January 3, 2024
QUOTE
The chief purpose of life, for any of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks.
--J. R. R. Tolkien
BIRTHDAYS
106 BC – Cicero, Roman philosopher, lawyer, and politician
1892 – J.R.R. Tolkien, English writer, poet, and philologist
1901 – Ngô Đình Diệm, Vietnamese lawyer and politician, 1st President of the Republic of Vietnam
1909 – Victor Borge, Danish-American pianist and conductor
1945 – Stephen Stills, Singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
IN MEMORY
1916 – Grenville M. Dodge, General and politician
1967 – Jack Ruby, Businessman and murderer
1979 – Conrad Hilton, Businessman, founded the Hilton Hotels & Resorts
2014 – Phil Everly, Singer and guitarist
IN ON THIS DAY
1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.
1777 – General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.
1870 – Construction work begins on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, United States.
1944 – US flying ace Major Greg “Pappy” Boyington is shot down in his Vought F4U Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Mitsubishi A6M Zero.
1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch
1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.