| The ships became separated and the Adventure was not seen again on this voyage. The Resolution proceeded to the south-east, and on January 30, 1774 reached 71°10' S. which stood as a record farthest south for 50 years. Turning north again and then westerly, Cook reached Easter Island and then made for Tahiti again, which he reached on April 22, 1774. |
 |
Close this window |
| In 1790, the first lifeboat - built specially to rescue people from stormy seas - the "Original", was first tested at sea by its English builder, Henry Greathead of South Shields. The "Original" was 30ft long, twelve oars, self-righting, and had seven hundredweight of cork for buoyancy. She went out to wrecks for forty years, saving hundreds of lives. It was built based on the design of William Wouldhave, parish clerk of South Shields, who won the prize offered by Newcastle businessmen following a local tragedy on March 1789. At the mouth of the river Tyne, the ship Adventure ran ashore in a violent storm. Though in sight of help, the crew of eight all perished. Spectators offered local boatmen rewards to save the crew, but none would venture out to face certain death. |
Close this window |
| On January 30, Lyon had brazenly insulted the Connecticut Federalist Representative and an offended Roger Griswold had retaliated by publicly calling Lyon a coward. To this character attack Lyon had responded by spitting directly in Griswold's face; when Congress subsequently failed to marshal a two-thirds majority to expel Lyon for indecorum, Griswold thought it necessary to avenge his damaged honor by publicly caning Lyon in the House chambers. This hickory stick attack was the climax of over two weeks of fierce congressional turmoil. |
Close this window |
| Former President Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library as a replacement for the loss due to the fire at the Library of Congreess the previous August. Jefferson had spent 50 years accumulating books, "putting by everything which related to America, and indeed whatever was rare and valuable in every science"; his library was considered to be one of the finest in the United States. Jefferson, who was heavily indebted, sought to use the proceeds of the sale of his books to satisfy his creditors. In January 1815, Congress accepted Jefferson's offer, appropriating $23,950 for his 6,487 books, and the foundation was laid for a great national library. |
Close this window |
| Fabian Von Bellingshausen, a captain in the Russian Imperial Navy, supposedly saw Antarctica on January 27, 1820, three days before Bransfield, a captain in the British Navy, sighted land, and ten months before the American Palmer did so in November 1820. On that day the expedition led by Fabian von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev on two ships reached a point within 32 km (20 miles) of the Antarctic mainland and saw ice fields there. |
Close this window |
| Yerba Buena, the settlement on the San Francisco Bay, was officially named San Francisco in January 1847. At the time, only 462 people lived in the area in tents, shanties or adobe huts. The settlement originally called Yerba Buena was first named in 1835 when William A. Richardson of England, brought his family and settled in the area. |
 |
Close this window |
| Launched on January 30, 1862, she was outfitted over the next month and placed in commission on February 25, under the command of Lieutenant John L. Worden. After trials and modifications, Monitor left New York on March 6. The next day, she encountered stormy weather, which abundantly demonstrated both the inherent seakeeping problems of the design and some more-easily correctable technical difficulties. Late on March 8, just a few hours after CSS Virginia had spread terror among the Union fleet, the weather-beaten Monitor arrived off Hampton Roads, where her exhausted crew spent a long night urgently preparing their ship for action. |
 |
Close this window |
| In 1882 Ritty opened the Pony House in Dayton, which quickly became a local "hotspot" for dining, drinking, and gaming. The business is said to have attracted a number of famous customers to his saloon, including Buffalo Bill Cody, prizefighter Jack Dempsey, and bankrobber John Dillinger. One of the biggest problems Ritty had at his bar was that some of his employees were dishonest, and would take the customers money and pocket it. Ritty began working on a mechanical cash register and patented the design in 1879 as "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier." He opened a small factory at 10 South Main Street in Dayton to manufacture cash registers while still operating his saloon. Shortly thereafter, Ritty became overwhelmed with the responsibilities of running two business, so he sold all his interests in the cash register business. |
Close this window |
| In 1894, Charles B. King of Detroit, Mich., received a patent for the pneumatic hammer. Pneumatic tools had been developed and manufactured as early as 1883. King exhibited his hammer at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois in 1893, (along with another of his inventions, a steel brake beam for railroad road cars). Inside the hammer, a piston in a cylinder was driven by air pressure to hit a striker and tool. The air was routed internally through ports alternately covered and uncovered by the piston at opposite ends of its oscillating travel. |
