On January 21…
“Every true history must force us to remember that the past was once as real as the present and as uncertain as the future.”
~George Macaulay Trevelyan
1793 – One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI was executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris.
1861 – Five Southerners resigned from the U.S. Senate, including Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, the future president of the Confederacy.
Standing before his colleagues in the Senate, Davis said, “I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that the state of Mississippi has declared her separation from the United States.”
He explained that his state acted because “we are about to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us.”
Davis implored his Senate colleagues to work for a continuation of peaceful relations between the United States and the departing states. Otherwise, he predicted, interference with his state’s decision would “bring disaster on every portion of the country.”
1924 – Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Bolshevik Revolution and the first leader of the Soviet Union, died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 54.
1950 – In the conclusion to one of the most spectacular trials in U.S. history, former State Department official Alger Hiss was convicted of having perjured himself in regards to testimony about his alleged involvement in a Soviet spy ring before and during World War II.
Hiss served nearly four years in jail, but steadfastly protested his innocence during and after his incarceration.
1950 – George Orwell (wrote The Road To Wigan Pier, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four) died of tuberculosis at the age of 46. He was buried in All Saints’ Churchyard, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, UK.
His gravestone bears the simple epitaph: Here lies Eric Arthur Blair, born 25 June 1903, died 21 January 1950. No mention is made on the gravestone of his more famous pen name.
1953 – Dizzy Dean and Al Simmons were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Incredibly, Joe DiMaggio failed to be elected on his first try. He only received 44.3% support. 264 ballots were cast and DiMaggio was named on just 117 of them.
1954 – The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Conn.
1959 – Carl Switzer (played Alfalfa in the Our Gang series in the 1930s) was shot to death in a dispute over a $50 debt. Switzer was 31.
1959 – Film director Cecil B. DeMille died of heart failure at the age of 77.
He directed The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, The Greatest Show On Earth, and the original version of Cleopatra.
1967 – Actress Ann Sheridan (Angels With Dirty Faces, The Man Who Came To Dinner, Kings Row) died of esophageal and liver cancer at the age of 51.
1968 – The Battle of Khe Sanh – one of the most publicized and controversial battles of the Vietnam War – began at the Khe Sanh Combat Base in the northwestern Quảng Trị Province, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) when the North Vietnamese Army launched a series of coordinated attacks against American positions.
Once the base came under siege, a series of actions was fought over a period of five months. During this time, KSCB and the hilltop outposts around it were subjected to constant North Vietnamese artillery, mortar, and rocket attacks, and several infantry assaults.
To support the Marine base, a massive aerial bombardment campaign (Operation Niagara) was launched by the U.S. Air Force. Over 100,000 tons of bombs were dropped by U.S. aircraft and over 158,000 artillery rounds were fired in defense of the base.
President Lyndon Johnson and General William Westmoreland considered the use of tactical nuclear weapons and chemical weapons to prevent an American defeat at Khe Sanh.
In a series of remarkable cables and phone calls, Westmoreland informed Johnson that he didn’t believe nuclear or chemical weapons would be needed, but he held out the possibility that these ultimate options might be required.
In the end, the U.S. claimed victory during the seventy-seven days of siege. But that perception was shattered in July 1968 with the abandonment of the base, and Khe Sanh became etched in the minds of many Americans as a symbol of the pointless sacrifice and muddled tactics that permeated a doomed U.S. war effort in Vietnam.
History’s verdict of Khe Sanh as a U.S. defeat is more an indictment of General Westmoreland and his false claims that Khe Sanh was indispensable to the U.S. war effort, rather than a true accounting of the epic siege.
1969 – Stan Musial and Roy Campanella were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
1971 – No one was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
18-time All Star Yogi Berra received the highest percentage of votes (67.2%) but fell 28 votes short of the required 75%.
1976 – From London’s Heathrow Airport and Orly Airport outside Paris, the first Concorde supersonic jetliners, with commercial passengers, simultaneously took flight.
The London flight was headed to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and the Paris to Rio de Janeiro via Senegal in West Africa. At their cruising speeds, the innovative Concordes flew well over the sound barrier at 1,350 miles an hour, cutting air travel time by more than half.
1977 – One day after his inauguration, President Jimmy Carter kept a campaign promise and pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders. Carter’s decision generated a good deal of controversy.
Carter’s pardon stated that only civilians who were convicted of violating the Military Selective Service Act by draft-evasion acts or omissions committed between August 4, 1964 and March 28, 1973 were eligible.
The pardon was unconditional and wiped criminal records clean, but it only applied to civilians, not the estimated 500,000 to 1 million active-duty personnel who went AWOL or deserted during the war.
Heavily criticized by veterans’ groups and others for allowing unpatriotic lawbreakers to get off scot-free, the pardon and companion relief plan also came under fire from amnesty groups for not addressing deserters, soldiers who were dishonorably discharged or civilian anti-war demonstrators who had been prosecuted for their resistance.
1979 – The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 35-31 at Super Bowl XIII.
Steelers’ quarterback Terry Bradshaw passed for 318 yards and 4 TDs to win the Most Valuable Player award.
1984 – Jackie Wilson (Higher & Higher, Lonely Teardrops, Reet Petite and many more) died eight years after a heart attack and subsequent fall left him in a coma with brain damage. He was 49.
1987 – The Coasters, Eddie Cochran, Bo Diddley, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Bill Haley, B. B. King, Clyde McPhatter, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Smokey Robinson, Big Joe Turner, Muddy Waters and Jackie Wilson were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
1994 – A jury in Manassas, Va., acquitted Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously “wounding” her husband, John, whom she had accused of sexually assaulting her.
“Wounding” seems like such an understatement.
1996 – The 555-ton Gurita, typically used to ferry passengers between Indonesia’s islands, was sunk in an unexpected storm off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.
Although exact numbers were impossible to determine, approximately 400 people were on board when the ship left Jakarta, well in excess of the official capacity of 220.
When the Gurita encountered a strong storm just six miles from Sabang, the overload exacerbated the disaster. As the ship began to sway and lurch violently, people began to panic and fight over life jackets as there were not enough for everyone on board.
The Gurita sank quickly and the surrounding waters quickly filled with bodies. Sharks preyed for days on the bodies of the dead and those still living.
Of the estimated 400 on board, only 47 survived.
1997 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted 395–28 to reprimand Speaker Newt Gingrich for ethics violations, making him the first Speaker of the House to be so disciplined.
Eighty-four ethics charges were filed by Democrats against Gingrich during his term as Speaker.
All were eventually dropped except for one: claiming tax-exempt status for a college course run for political purposes. In addition to the reprimand, Gingrich was ordered to reimburse the House for some of the costs of the investigation in the amount of $300,000.
1998 – Actor Jack Lord (Dr. No, Stoney Burke, Hawaii Five-0) died of congestive heart failure after a two-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 77.
2001 – Byron De La Beckwith, convicted of killing civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963 (but not convicted until 1994), died at the age of 80 in Mississippi State Prison.
2010 – A 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, vastly increased the power of big business and labor unions to influence government decisions by freeing them to spend their millions directly to sway elections for president and Congress.
Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion found that the prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. The majority wrote, “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”
A dissenting opinion by Justice John Stevens emphasized his unhappiness with the majority. He argued that the Court’s ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.”
He added: “A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”
2017 – Over 400 cities across America and 160+ countries worldwide participated in a large-scale women’s march on Donald Trump’s first full day as President of the United States.
Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2019 RayLemire.com / Streamingoldies.com. All Rights Reserved.