January 6, 2024
QUOTE
If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.
--Carl Sandburg
BIRTHDAYS
1412 – Joan of Arc, French martyr and saint
1745 – Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier, French co-inventor of the hot air balloon
1878 – Carl Sandburg, Poet and historian
1880 – Tom Mix, Cowboy and actor
1912 – Danny Thomas, Actor, comedian, producer, and humanitarian
1924 – Earl Scruggs, Banjo player
IN MEMORY
1919 – Theodore Roosevelt, Colonel and politician, 26th President of the United States
1993 – Dizzy Gillespie, Singer-songwriter and trumpet player
2006 – Lou Rawls, Singer-songwriter
2022 – Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor, director, and diplomat
IN ON THIS DAY
1838 – Alfred Vail and colleagues demonstrate a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
1847 – Samuel Colt obtains his first contract for the sale of revolver pistols to the United States government.
1912 – New Mexico is admitted to the Union as the 47th U.S. state.
1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift.
1930 – Clessie Cummins arrives at the National Automobile Show in New York City, having driven a car powered by one of his diesel engines from Indianapolis.
1947 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to offer a round-the-world ticket.
1994 – U.S. figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked and injured by an assailant hired by her rival Tonya Harding’s ex-husband during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.