Close this window |
| The board track at Playa Del Rey was the first practical solution to the problem of finding a long, smooth place to run cars in a compact space. Oldfield's 99.39-mph run hinted at how excellent this solution would prove to be. The great wooden circle was as smooth as a floor and effectively infinite in length. No longer would it be necessary to mount seasonal field expeditions to some remote roadlike surface created as a temporary phenomenon of nature, as at Daytona or on a frozen lake. The board tracks made possible routine and methodical experimentation with high speed. |
 |
Close this window |
| 'Darktown Strutters' Ball.' One of the earliest traditional jazz songs to become a standard. The words and music, by Shelton Brooks, were inspired by a ball at the 1915 Pacific-Panama Exposition in San Francisco. The music, in arrangements for band and for orchestra, was first published January 18, 1917 by Will Rossiter, Chicago. The version recorded January 30, 1917 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band may be the earliest commercially made jazz record. |
 |
Close this window |
| It was well known that Chaplin preferred the silent art form to the advent of sound films. Chaplin was responsible for the film's production, direction, editing, music, and screenplay (although assisted by Harry Crocker, Henry Bergman, and Albert Austin). The episodic film includes a complete musical soundtrack and various sound effects - but no speech or dialogue. Incredibly, Chaplin's film was not nominated for a single Academy Award - to the pro-talking film Academy members, it must have appeared to be reversing the trend toward talkies and advanced sound films. |
 |
Close this window |
| "A fiery horse with the speed of light! A cloud of dust and a hearty 'Hi-Yo, Silver!' The Lone Ranger!" Perhaps radio's best-remembered drama, The Lone Ranger debuted on WXYZ/Detroit in 1933. Under the editorial guidance of creator George W. Trendle and writer Fran Striker, the Ranger was a white knight who, "with his faithful Indian companion Tonto...led the fight for law and order in the early western United States." |
 |
Close this window |
| The Boston Braves lost 115 games the year before, so to generate fan interest they held a name-the-team contest, and the club was known as the "Bees" through 1940. The new name must have helped, as they gained 40-1/2 games in the standings from 1935 to 1936. |
 |
Close this window |
| The American public in 1945 was clamoring for some memorial to their fallen leader, whose passing had come just as he was about to enjoy a sweet victory after years of struggle and worry. Due to the limited amount of time available to design the new coin, the Roosevelt dime was the first regular-issue US coin designed by a Mint employee in more than 40 years. Chief Engraver John R. Sinnock was chosen, as he had already designed a Mint presidential medal of Roosevelt. Sinnock's first design, submitted on October 12, 1945, was rejected, but a subsequent one was accepted on January 6, 1946. The dime was released to the public on January 30, 1946 which would have been Roosevelt's 64th birthday. Sinnock's reverse design elements of a torch, olive branch, and oak branch symbolized, respectively, liberty, peace, and victory. | |
 |
 |
Close this window | |
| "O Mein Papa" is a German language song, written by Paul Burkhard in 1939 for a musical called Der Schwarze Hecht or Feuerwerk (Fireworks). Under the original German title, an instrumental version by Eddie Calvert topped the United Kingdom charts in 1954. It was adapted into English by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, under the name "Oh! My Pa-Pa." A recording by Eddie Fisher became a #1 hit on the US charts in 1954. |
 |
Close this window |
| By 1956, Presley was an international sensation. With a sound and style that uniquely combined his diverse musical influences and blurred and challenged the social and racial barriers of the time, he ushered in a whole new era of American music and popular culture. |
 |
Close this window |
| In 1958, the first two-way, moving sidewalk, 1,425 feet long, was put in service at Love Field Air Terminal in Dallas, TX. It consisted of three loops. In each loop a continuous rubber carpet was attached to a continuous train of wheeled pallets, flexibly interconnected so they could follow vertical or horizontal curves as required. It was known not only as a moving sidewalk, but also as a passenger conveyor. |
 |
Close this window |
| Preston 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. |
 |
Close this window |
| The A-12 Oxcart, designed for the CIA by Kelly Johnson at the Lockheed Skunk Works, was the precursor of the SR-71. Lockheed used the name "Archangel" for this design, but many documents use Johnson's preferred name for the plane, "the Article". As the design evolved, the internal Lockheed designation went from A-1 to A-12 as configuration changes occurred, such as substantial design changes to reduce the radar cross-section. The first flight took place at Groom Lake, NV, on April 25, 1962. |
 |
Close this window |
