1807 ~ Birthday of Robert E. Lee, General, Army of Northern Virginia, CSA.

1809 ~ Birthday of Edgar Allan Poe, Poet & short story Author.

1839 ~ Birthday of Paul Cézanne, Painter.

1853 ~ Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore premiered.

1937 ~ Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in just under 7 ½ hours.

1943 ~ Birthday of Janis Joplin, Blues/Rock Singer.

1966 ~ Indira Gandhi was elected prime minister of India.

1977 ~ President Gerald Ford pardoned Tokyo Rose.

1983 ~ The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, was announced..

1983 ~ Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was arrested in Bolivia.

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1907 ~ Death of Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian Chemist and inventor of the Periodic table.

1920 ~ Birthday of Federico Fellini, Italian film director.

1930 ~ Birthday of Buzz Aldrin, Astronaut.

1942 ~ Nazi officials arrived at a ''final solution'' to Europe's Jewry, during a conference at Lake Wannsee in Berlin.

1961 ~ John F. Kennedy sworn in as U.S. President.

1967 ~ The first pulsar was discovered.

1981 ~ The American hostages held by Iran were released following Ronald Reagan’s inauguration.

1984 ~ Death of Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic swimming gold medalist & Actor (Tarzan).

1986 ~ Britain and France announced plans to build the Channel Tunnel.

1993 ~ Death of Audrey Hepburn, actress.

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1793 ~ King Louis XVI of France, condemned for treason, was executed on the guillotine.

1924 ~ Death of Vladimir Lenin, first leader of the U.S.S.R.

1941 ~ Birthday of Plácido Domingo, tenor Opera Singer.

1950 ~ Death of George Orwell, Writer.

1950 ~ A federal jury in New York City found former State Department official Alger Hiss guilty of perjury.

1954 ~ The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear powered submarine, was launched.

1959 ~ Death of Cecil B. DeMille, Movie Director.

1968 ~ Start of the Battle of Khe Sanh.

1998 ~ Pope John Paul II began his first visit to Cuba.

2003 ~ The U.S. Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed blacks as America's largest minority group.

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Eudaimonia

There is a song by an Aussie Band (a long gone icon called Cold Chisel) titled Khe Sanh. A powerful lyric about returning Oz vets from VietNam. Yes, we were there too.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

1788 ~ Birthday of Lord Byron, Poet.

1840 ~ British colonists reached New Zealand.

1879 ~ Zulu troops defeated British troops at the Battle of Isandlwana.

1909 ~ Birthday of U Thant, 3rd UN Secretary General.

1953 ~ "The Crucible", a drama by Arthur Miller, opened on Broadway.

1970 ~ The Boeing 747 went on its first regularly scheduled commercial flight, from New York to London.

1973 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court, in the Roe vs. Wade decision, legalized abortions, using a trimester approach.

1973 ~ Death of Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th U.S. President.

1984 ~ The Apple Macintosh was introduced with the famous television commercial "1984" (requires QuickTime and patience [but is generally considered among the better commercials in history]).

1992 ~ Dr. Roberta Bondar becomes the first Canadian woman astronaut.

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1789 ~ Georgetown College, founded by Archbishop John Carroll, became the first Catholic, Jesuit college in the U.S.

1832 ~ Birthday of Edouard Manet, Impressionist artist.

1849 ~ Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to receive a medical degree, from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y.

1857 ~ Birthday of Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian seismologist.

1862 ~ Birthday of David Hilbert, Mathematician.

1968 ~ North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, charging it had intruded into the communist nation's territorial waters on a spying mission. The crew was held for 11 months.

1973 ~ President Nixon appeared on national television to announce "peace with honor" in Vietnam.

1989 ~ Death of Salvador Dalí, Artist.

2002 ~ Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan.

2004 ~ Death of Bob Keeshan, TV's “Captain Kangaroo”.

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1776 ~ Birthday of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Poet & Composer.

1888 ~ Birthday of Ernst Heinkel, aircraft designer.

