On Jan. 29, 1963, poet Robert Frost died in Boston.

January 29th
 

Switzerland ~ "Landsgemeinde" The locals come together and democratically elect representatives. How much MORE fun could you have?!?! :eek:


1802 ~ John Beckley became the first Librarian of Congress. He was paid $2 a day.


1845 ~ Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven was published.


1861 ~ Kansas became the 34th state in the United States.


1886 ~ Karl Benz received a patent for the first successful gasoline-driven car.


1936 ~ Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson were the first players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.


2002 ~ In his State of the Union address, President Bush labels Iraq, Iran, and North Korea an "axis of evil."

January 30th
 

Music World ~ 1969, at the Top of the Apple Building. Last EVER performance by The Beatles..... has the world been the same, since?


1649 ~ King Charles I of England was beheaded.


1933 ~ Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany.


1948 ~ Gandhi was assassinated.


1968 ~ Viet Cong guerillas and North Vietnamese soldiers launched the Tet (New Year) offensive.


1979 ~ The Iranian civilian government announced that the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini would be allowed to return.

January 31st
 

Nauru ~ "Independence Day" Celebrating the Pacific Island's breaking free from the voracious, Empire-building dictatorship of...... Australia!! :D


1797 ~ Franz Schubert was born in Vienna.


1865 ~ Robert E. Lee was appointed commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces.


Same day in 1865 ~ The House of Representatives approved the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery in the United States.


1940 ~ The first social security check was issued to Ida Fuller for $22.54.


1958 ~ The first U.S. earth satellite, Explorer I, was launched.


1990 ~ The first McDonald's opened in Russia. Isn't democracy Wonderful?! :)

January 31st
 

1983 ~ British drivers and front seat passengers began wearing seatbelts as required by a new law.

2000 ~ Dr Harold Shipman is jailed for life for murdering 15 of his patients, making him Britain's most prolific convicted serial killer.

February 1st
 

2004 ~ The Festival of the Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha) begins this evening with the sighting of the moon.

Februray 1st
 

Montserrat ~ "St. Brigid's Day" . (Not the world's most 'exciting' Saint.....miracles include taming a Wolf to replace a Chieftains dog!


1790 ~ The Supreme Court of the United States convened for the first time, in New York City.


1862 ~ Julia Ward Howe's poem "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was published in the Atlantic Monthly.


1884 ~ The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary A–Ant, was published.


1960 ~ Four black college students began a series of sit-ins at a white-only lunch counter in Woolworth’s, Greensboro, N.C.


1979 ~ Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Tehran after 15 years of exile.


2003 ~ The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it tried to reenter the Earth's atmosphere after a sixteen-day mission in space. All seven members of the crew were lost.

Re: July 26...
 

Pardon me for pulling the above quote from so far back in this thread (July 26, 2003) but this story has always perplexed me and as I was reading through all the interesting facts...this one jumped out at me......again!

Now....I gotta ask......Did the authorities NOT see anyone else but Paul Reubens "waxing his carrot" in this adult theater? How can it be called "indecent exposure" if he was INSIDE the (presumedly darkened.....as there was a movie playing)theater...and not outside lurking around the ticket booth? Was he standing up and waving his schlong in the face of the other patrons? Did someone in the theater witness this act and get offended that he couldn't watch his porn flick while another patron was doing an act that might have been playing on the screen simultaneously? Is this act a revelation to the authorities? Was it masturbation that ruined his kiddie-show career, or was it the media blitz that followed the arrest for an act that should never have been reported to children in the first place?

That did, and still does, piss me off to the max......in purple passion style! I love Paul Reubens and they did him dirty for this selective arrest!

OK.....I'm done! *jumps off the soap box*

February 2nd
 

Canada ~ "US Groundhog Day" Eh?


1536 ~ The city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, was founded by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Mendoza.


1848 ~ The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican War, was signed. In the treaty, Mexico ceded to the United States a huge portion of what is today the American West and Southwest, including California and New Mexico.


1870 ~ The Cardiff Giant was revealed to be a hoax.


1876 ~ The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs was formed.


1922 ~ James Joyce's Ulysses was published.


1943 ~ Nazi troops surrendered in the World War II Battle of Stalingrad.


1971 ~ Idi Amin became dictator of Uganda.

February 2nd
 

1990 ~ The President of South Africa, F. W. De Klerk, lifted the 30-year ban on the African National Congress, effectively dismantling apartheid in South Africa.

February 3rd
 

1959 ~ Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens died in an airplane crash. Don McLean immortalised the tragedy with his 1972 hit “American Pie”.

February 3rd
 

Vietnam ~ "Foundation of the Vietnamese Communist Party" Catchy little name, isn't it? :)


1468 ~ Johann Gutenberg, German printer and inventor, died.


1870 ~ The 15th Amendment (black suffrage) passed.


1913 ~ The 16th Amendment, establishing federal income tax, was ratified.


1917 ~ The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.


1969 ~ The Palestine National Congress appointed Yasir Arafat head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.


1995 ~ Col. Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot the space shuttle when the Discovery blasted off.

February 4th
 

Angola ~ "Commencement of Armed Struggle Day" There has been fighting in Angola continuously since 1961..... worth a celebration?


1783 ~ England proclaimed the formal end to the hostilities with the United States.


1787 ~ Shays's Rebellion, an uprising of Massachusetts farmers, was defeated.


1789 ~ George Washington and John Adams are elected the president and vice president of the United States.


1861 ~ Delegates from six southern states met at Montgomery, Ala., to form the Confederate States of America.


1945 ~ Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at the Yalta Conference.


1948 ~ Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) gained independence from the United Kingdom.


1976 ~ Benjamin Britten, British composer, died.


2003 ~ The country of Yugoslavia disappeared, to be replaced by the loose federation of Serbia and Montenegro.

February 5th
 

1974 ~ Patty Hearst, The granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.


1982 ~ Pioneering budget airline Laker Airways collapsed, owing £270 million to creditors.

February 5th
 

Taiwan ~ "Lantern Festival" Join the Thousands of visitors at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, Taipei


1811 ~ After George III was declared insane, the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent of England, and later George IV.


1917 ~ Congress passed the Immigration Act, which restricted Asian immigration, over President Wilson's veto.


Also 1917 ~ Mexico adopted its present constitution.


1937 ~ FDR proposed increasing the number of Supreme Court justices—"packing" the court.


1994 ~ Byron De La Beckwith was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Medgar Evers, 30 years after the crime in Jackson, Mississippi.


1997 ~ Under international pressure, three of Switzerland’s biggest banks created a fund worth 100 million Swiss francs for Holocaust victims and their families.