January 1

0089 Governor Lucius Antonius Saturninus of Germany becomes emperor of Rome: With a handle like that he was gonna work construction?

1515 All Jews are expelled from Laibach, Austria. "...The expulsion of the Jews from Styria and Carinthia (1496) did not at first affect those of Laibach, and in 1510 Emperor Maximilian decreed that they should be protected in their ancient privileges; but in 1513 he yielded to the demands of the citizens, and prohibited the Jews from engaging in mercantile pursuits. Finally, on Jan. 1, 1515, upon the petition of the citizens, they were expelled from Laibach. Occasionally Jews seem to have been in the city after that time..."

1692 The Salem Witch Trails: "...The Salem witch trials of Colonial America resulted in a number of convictions and executions for witchcraft in 1692 in Massachusetts, the result of a period of factional infighting and Puritan witch hysteria which led to the deaths of at least 25 people and the imprisonment of scores more. Witch trials were held in Europe several hundred years before those in Salem...The witch trials ended in January 1693, although people already jailed for witchcraft were not all released until the next spring. The royal appointed governor of Massachusetts, Sir William Phips, disturbed when his wife was accused of witchcraft, ended them by appealing to the Boston-area clergy headed by Increase Mather. In October 3, 1692, Increase Mather published "Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits."

In 1976, a psychologist named Linnda Caporeal discovered the girls' symptoms (convulsive jerking, stupor, delirium, and hallucinations) precisely mirrored those of poisoning by ergot. Ergot is a poisonous fungus that often grows on cereal grains, especially rye, which was commonly grown around Salem. Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) is a hallucinogenic drug that is derived from ergot today. [Woolf, 2004]. A new study has shown that a primitive form of LSD was infecting the wheat supply on one side of the village. The effects of the drug made the people affected scream, run fever, and shake violently. The people of Salem did not have any other explanation except for that of witchcraft..."

1706 The Salem Witch Trails: Ann Putnam Jr., one of the leading accusers, publicly apologizes for her actions in 1692.

1711 The Salem Witch Trails: The colony passes a legislative bill restoring the rights and good names of those accused of witchcraft and grants 600 pounds in restitution to their heirs.

1729 Birth: Edmund Burke: British author/famous Whig (Philosophy & Inquiry, Reflections on the Revolution).

1735 Birth: Paul Revere, silversmith/US patriot, makes his first successful ride.

1745 Birth: "Mad" Anthony Wayne is born this day, and it is almost certain that it didn't suit him for one reason or another.

1751 The worlds most celebrated holiday, New Years Day, has been observed on this day in most English-speaking countries since 1751 when the British calendar act was passed. Before that, folks wished everyone a Happy New Year on March 25, to coincide, approximately, with the beginning of spring.

1752 The Salem Witch Trails: Salem Village is renamed Danvers.

1776 US Revolutionary War: Washington raises a Continental flag with thirteen stripes before his quarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1801 Italian astronomer, Guiseppe Piazzi of Palermo, discovers the first and largest asteroid, 1 Ceres, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Piazzi proposed the name Ceres Ferdinandea, in honour of Sicily's patron Roman goddess, and his patron, the king. It revolves around the Sun in 4.6 yrs, with diameter about 960 km (600 miles). This sighting followed that of the planet Uranus (1781) by the British astronomer William Herschel (1783-1822). Piazzi's discovery provided a body between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter fitting the so-called "Titius-Bode's law." German astronomer Johann Olbers later found more of these bodies now called "asteroids" or "minor bodies of Solar System". Over a thousand such objects are now known."

1801 The Act of Union creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland goes into force. The mass of the Irish, however, being Catholics, are still excluded from the government. George III allows only Church-of-England Irish to sit in Parliament.

 

1815 Birth: Samuel Cunliffe Lister, "(1st Baron Masham of Swinton) was an English inventor of successful wool-combing and waste-silk spinning machines. The demand for wool that resulted from less expensive products stimulated the Australian wool trade. By 1856, he had several mills in Yorkshire, and abroad. He also created machines to use "chassum," comprising damaged cocoons, remnants or fibres previously rejected as waste in silk-spinning. By 1867, after ten years in development, eventually those machines made him a further fortune. In 1867, he introduced velvet power looms for making piled fabrics. His inventiveness included a 1848 patent for automatic compressed air brakes for railways. The textile manufacturing company he established in 1838 exists today."