| This is the 1961 NBC special entitled "Bobby Darin and Friends" With guest stars Joanie Sommers and Bob Hope. It was directed by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin. It is a great look at his nightclub act from this time period. |
 |
Close this window |
| "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" was the first US #1 hit record by a black girl group, and the first #1 written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Carole King played timpani on this recording. Lead singer Shirley Alston initially disliked the song, dismissing it as "too Country and Western." Their producer convinced them to record it, and The Shirelles warmed up to it after the strings were added. |
 |
Close this window |
| In his inaugural address, Kennedy wished America to resume its old mission as the first nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights. With the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American idealism to the aid of developing nations. |
 |
Close this window |
| The pyramid maneuver was once a trademark of the Wallendas. But in 1962, in the State Fair Coliseum in Detroit, one man in the pyramid lost his footing. It collapsed, and three men fell to the ground. Two were killed. One was paralyzed. |
 |
Close this window |
| "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). It won a Grammy in 1965 for Best Rock & Roll Recording, making Clark the first British singer to win a Grammy. |
 |
Close this window |
| ISIS 1 was an ionospheric observatory instrumented with sweep- and fixed-frequency ionosondes, a VLF receiver, energetic and soft particle detectors, an ion mass spectrometer, an electrostatic probe, an electrostatic analyzer, a beacon transmitter, and a cosmic noise experiment. |
 |
Close this window |
| There were discussions during the January 1969 rehearsals at Twickenham Studios about recording the album completely live during a televised concert performance - in fact the music press excitedly announced that the Beatles had booked the Roundhouse in London for the show. When this didn't happen, McCartney talked of performing in an Roman amphitheatre or on a cruise ship (or as Lennon sarcastically suggested, "an insane asylum") In the end, the live performance took place on the rooftop of The Beatles' Apple Building at 3 Savile Row in front of a small audience of friends and employees. The performance was cut short by the police after complaints about noise. Several of the songs recorded during the rooftop concert made it onto the final album, and the complete concert has circulated amongst bootleg collectors for many years. |
 |
Close this window |
| "Knock Three Times" producers of this persuaded their old friend Tony Orlando (then working for the publishing arm of CBS Records) to record his lead vocal on a pair of demos after Bell Records' bigwigs didn't like the original lead singer. Dawn was a group named after Stacy Dawn Siegal, daughter of Tokens member Jay Siegal. The members of Dawn were Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent. |
 |
Close this window |
| During the Watergate scandal, Gordon Liddy and James McCord were convicted of burglary, wire-tapping and attempted bugging of the Democratic headquarters inside the Watergate building in Washington, D.C. Both had pleaded not guilty. Echoing the sentiments of a shocked, disbelieving president, aide Charles Colson told Nixon that Judge Sirica was "a hot-headed Italian... [who] has handled himself terribly." |
Close this window |
| In 1980, when the group appeared to be on the verge of becoming irrelevant, they released a remake of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" that recaptured radio's attention. They followed with the chart-topping "Kiss On My List," and then with a string of well crafted, upbeat, radio-friendly songs that dominate airplay for the next decade. Songs like "Private Eyes," "You Make My Dreams," "Maneater" and "I Can't Go For That" all topped the charts (the latter song even went to #1 on the Soul charts), ultimately making Hall & Oates the best selling duo in music history and one of the biggest acts of any kind in the 80s. |
 |
Close this window |
| "Need You Tonight" was a throwaway song that became INXS' biggest hit. Andrew Farriss came up with the riff, and Michael Hutchence quickly added some lustful lyrics. It was featured in the 2000 film "Coyote Ugly". |
 |
Close this window |
| During the restoration works of 1989 various statues were found buried in the court of Amenhotep III. These statues are now displayed in Luxor Museum. The room on the south side of the court was used as a cult chapel by the roman legion based at Luxor during the third century AD. The romans inadvertently preserved the reliefs of Amenhotep II by painting and whitewashing over them. |
Close this window |
| "Baby One More Time" was Britney's first hit. It propelled her to stardom.The album has sold over 13 million copies in the US. It is the biggest-selling album by a teenage girl. The video was shot at Venice High School in Los Angeles, which was the setting for Rydell High in the movie Grease. This was first offered to the group TLC, who turned it down. It was later accepted by Britney. |
 |
Close this window |
 |
|||
1774 Capt Cook reaches 71ø 10' S 1820 km
from S pole (record)
More ...
