Today is Constitution Day in Gibraltar. Also, it is my birthday.
JANUARY 29TH
Events
904 – Sergius III comes out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed antipope Christopher.
1834 – US President Andrew Jackson orders first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labor dispute.
1845 – “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe is published in the New York Evening Mirror.
1861 – Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.
1863 – Bear River Massacre.
1886 – Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.
1940 – Three trains on the Sakurajima Line, in Osaka, Japan, crash and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi station. 181 people are killed.
1944 – World War II: Approximately 38 men, women, and children die in the Koniuchy massacre in Poland.
2002 – In his State of the Union Address, United States President George W. Bush describes “regimes that sponsor terror” as an Axis of Evil, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Births
1737 – Thomas Paine, English-born American patriot (d. 1809)
1754 – Moses Cleaveland, founder of Cleveland (d. 1806)
1843 – William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (d. 1901)
1860 – Anton Chekhov, Russian writer (d. 1904)
1874 – John D. Rockefeller Jr., American entrepreneur (d. 1960)
1880 – W.C. Fields, American actor (d. 1946)
1891 – R. Norris Williams, American survivor of the RMS Titanic sinking ( d. 1968 )
1922 – Gerda Steinhoff, Nazi concetration camp supervisor (d. 1946)
1930 – Derek Bailey, English guitar virtuoso (d. 2005)
1936 – James Jamerson, American bass guitarist for Motown Records (d. 1983)
1940 – Kunimitsu Takahashi, Japanese motorcycle racer and racing driver
1942 – Claudine Longet, French singer, dancer and convicted murderer
1944 – Andrew Loog Oldham, English rock and roll producer
1945 – Tom Selleck, American actor
1952 – Tommy Ramone, Hungarian-born musician and record producer (The Ramones)
1954 – Richard Manitoba, American singer (The Dictators and MC5)
1954 – Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host and actress
1960 – Gia Carangi, American model (d. 1986)
1960 – Greg Louganis, American diver
Deaths
1678 – Jeronimo Lobo, Portuguese Jesuit missionary (b. 1593)
1963 – Robert Frost, American poet (b. 1874)
1964 – Alan Ladd, American actor (b. 1913)
1969 – Allen Dulles, American CIA director (b. 1893)
1977 – Freddie Prinze, American actor and comedian (b. 1954)
1986 – Leif Erickson, American actor (b. 1911)
2002 – Dick “Night Train” Lane, American football player ( b. 1928 )