1847 Birth: Rodolfo Amadeo Lanciani, "Italian archaeologist, who was an authority on the ancient topography of Ostia and Rome. He published a 1:1,000-scale map of classical, medieval, and modern Rome in Forma Urbis Romae (1893-1901). This definitive atlas plots streets and structures of ancient Rome against those of the modern city (c. 1900) in a second color. Several parts of the maps are dated and no longer considered correct, but other parts retain their value and some parts show ruins no longer visible in to the normal visitor in Rome. The University of Rome appointed him as director of excavations (1875). He discovered many important antiquities at Rome, Tivoli, and Ostia. He became professor of Roman topography at that university in 1878."

 

1854 Birth: Sir James George Frazer, "Scottish anthropologist , folklorist, classical scholar, and author of The Golden Bough, a study in Comparative Religion, which traced the evolution of human behavior. This vast collection of savage and civilized beliefs and customs, myth, magic, religion, ritual, and taboo is considered among the greatest works of anthropology. It was named after the golden bough in the sacred grove at Nemi, near Rome. It began as two volumes in 1890 and became 12 volumes by 1915. He did no field work; his research was library-based. Although still considered a storehouse of ethnographic information, his theories belong in history rather than current ideas of anthropology. His notions of totemism were subsequenty destroyed by Lévi-Stauss."

1854 Birth: William Thomas Councilman, "American pathologist, remembered for his contribution in a monograph on amoebic dysentery (1891) which described detailed observations of it and its parasite. His post-M.D. (1878) work included many autopsies, sparking his interest in pathology. He studied in Europe (1880-83), where pathology was more advanced than in the U.S. In his first significant research, he confirmed Laveran's discovery of the sporozoan parasite that causes malaria, Plasmodium malariae (1893-94), and upon returning home, was the first in the U.S. to describe and picture it. Councilman also did research on diphtheria, cerebrospinal meningitis, nephritis, and smallpox. He was the principal founder of the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists."

1861 Birth: Marcellin Boule, "French paleontologist, geologist and physical anthropologist who made the first complete reconstruction of a Neanderthal skeleton (La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France, 1908). His report on Neanderthal anatomy was the most complete report since the species was first discovered in 1856. He believed they were a separate species, not a human ancestor, but evolutionary dead-end. He published one of the first illustrations of Neanderthals. His description of them as a shuffling, bent-kneed, and hairy creature capable of "rudimentary intellectual abilities" became stereotypical. New research in the 1950s corrected this view, when the arthritic condition of the individual was recognized. He wrote Les Hommes fossiles (1921; Fossil Men)."

1867 Birth: Alexander Stanley Elmore, "British technologist who with his brother Francis Edward Elmore, jointly developed flotation processes to separate valuable ore, such as copper, from the gangue (worthless rock) with which it is associated when mined. In 1898, they obtained a patent for the first practical equipment (British patent No. 21,948). Pulverized ore is mixed with water and brought into contact with thick oil. The oil entraps the metallic constituents, which are afterwards separated, and gangue passed away with the water. They installed their equipment at mines in north Wales, northern England, and at the Broken Hill lead and zinc mines in Australia. Today, flotation methods remain vital in the mining industry, processing millions of tons of ores each year."

1872 The metric system is officially introduced throughout the German Empire.*  Since 1795, the metric system had been the standard in France. A committeee from the French Academy used a decimal system and defined the meter to be one 10-millionths of the distance from the equator to the Earth's Pole. For the metric unit of mass, the gram was defined as the mass of one cubic centimeter of pure water at a given temperature. By act Congress, the use of the metric system was legalized in the US (1866), but was not made obligatory. On 20 May 1875, the Treaty of the Meter was signed by twenty countries, including the United States, at the International Metric Convention."