1790 Lifeboat first tested at sea, by Mr Greathead,
the inventor
More ...
1798 The first brawl in the U.S. House of Representatives
was witnessed by legislators
More ...
1815 Burned Library of Congress reestablished
with Jefferson's 6500 volumes
More ...
1820 Edward Bransfield aboard Williams discovers
Antarctica (UK claim)
More ...
1847 Yerba Buena renamed San Francisco
More ...
1862 US Navy's first ironclad warship (Monitor)
launched
More ...
1883 James Ritty received a patent
for the cash register
More ...
1894 C.B. King of Detroit, MI earned a patent for
the pneumatic hammer
More ...
1910 Work began on the first board-track automobile
speedway
More ...
1911 The first airplane rescue at sea was made
by the destroyer "Terry", when downed pilot, James McCurdy, was
forced to land in the ocean about 10 miles from Havana, Cuba
1917 The Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded
"The Darktown Strutters’ Ball"
More ...
1931 Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights"
premieres at Los Angeles Theater
More ...
1933 "The Lone Ranger" premieres on
ABC radio
More ...
1936 Fans asked to pick a new name for Boston
Braves
More ...
1946 First issue of Franklin Roosevelt dime
More ...
1954 "Oh! My Papa" by Eddie Fisher topped
the charts
More ...
1956 Elvis Presley records his version of "Blue
Suede Shoes"
More ...
1958 The first two-way moving sidewalk was put
in service at Love Field in Dallas, TX
More ...
1958 Baseball announces players & coaches
rather than fans pick all stars
1960 "Running Bear" by Johnny Preston
topped the charts
More ...
1960 CIA oks Lockheed to produce a new U-2 aircraft
(Oxcart)
More ...
1961 Bobby Darin is youngest performer to headline
a TV special on NBC
More ...
1961 "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" by
Shirelles topped the charts
More ...
1961 JFK asks for an Alliance for Progress &
Peace Corps
More ...
1961 KAET TV channel 8 in Phoenix, AZ (PBS) begins
broadcasting
1962 Two members of Flying Wallendas' high-wire
act killed during a performance
More ...
1965 "Downtown" by Petula Clark topped
the charts
More ...
1966 State record low temperature of -27°
in New Market, AL
1966 State record low temperature of -19°
in Corinth, MS
1969 US/Canada ISIS 1 launched to study
ionosphere
More ...
1969 Beatles perform a 42-minute free
concert
More ...
1971 UCLA starts 88 basketball game win streak
1971 "Knock Three Times" by Dawn topped
the charts
More ...
1973Gordon Liddy and James McCord were convicted
in Watergate scandal
More ...
1977 8th (final) part of "Roots" is
most-watched entertainment show ever
1982 "I Can't Go forThat (No Can Do)"
by Daryl Hall & John Oates topped the charts
More ...
1988 "Need You Tonight" by Inxs topped
the charts
More ...
1989 Five pharoah sculptures from 1470 BC found
at temple of Luxor
More ...
1999 "Baby One More Time" by Britney
Spears topped the charts
More ...