Today is Friday, Jan. 6, the sixth day of 2017 with 359 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury. Evening stars are Neptune, Venus, Mars and Uranus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include French battlefield leader St. Joan of Arc in 1412; Frenchman Jacques Montgolfier, who, with his brother, invented the hot air balloon, in 1745; German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the ruins of ancient Troy, in 1822; poet Carl Sandburg in 1878; silent movie cowboy star Tom Mix in 1880; Sam Rayburn, D-Texas, former speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives, in 1882; Lebanese writer Khalil Gibran in 1883; actors Danny Thomas in 1912 and Loretta Young in 1913; crossword puzzle constructor and editor Eugene Maleska in 1916; baseball Hall of Fame member Early Wynn in 1920; golf Hall of Fame member Cary Middlecoff in 1921; pollster Louis Harris in 1921 (age 96); bluegrass musician Earl Scruggs in 1924; auto executive John DeLorean in 1925; author E. L. Doctorow in 1931 (age 86); U. S. football coach and broadcaster Lou Holtz in 1937 (age 80); Hall of Fame golfer Nancy Lopez in 1957 (age 60); Hall of Fame football player, actor and broadcaster Howie Long in 1960 (age 57); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd) in 1946; actors Bonnie Franklin in 1944 and Rowan Atkinson in 1955 (age 62); and filmmaker John Singleton in 1968 (age 49).
On this date in history:
In 1759, George Washington married widow Martha Dandridge Custis.
In 1838, in Morristown, N. J., Samuel F. B. Morse and his partner, Alfred Vail, publicly demonstrated their new invention, the telegraph, for the first time.
In 1912, New Mexico joined the United States as the 47th state.
In 1914, the day after the Ford Motor Co. announced the « $5 Day, » more than 10,000 men jockeyed for places as each sought to become one of the army of 22,000 workers who would benefit under the $10,000,000 profit-sharing plan.
In 1919, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, died at the age of 60.
In 1925, Paavo Nurmi, known as the « Flying Finn » and regarded as the greatest runner of his day, set world records in the mile run and 5,000-meter run within the space of 1 hour in his first U. S. appearance, an indoor meet at New York City’s new Madison Square Garden.
In 1942, a Pan American Airways plane arrived in New York, completing the first around-the-world flight by a commercial airliner.
In 1950, Britain formally recognized the communist government of China.
In 1961, Vice President Richard Nixon made official that he had been defeated by Sen. John F. Kennedy in one of the closest presidential elections in history.
In 1984, the first test-tube quadruplets, all boys, were born in Melbourne, Australia.
In 1993, dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev and jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie died. Nureyev, who was 54, died of cardiac complications. (It was later confirmed that he had AIDS.) Gillespie, 75, died of cancer.
In 1994, American skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the right knee in an attack that forced her out of the U. S. Figure Skating Championships. The assault was traced to four men with links to her leading rival, Tonya Harding.
In 1999, an agreement ended a six-month player lockout by owners of National Basketball Association teams.
In 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was arrested in connection to the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. He was found guilty on June 21, 2005, the 41st anniversary of the crime, and sentenced to 60 years in prison.
In 2010, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only officially recognized survivor of both the 1945 U. S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that led to the Japanese surrender in World War II, died of stomach cancer at age 93 .
In 2011, U. S. President Barack Obama named William Daley, a Wall Street executive, to be his chief of staff.
In 2013, Syrian President Bashar Assad, standing defiantly against pressure to step down, called on Syrians to fight rebels, which he deemed « enemies of God. » His speech was broadcast nationally.
In 2014, Martin Walsh became Boston’s first new mayor in more than two decades, succeeding Thomas Menino.
A thought for the day: « Problems are only opportunities in work clothes. » — Henry Kaiser