1874 Birth: Albert Hoyt Taylor, "American physicist and radio engineer, known as the "father of navy radar" whose work laid the foundation for US radar development. In Sep 1922, with Leo C. Young, he proposed the detection of intruding ships by transmitting a curtain of high-frequency radio waves across harbour entrances, or between ships, with a receiver to detect disturbances caused by ships moving in the electromagnetic field. Taylor became superintendent of the Radio Division at the newly-established Naval Research Laboratory (1923-45). In 1934, he directed Robert Page to experiment with pulsed high-frequency radio signals for aircraft detection. In 1937, the first 200-MHz shipboard radar was installed. He also investigated ionospheric effects."

 

1876 Work begins at the first regularly organized state agricultural experimental station in the US It was located in Middleton, Connecticut, having been approved 20 Jul 1875, with an appropriation of $2,800 being approved 1 Oct 1865. The first director was Wilbur Olin Atwater, who served until 9 Apr 1877. Assistance had been offered in the form of $1,000 from Orange Judd, owner of the American Agriculurist, and the free use of the chemical laboratory of Orange Judd Hall at Wesleyan University at Middletown was provided by its trustees.*  Important discoveries have come out of research at the station, including vitamin A (in 1913), hybrid corn, the first soil fungicide (1889) and a fungus to control gypsy moth populations."

1876 Birth: Harriet Brooks, "Canadian nuclear physicist who was probably the first to observe the recoil of the atomic nucleus as nuclear particles were emitted during radioactive decay. During the years 1901-05, she contributed much to the new  science of radioactivity. Working with Rutherford, she measured the rate at which radium released radon (and other gases) into the air. They demonstrated that the diffusion of the emanations of radium both behaved like a a gas, and that this gas had a high (over 100) molecular weight. Rutherford credited her work identifying the release of radon as crucial to developing his theory of the transmutation of one element into another. She died at the age of 56, from leukemia or a like disease related to radiation exposure."

1879 Birth: Ernest Jones, "Welsh psychoanalyst who introduced psychoanalysis into Great Britain and North America. His admiration for Sigmund Freud's approach to neurosis led him to learn German to read Freud's work. This led to a lifelong association with Freud from 1908. Jones founded the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (1920), and was its editor for two decades. In 1925, he founded and was director of the London Clinic of Psycho-Analysis. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, Jones went to Vienna to enable Freud's escape with his family to London. He published extensively, including a definitive three-volume biography of Freud (1953-57). His interests included chess, and as a youth, figure skating about which he later wrote a textbook."

Canaris

1887 Birth: Wilhelm Canaris, German admiral/head German military intelligence.

1892 Ellis Island opens this day to begin the processing of what would amount to more than 20 million immigrants to the United States. A fifteen-year old Irish girl named Annie Moore becomes the first that would would pass through during the next 62 years. The immigration center was also used as a deportation station, and later, a Coast Guard Station, and then, a national park. Ellis Island is now a museum with it's former function transferred to the US's southern border.

 

1894 Birth: Satyendra Nath Bose, "Indian mathematician and physicist who collaborated with Albert Einstein to develop a theory of statistical quantum mechanics, now called Bose-Einstein statistics. In his early work in quantum theory (1924), Bose wrote about the Planck black-body radiation law using a quantum statistics of photons, Plank's Law and the Light Quantum Hypothesis. Bose sent his ideas to Einstein, who extended this technique to integral spin particles. Dirac coined the name boson for particles obeying these statistics. Among other things, Bose-Einstein statistics explain how an electric current can flow in superconductors forever, with no loss. Bose also worked on X-ray diffraction, electrical properties of the ionosphere and thermoluminescence."

1895 Birth: J(ohn) Edgar Hoover, Washington DC, Director of US Fedreal Bureau of Investigation.

1896 German scientist, Wilhelm Röntgen announces his discovery of x-rays. He sent copies of his manuscript and some of his x-ray photographs to several renowned physicists and friends, including Lord Kelvin in Glasgow and Henre Poincare in Paris. Four days later, on 5 Jan 1896, Die Presse published the news in a front-page article which described the discovery and suggested new methods of medical diagnoses might be made with this new kind of radiation. One day later, the London Standard cabled the news to other countries around the world about the "a light which for the purpose of photography will penetrate wood, flesh, cloth, and most other organic substances." It printed the first English-language account the next day."

