their families to the high prices at the grocery store to politics. Each episode concerned what was said among the 3 ladies--- and it made for some interesting listening. |
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| In 1948, Wire Recording Corporation of America announced the first magnetic wire recorder. It is lightweight and portable. The 'Wireway' machine with a built-in oscillator sold for $149.50. |  |
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| Frenchman Flats was formerly known as the Nevada Proving Ground. The site, established on January 11, 1951 for the testing of nuclear weapons, is composed of approximately 1,350 square miles (3,500 km2) of desert and mountainous terrain. Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton of TNT (4 terajoule) bomb dropped on Frenchman Flats on January 27, 1951. Many of the iconic images of the nuclear era come from NTS. |
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| "CBS Radio Workshop" was one of the finest programs broadcast on radio. Originally heard from the West Coast with many of the best CBS character actors. William Conrad, Parley Baer, Joseph Kearns, Sam Edwards, Lurene Tuttle, Vic Perrin, Jack Kruschen and many others. The first broadcast featured Aldous Huxley narrating his classic, "Brave New World." |
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| Mitch Miller's success led him to television, first on a Ford StarTime special in May, 1960 and followed by the musical variety program Sing long With Mitch/NBC/1961-64. The program featured vocalists Carolyn Conway, Gloria Lambert, Barbara McNair, Louise O'Brien, Sandy Stewart, Diana Trask, and Leslie Uggams, as well as the Sing-Along Gang and the Sing-Along Kids. who performed such popular songs as "You Are My Sunshine," "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home" and "Goodnight Sweetheart" and "The Yellow Rose of Texas." Throughout the program, the goateed Mitch Miller waved his musical baton and encouraged the viewers at home to "follow the bouncing ball" that jumped over the words of the songs superimposed on the bottom of the TV screens at home. |
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| Joey Dee, Brigati and the group began working with Roulette producer Henry Glover on new compositions. The first collaboration was "Peppermint Twist", which was released by Roulette in November, 1961, and it took off immediately for the top of the charts. A few weeks later, the group was recorded "live" at the Peppermint Lounge and Roulette rushed-released an LP from the recordings entitled "Doin' The Twist At The Peppermint Lounge." |
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| On January 27, 1967, tragedy struck the Apollo program when a flash fire occurred in command module 012 during a launch pad test of the Apollo/Saturn space vehicle being prepared for the first piloted flight, the AS-204 mission. Three astronauts, Lt. Col. Virgil I. Grissom, a veteran of Mercury and Gemini missions; Lt. Col. Edward H. White, the astronaut who had performed the first United States extravehicular activity during the Gemini program; and Roger B. Chaffee, an astronaut preparing for his first space flight, died in this tragic accident. |
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| On the 19th of that month the General Assembly approved by acclamation a resolution commending the Treaty. It was opened for signature at Washington, London, and Moscow on January 27, 1967. On April 25 the Senate gave unanimous consent to its ratification, and the Treaty entered into force on October 10, 1967. |
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| "Judy in Disguise (with Glasses)" was a parody of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," which The Beatles released a year earlier. Instead of the psychedelic sound of the Beatles song, this was Bubblegum Pop, but with similarly obtuse lyrics. This went to #1 in 42 countries. |  |
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| The wistful "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay", a song Redding had recorded just three days before he died in a plane crash, was immediately mixed and released. It became his only million-seller and US pop number 1. The single's seeming serenity about sitting on a jetty in San Francisco's harbor, as well as several posthumous album tracks, suggested a sadly unfulfilled maturity as a songwriter. |  |
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| "Superstition" was intended for Jeff Beck. Wonder played all instruments on the album except horns and guitars, and Beck was brought in to play some guitar parts in exchange for a song. At one of the sessions, Stevie came up with the riff and wrote some lyrics, and they recorded a rough version of the song that day for Beck. It took Beck a while to record the song, and by the time he released it, Wonder's version had been out for a month and was a huge hit. |
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| This slapstick 1950s-era comedy was about two spunky girls from lower-class backgrounds, without much education, with no money, but with the determination to get ahead. They worked on an assembly line in the bottle-cap division of the Shotz Brewery in Milwaukee. Laverne was the quick-tempered, defensive one, always afraid of getting hurt, a glib realist. Shirley was naive and trusting, a sucker for a sad story. |  |
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| Rodgers and Edwards wrote this after they were not allowed to enter a nightclub. It was New Year's Eve, 1977, and they were invited to Studio 54, a very popular club in New York City where many celebrities and trendsetters were known to hang out. A singer named Grace Jones wanted Rodgers and Edwards to do some production work for her, and asked them to come down to the club as her guest. When they got there, they were not on the list, and couldn't convince the doorman that they were the group Chic. This was #1 in the US for 6 weeks. After a while, they stopped distributing it as a single to encourage people to buy the album. |
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| Co-written by Bolton, this is in the style of the Soul songs of the '60s and '70s that often lamented the loss of a lover (like "Since I Lost My Baby" by The Temptations). Bolton did very well covering various Soul ballads from this era. "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" was originally offered to Air Supply to record. The group wanted to do it, but Clive Davis (executive producer and then-owner of Arista Records) wanted the chorus modified and Bolton didn't want any part of the song changed. As a result, Air Supply put the song on "indefinite hold." |
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1662 First American lime kiln begins
operation (Providence, RI)
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1785 First US state university chartered, Athens
GA
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1870 First sorority (Kappa Alpha Theta) (DePauw
University in Greencastle, IN)
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1880 Thomas Edison patents electric incandescent
lamp
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1888 National Geographic Society organizes (Washington,
DC)
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1894 First college basketball game, University
of Chicago beats Chicago YMCA 19-11
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1918 "Tarzan of the Apes", first Tarzan
film, premieres at Broadway Theater
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1926 First public TV demonstration
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1927 United Independent Broadcasters Inc. began
a Radio network consisting of 16 stations
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1931 The NBC Radio Network first broadcast "Clara,
Lu ’n’ Em" on its Blue network
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1940 State record low temperature of -17°
in N. Floyd County, GA
1948 First locomotive to carry 1,000,000 pounds
(450,000 kg) operates
1948 Wire Recording Corporation of America announced
the first magnetic tape recorder
More ...
1951 An era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert
began
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1956 NFL's New York Giants switches games from
Polo Grounds to Yankee Stadium
1956 The "CBS Radio Workshop" was heard
for the first time
More ...
1961 "Sing Along with Mitch" [Miller]
premieres on NBC TV
More ...
1962 "Peppermint Twist " by
Joey Dee & the Starliters topped the charts
More ...
1967 Apollo 1 fire kills astronauts Grissom, White
& Chaffee
More ...
1967 Beatles sign a 9 year worldwide contract
with EMI records
1967 Treaty banning military use of nuclear weapons
in space is signed
More ...
1968 "Judy in Disguise (with Glasses)"
by John Fred & His Playboy Band
More ...
1968 Otis Redding’s "(Sittin’ On)
The Dock of the Bay" was released on this day
More ...
1970 Movie rating system modifies "M"
rating to "PG"
1973 UCLA's basketball team wins 6first consecutive
game (NCAA record)
1973 "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder
topped the charts
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1976 "Laverne & Shirley"
premieres on ABC TV
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1979 "Le Freak" by Chic topped the charts
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1990 "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You"
by Michael Bolton
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