February 1, 2024
QUOTE
When in doubt, make a western.
--John Ford
BIRTHDAYS
1659 – Jacob Roggeveen, Dutch explorer
1894 – John Ford, Director and producer
1901 – Clark Gable, Actor
1924 – Richard Hooker, Novelist
IN MEMORY
1940 – Philip Francis Nowlan, Author, created Buck Rogers
1966 – Hedda Hopper, Actress and journalist
1966 – Buster Keaton, Actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
2005 – John Vernon, Canadian-American actor
2003 – Michael P. Anderson, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut
2003 – David M. Brown, American captain, pilot, and astronaut
2003 – Kalpana Chawla, Indian-American engineer and astronaut
2003 – Laurel Clark, American captain, surgeon, and astronaut
2003 – Rick Husband, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut
2003 – William C. McCool, American commander, pilot, and astronaut
2003 – Ilan Ramon, Israeli colonel, pilot, and astronaut
IN ON THIS DAY
1327 – The teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
1662 – The Chinese general Koxinga seizes the island of Taiwan after a nine-month siege.
1793 – France declares war on the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
1861 – Texas secedes from the United States and joins the Confederacy a week later.
1865 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1893 – Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey. 1950 – The first prototype of the MiG-17 makes its maiden flight.
2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during the reentry of mission STS-107 into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.