1902 The first radio broadcast demonstration in the US is given by Nathan B. Stubblefield. His voice was the first to be carried on the air-waves ("wireless" - without any wires used for the transmission). At Fairmont Park, Philadelphia, he gave a public exhibition in which he transmitted his voice to a receiver a mile distant from the transmitter. He kept the details of the invention secret until he was issued a patent (U.S. No. 887,357) and gave another demonstration on 30 May 1902. He was unable to obtain a suitable buyer for his invention, thus no distribution, and received little notice for being the first to have accomplished a voice radio broadcast.*"

 

1903 The first transpacific cable from the US is landed at Honolulu, Hawaii and the first message was telegraphed to President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington. Cable Ship Silvertown had laid 2,620 miles of cable since leaving San Francisco, California, on 14 Dec 1902. The ship had arrived a few days earlier, on 26 Dec 1902, but bad weather held up the splicing on of the intermediate and shore ends. Public use began on 5 Jan 1903.* Since 1898, when Hawaii had been annexed to the U.S., news took a week to arrive by steamship; now communication took seconds. After Nov 1951, newer communications superceded this cable, which now lies abandoned on the bottom of the Pacific, after almost fifty years or service."

1912 Birth: Kim Philby, British spy/Soviet mole.

1915 Aspirin is made available for the first time in tablet form. The pills were manufactured by Bayer pharmaceuticals in Germany. The medicine had previously been used in powder form. Salicin, the parent compound of the salicylate drug family had been isolated from willow bark in 1829. From 1875, sodium salicylate was used as a commercial pain reliever, despite side effects such as bleeding of the stomach lining. In 1897, Felix Hoffman, a German chemist working for Bayer, found a suitable, less acidic medication - acetylsalicylic acid - marketed by Bayer under the name "Aspirin". It has since become the biggest selling drug in the world as an analgesic (anti-pain), anti-inflammatory, and antipyretic (fever-reducing) medication."

1916 Blood that had been stored and cooled is used for the first time in a blood transfusion  performed by the R.A.M.C. The procedure was very successful. Blood transfusionshad been made previously, but this demonstrated the value of cooling to store blood. Until 1913, direct transfusion was the only technique practiced, despite being a difficult and time-consuming method, requiring trained personnel and was impractical for as a procedure in sudden emergencies. In the last two years of World War I, British surgeons benefitted from knowledge derived in the U.S. Use of blood collected and stored in advance of the need as casualties arrived facilitated transfusions as needed."

1917 Birth: Jule Gregory Charney, "American meteorologist who, working with John von Neumann, first introduced the electronic computer into weather prediction (1950) and improved understanding of the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere. The entire Oct 1947 issue of the Journal of Meteorology published his Ph.D. dissertation, (UCLA, 1936) Dynamics of long waves in a baroclinic westerly current. It emphasized the influence of "long waves" in the upper atmosphere rather than the existing practice of emphasis on the polar front. It also simplified analysis of perturbations of these waves using mathematically rigorous methods that yielded useful physical interpretation. He helped the U.S. Weather Bureau set up (1954) a numerical weather prediction unit."

1918 Corneliu Codreanu and his followers in Romania resist attacks by bands of mutinous Russian soldiers looting and pillaging their countryside. "...charismatic leader of the Romanian ultra-Nationalist movement in the period between the two World Wars, The Iron Guard (Garda de Fier) or The Legion of the Archangel Michael (also known as the Legionaries, The Legionary Movement or, although never officially, as The Green Shirts). References to him as just Corneliu Codreanu do exist, and Zelea is never used as the family name it is: all entries for Codreanu cite it as if it were a middle name. The Legionaries traditionally referred to Codreanu as Cãpitanul ("The Captain"), and he held absolute authority over the organization until his death. Nowadays Codreanu is remembered as a spiritual leader more than a political one. The Noua Dreaptã, which claims to be successor of the pre-war Iron Guard, depicts him as an Romanian Orthodox saint..."

