Hot Topics: Wednesday, January 16 2008

Hot Topics :

Wednesday, January 16 , 2008

These are just some of the 'Hot Topics' in the historic archives & the news today that are inspiring conversation. Please discuss in the comment thread below if you would like to write about any of the following topics or would like to pursue another current event. If you post to the appropriate Essential, you will have a chance to be featured on the homepage.

National Fig Newton Day

Daily Quotation:

Today in History Archives:

1493 - Columbus returns to Spain on his 1st trip
1547 - Ivan IV Vasilyevich, the grand prince of Muscovy and better known as Ivan the Terrible, was crowned Czar of Russia.
1581 - English parliament passes laws against Catholicism
1765 - Charles Messier catalogs M41 (galactic cluster in Canis Major)
1769 - A riot occurred at the Haymarket Theatre in London, when a 'magician' did not show up to perform. He had claimed he would get into a quart tavern bottle "and there sing several songs."
1776 - Continental Congress approves enlistment of free blacks1780: British demonstrate naval supremacy in The Moonlight Battle
1877 - Color organ (for light shows) patented, by Bainbridge Bishop
1913 - British House of Commons accepts Home-Rule for Ireland
1916 - Montenegro capitulates to Austro-Hungarian forces
1920 - Prohibition began in the U.S., which banned the sale of all alcoholic beverages. Gangsters flourished, importing and producing bootleg alcohol, and American drank more than ever. Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933. The end of the 'noble experiment.
1945 - Hitler descends into his bunker
1957 - Three B-52's made the first nonstop, around the world flight by jet planes, taking off from Castle Air Force Base in California. The trip took 45 hours and 19 minutes.
1978 - Soyuz 27 returns to Earth
1998 - The first woman to enroll at Virginia Military Institute withdrew from the school.

Book Essential:

1933 - Susan Sontag is born
1952 - New Dutch bible translation finished
1974 - "Jaws" by Peter Benchley is published

A & E Essential:

1759 - The British Museum, one of the world's greatest collections of articfacts, opened on this day.
1949 - "Rape of Lucretia" closes at Ziegfeld Theater NYC after 23 perfs
1954 - "South Pacific" closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 1928 performances
1961 - Mickey Mantle signed a contract that made him the highest paid baseball player in the American League at $75,000 for the 1961 season. But over in the National League, Willie 'Say Hey' Mays, was making more money than any baseball player, he had a contract for $85,000.
1964 - "Hello, Dolly!" opens at St James Theater NYC for 2,844 performances
1966 - Metropolitan Opera House opens in Lincoln Center

Food Essential:

1868 - William Davis, a Detroit, Michigan fish dealer, received a patent for a refrigerator car ('ice box on wheels'). He also designed the first refrigerated railway car.
2000 - A truck loaded with evaporated milk was rammed into California's state capitol building in Sacramento, CA. The driver was killed in the incident.

Family Essential:

1973 - Bonanza's last episode
1965 - "Outer Limits" last airs on ABC-TV

Health Essential:

Money Essential:

1915 - Congress authorizes $1 and $50 Panama-Pacific Intl Expo gold coin
1997 - Raytheon acquires Hughes Electronics

Movies Essential:

1936 - Screen Actors Guild incorporates with King Vidor as president
1962 - Shooting begins on "Dr No"

Music Essential:

1938 - Benny Goodman and his band first brought the sound of jazz to Carnegie Hall in New York City. When asked how long an intermission he wanted, Goodman quipped, "I don't know. How much does Toscanini get?"
1957 - Cavern Club (Beatle's) opens on Matthews Street in England
1963: The first disco Whiskey-A-Go-Go opens
1965 - Searchers' "Love Potion #9" peaks at #3
1976 - The album, Frampton Comes Alive, was released by Herb Alpert's A&M Records. The double LP soon reached the top spot of the album charts and stayed perched there for 17 weeks. It sold 19 million copies in its first year in the record racks and is one of the all-time biggest selling albums in any music genre.
1978 - 5th American Music Award: Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac and C Twitty
1980 - Paul McCartney jailed in Tokyo for 10 days on marijuana possession
1981 - John Lennon releases "Woman"
1976 - Donny and Marie premieres
1996 - Jimmy Buffett's sea plane Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police who mistook him for a drug smuggler. U2's Bono was in the plane with Buffett at the time. Jimmy wrote a song about the incident, Jamaica Mistaica, that appears on the album Banana Wind.

News Essential:

1944 - Gen Eisenhower took command of Allied Invasion Force in London
1951 - World's largest gas pipeline opens (Brownsville Tx, to 134th St, NYC)
1951 - Viet Minh offensive against Hanoi1991 - The White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm. The military operation was designed to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
1990 - Soviets send troops into Azerbaijan
1991 - The Persian Gulf War begins

Politics Essential:

1847 - Fremont appointed Governor of California
1861 - Crittenden Compromise is killed in Senate
1883 - The United States Civil Service Commission was established as the Pendleton Act went into effect.
1925 - Leon Trotsky was dismissed as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the USSR.
1964: Johnson approves Oplan 34A1969: Agreement to open peace talks reached
1970 - Colonel Muammar el-Quaddafi became president-for-life of Libya.
1979 - Shah flees Iran
1982 - Great Britain and the Vatican resumed full diplomatic relations after a break of over 400 years.
1991 - Bush waits for deadline in Iraq
1992 - Officials of the government of El Salvador and rebel leaders signed a peace pact in Mexico City.
2000 - Ricardo Lagos was elected Chile's first socialist president since Salvador Allende.
2002 - The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted sanctions against Osama bin Laden, his terrorist network, and the remnants of the Taliban. The sanctions required that all nations impose arms embargoes and freeze their finances.

Travel Essential:

1804 - French physicist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac ascends to a height of 7,016 m (23,018 ft) in a hydrogen balloon, a record that lasted 50 years. [related article: 1^st Balloon Crossing of the English Channel]
1832 - Charles Darwin lands at San Tiago, Cape Verde
1908 - Pinnacles National Monument, Calif established
1911 - Pandora becomes 1st 2-man sailboat to round Cape Horn west to east

Writing Essential :

1865 - San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle started
1897 - John Dewey's essay "My Pedagogic Creed" appears in School Journal
1939 - Comic strip "Superman" debuts
1985 - Hugh Hefner said, "Out with the staples!" as Playboy magazine announced its 30-year tradition of stapling centerfold models in the bellybutton and elsewhere would come to an end