1919 Volkishness: Karl Maria Wiligut (Weisthor) is discharged with the rank of colonel from the Austrian army, after serving almost 40 years. (Roots)

1920 Weimar: The first DAP Party Headquarters is established in the Sterneckerbrau in Munich. "...This party was the formal forerunner of the NSDAP, and became one of many volkisch movements that existed in Germany after its defeat in World War I. In order to investigate the DAP, German army intelligence sent a young corporal, Adolf Hitler, to monitor party activities. However, he was impressed by what he saw, and he joined as Member Number 555, although Hitler later claimed to be "Party Member number 7" to make it look like he was a founder. He was, in actual fact, only the 55th member of the DAP but the party began its membership totals from 500 in order to appear larger. He was in fact the 7th member of the DAP's central committee. At this early stage, Hitler brought up the idea of renaming the party, and he proposed the name "Social Revolutionary Party" (4). However, Rudolf Jung insisted that the party should follow the pattern of Austria's Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei. As a consequence, the DAP was shortly renamed the NSDAP on February 24, 1920..."

1924 The first US patent for ink paste is issued to Frank Buckley Cooney of Minneapolis, Minn. (No. 1,479,533). Paste ink was designed to be rendered fluid for use by the addition of water, so that "a very satisfactory writing fluid is provided free of suspended matter and other imperfections." Thus ink could be packaged in collapsible lead vending tube in highly concentrated form. This also had the benefit of reducing shipping costs. Four fluid ounces of paste would produce one gallon of ink after dilution, free from the suspended matter associated with concentrated ink in the form of powders or tablets. It was manufactured as Cooney's Ink Paste, from 10 Feb 1923, by the Standard Ink Co in the same city.*"

1925 During the early months of this year, Benito Mussolini eliminates his most important political opponents and establishes a virtual dictatorship by force and intimidation. He soon begins the process of converting Italy into a one-party Corporate state.

1926 Prince Michael of Romania is proclaimed heir to the throne by the Romanian Parliament after his father, Prince Carol, is deprived of his inheritance.

1928 The first high-rise office building in the world with air-conditioning installed during construction - the Milam Building - opens in San Antonio, Texas. The 21-story building has almost 250,000 square feet of floor area.* The air-conditioning was designed by the Carrier Engineering Corporation to provide 300 tons of refrigeration capacity with chilled water, piped to air-handling fans serving all floors. Smaller buildings such as stores and theatres already had air conditioning installed, but the high-rise required preparing in advance the design to incorporate ducts and air-handling and control equipment planned with the structure. At the time it opened, it was also the tallest brick and concrete-reinforced structure in the United States."

1931 The Nazi Brown House is officially opened in Munich.

1931 W.A. Harriman & Co. merges with Brown Brothers. Prescott Bush, father of future President George HW Bush, becomes the managing partner of the new firm: Brown Brothers Harriman. This firm will subsequently become the largest and most politically important private banking house in America. The London branch of the Brown family firm continues to operate under the name -- Brown, Shipley. Note: During the American Civil War (War of Southern Secession), the Brown family with offices in the US and London shipped 75% of the South's slave cotton to British mills.

1933 Hypnotist Erik Hanussen, a Jew, predicts Hitler will come to power on January 30, 1933.

Roehm

1934 Hitler writes a letter of gratitude to his dear friend, Ernst Roehm.

1935 The Soviet Union discontinues food rationing cards.

1935 Wirephoto(tm) by AP News(R) is invented. It enabled the transmission of photographs by wire to member newspapers. The photo was wrapped around a drum. The drum was then rotated as a light-sensitive photocell moved over the image picking up brightness differences. The photocell created voltages that were amplified and sent by telephone lines to the subscribing newspapers. At the receiving end, a piece of photographic paper spun around on a cylinder within a light-tight enclosure. The intensity of a pinpoint of light focused on the paper varied with the signal being picked up by the originating machine. The paper was then processed in a darkroom in the same way as a normal photographic print.*"

1936 The Herald Tribune of New York begins microfilming its current issues from this date, becoming the first U.S. newspaper to make a current record of its publication. The previous year the New York Times had microfilmed its back-issues for the years 1914-27, but had not yet started processing its current issues in this form.*"

1937 Holocaust: The Polish law banning Jewish ritual slaughter (Shechita) goes into effect.

1939 Holocaust: A decree is published eliminating Jews from the German economy.

 

1939 A Flea Laboratory opens in San Francisco, California at the University of California's Hooper Foundation for Medical Research. It was the first of its kind in the US. The building was a two story concrete structure designed to be flea-tight, and rodent-tight. Air-conditioning kept the interior at a constant temperature. This event came a century after fleas first made a name for themselves. The first US flea circus opened in early Jan 1838, which was billed as an "Extraordinary Exhibition of the Industrious Fleas." Patrons at 187 Broadway, New York City, for an admission of 50 cents, could attend performances at times from 11am to 3pm and 5pm to 9pm.*"

1940 WW2: A Soviet educational system is imposed on Poland. Polish subjects as well as Polish students and teachers are phased out. Before the war, Lwow University was 70% Polish, 15% Ukrainian and 15% Jewish. Under the Soviets it becomes 3% Polish, 12% Ukrainian and 85% Jewish.

1940 Holocaust: Generalissimo Franco, quoting directly from the famous forgery 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion', officially denounces the Jews and Freemasons.

1941 Holocaust: Another 439 old and sick Jews from the Old Peoples Home in Kalisz, Poland, are gassed with exhaust fumes in the nearby woods.

1941 World War II: German bombers drop bombs on Ireland, in four counties and the capital, Dublin.

1942 World War II: Twenty-six nations sign the United Nations Declaration in Washington. The Atlantic Charter and its eight principles: (1) the renunciation of territorial aggression; (2) territorial changes only with consent of the peoples concerned; (3) restoration of sovereign rights and self-government; (4) access to raw materials for all nations; (5) world economic cooperation; (6) freedom from fear and want; (7) freedom of the seas; and (8) disarmament of aggressors are also endorsed by the signatories at the Arcadia Conference. (See August 9, 1941)

1942

1944 WW2: Himmler reports there are now 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers in the Waffen-SS.

1945 World War II: The Soviet-dominated Lublin Committee declares itself the legitimate government of Poland. It meets with little effective resistance from the local population still suffering severely under the hardships of war.

1945 World War II: Luftwaffe attacks on airfields in Belgium, Holland and France destroy more than 300 Allied aircraft. It is the last major Luftwaffe operation of the war.

1945 WW2: German Army Group G in Alsace begins an offensive in the Sarreguemines area and Eisenhower orders units of the US Seventh Army to retreat.

1945 Holocaust: Hungarian-Jewish leader, Otto Komoly, is murdered by Hungarian Fascists.

1946 ENIAC, the first US computer is finished by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. It was built at the Moore School of Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, based on ideas developed by John Atanasoff of Iowa State College. Though not the first ever computer, ENIAC is regarded as the first successful, general digital computer. It weighed over 27,000 kg (60,000 lb), and contained more than 18,000 vacuum tubes. A staff of six  technicians replaced about 2000 of the tubes each month. Many of ENIAC's first tasks were for military purposes, such as calculating ballistic firing tables and designing atomic weapons. Since ENIAC was initially not a stored program machine, it had to be reprogrammed for each task."

 

1948 The first US motion picture newsreel in color was taken at the Tournament of Roses and the Rose Bowl Game, Pasadena, California. Warner Brothers-Pathe started showing this first color newsreel to theatre audiences on 5 Jan 1948. It was made using the Cinecolor process.*"

1951 The first pay television in the US starts test transmissions to a limited group of subscribers in Chicago, Illinois for 90 days. The broadcast signal was scrambled, and could be viewed by those people having the "key signal" sent to them by telephone. The first day's full-length features, each priced at $1, began in the afternoon with April Showers with Jack Carson, followed by the Bing Crosby movie Welcome Stranger and then Homecoming  with Clark Gable and Lana Turner. The service, provided by Zenith Radio Corporation (KS2KSBS), was tested by 300 families chosen from 51,000 applicants. The company sold* over 2,000 program views in the first month, yet not enough to sustain the commercial venture."

1954 The first color mobile television units in the US are placed in service by station WNBT of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) to cover the Tournament of Roses Parade. Two units, each three-color capable, with complete audio and video control on board, were mobilized aboard large motor vans. Each truck was 35-ft long, 8-ft wide and 10.6 ft high. One camera was crane-mounted. A new logo was introduced to accompany the color broadcasts. Black and white TV mobile units were already well established for outdoor events, having begun operation on 12 Dec 1937 by the W2XBT station of NBC using a microwave link to a tower transmitter on the Empire State Building.*"

1957 The Salem Witch Trails: Massachusetts formally apologizes for the events of 1692.

1963 The first US electric power plant to use hyperbolic-shaped cooling towers is placed in commercial service at Ashland, Kentucky by the Kentucky Power Company. It was designed to cool 120,000 gallons of water per minute. The first unit at Big Sandy Plant opened with a 260-megawatt power capacity. The location was chosen to be close to the coal mines that fuel it. In 1969, a second unit opened adding another 800-megawatt of power production." (Source)

1966 Effective on this day, all US cigarette packages begin carrying the health warning: Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health. This resulted from landmark federal legislation enacted in 1965 that required health warnings on cigarette packages. In 1984, the law was amended to require one of four warning labels in most cigarette-related advertising (US Code, Title 15, Chapter 36, Sec. 1333.)." Note For Men: Only smoke the ones that say 'May Complicate Pregnancy,' and pass on the ones that say 'Throat Polyps' and the like.

1967 The first fluoridation law in the US takes effect in Connecticut, requiring fluoridation of public water supplies serving 20,000 or more population, to prevent dental caries. The water fluoridation era began in 1945 when the cities of Newburgh, New York, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, began adding sodium fluoride to their public water systems. This followed the work done (1930-1943) by Frederick S. McKay, a Colorado dentist, who related brown stains (mottling) on his patients’ teeth to low dental caries due to the source of their drinking water containing high levels of naturally occurring fluoride. By the early 1940s, H. Trendley Dean had determined the ideal level of fluoride in drinking water to reduce decay without mottling." (Source)

1972 Ex-Nazi Kurt Waldheim of Austria formally takes office as the fourth Secretary General of the United Nations.

1976 There IS an 'n' in Brain: On this day, NBC Television debuts a new abstract capital 'N'-- a corporate symbol to replace the familiar peacock logo after 20 years. The cost of the new NBC logo is estimated to be between $750,000 and $1 million. After much ridicule, it takes two more years before they get the really bad news: Nebraska Public Television went after NBC for copying ITS logo, which it had broadcast for several years. The cost... 35 dollars. NBC paid the costs and the 'N' stayed around for a short time before being replaced by... the peacock. NBC shipped the abstract N to Nebraska Public TV and told them to put it to good use.

1985 On this day, 237,839,000 people live in the United States. The number represents a birth rate well below the levels of the 1950s and 1960s baby boom, which saw a record setting 3,690,000 newborns.

1987 The Dishonor List of Banished Words and Phrases: The Doublespeak Award given this day goes to (the envelope please...) Lake Superior State College for the phrase, "The patient did not fulfill his wellness potential." Or, in other words... he died. Congratulations! Only half of these graduates now work for the government. The other half were N-Ron executives.

1993 US President Bill Clinton recognizes the new Czech and Slovak Republics (formerly Czechoslovakia) and offered to establish full diplomatic relations. In an exchange of letters, Czech Prime Minister Klaus and Slovak Prime Minister Meciar accepted the US offer of full diplomatic relations. Both leaders provided assurances that the new states would fulfill the obligations and commitments of the former Czechoslovakia and abide by the principles and provisions of the UN Charter, the Charter of Paris, the Helsinki Final Act and subsequent CSCE documents.

1996 The last member of the snail species Partula turgida (the Polynesian Tree Snail) dies at the London Zoo. A protozoan disease of the digestive gland is thought to have been responsible for the extinction of this last individual of the species. Numerous field surveys  failed to find extant populations of this species in the wild (the South Pacific island of Raiatea in the Society Island chain, about 5000-km south of Hawaii). Residents of Raiatea  began importing predatory snails from Florida in 1986 to eat another kind of pest snail, but the predators attacked the native snails. By 1991 they had driven the species to the brink of extinction. Scientists captured the last known P. turgida individuals to try to save them through captive breeding."

1999 Member nations of the European Union adopt the "euro" as their common currency. It was a long road: Anti-Union propaganda in Britain utilized the German boogyman with the slogan, 'Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Euro.' Note: Eighty percent of the British who major in History specialize in Nazi Germany.

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