1908 ~ The first Boy Scout troop was organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell.

1927 ~ Alfred Hitchcock released his first film, “The Pleasure Garden”.

1945 ~ Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz.

1961 ~ Marilyn Monroe divorced Arthur Miller.

1965 ~ Death of Winston Churchill, Englishman.

1984 ~ The Apple Macintosh went on sale. Only 24 years ago! [requires QuickTime – worth the wait]

1993 ~ Death of Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Supreme Court justice.

2003 ~ The U.S. Department of Homeland Security officially began operation.

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1627 ~ Birthday of Robert Boyle, Chemist.

1759 ~ Birthday of Robert Burns, Poet.

1882 ~ Birthday of Virginia Woolf, Writer.

1890 ~ Nellie Bly completed her round-the-world journey in 72 days.

1919 ~ The League of Nations was founded.

1947 ~ Death of Al Capone, Gangster.

1971 ~ General Idi Amin becomes Ugandan President Idi Amin after a coup.

1977 ~ Rene Levesque told a Wall Street audience at the Economic Club of New York that “separation is inevitable”.

1998 ~ During his visit to Cuba, Pope John Paul II called for the release of political prisoners and political reforms and also condemned American isolation of the country.

2004 ~ Opportunity landed on Mars.

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1885 ~ Troops loyal to the Mahdi conquered Khartoum.

1905 ~ The Cullinan Diamond was found near Pretoria, South Africa.

1905 ~ Birthday of Maria von Trapp, Singer.

1925 ~ Birthday of Paul Newman, Actor.

1961 ~ Birthday of Wayne Gretzky, Canadian hockey Player, Coach, Owner.

1972 ~ Death of Mahalia Jackson, Gospel Music singer.

1988 ~ The musical "Phantom of the Opera", by Andrew Lloyd Webber opened at Broadway's Majestic Theater.

1996 ~ First lady Hillary Clinton testified before a grand jury connected to the Whitewater probe.

1998 ~ U.S. President Clinton denied on television he had "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky.

2005 ~ Following her confirmation by the Senate, Condoleezza Rice was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of State.

Feastdays & Holidays

Australia~ Australia Day

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1606 ~ The trial of Guy Fawkes and other Gunpowder Plot conspirators began.

1756 ~ Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer.

1832 ~ Birthday of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” under the pen name Lewis Carroll.

1901 ~ Death of Giuseppe Verdi, Composer.

1945 ~ The Red Army liberated the concentration camp at Auschwitz in southern Poland.

1967 ~ More than 60 nations signed a treaty banning the orbiting of nuclear weapons.

1967 ~ Astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee were killed in a fire during a test of the Apollo 1 spacecraft.

1977 ~ The Vatican reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's ban on female priests.

1997 ~ It was revealed that French museums had retained nearly 2,000 pieces of art stolen by Nazis.

1998 ~ U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton called the attacks against her husband part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" on the “Today Show”.

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1521 ~ The Diet of Worms began.

1574 ~ Death of Henry VIII, King of England.

1596 ~ Death of Sir Francis Drake, Explorer & Soldier.

1788 ~ The first penal colony was established at Botany Bay, Australia.

1822 ~ Birthday of Alexander Mackenzie, Prime Minister of Canada.

1887 ~ Birthday of Artur Rubinstein, Polish Pianist.

1935 ~ Iceland became the first country to legalize abortion.

1939 ~ Death of William Butler Yeats, Writer.

1986 ~ Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just after takeoff killing all seven astronauts onboard.

2004 ~ Lord Hutton published his report into the death of Dr. David Kelly.

Feastdays & Holidays

Catholicism ~ Feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas.

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1845 ~ Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" was first published, in the New York Evening Mirror.

1856 ~ Queen Victoria instituted the Victoria Cross.

1880 ~ Birthday of W.C. Fields, Actor.

1933 ~ Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg.

1936 ~ The first members of baseball's Hall of Fame, including Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth, were named in Cooperstown, N.Y.

1956 ~ Death of H. L. Mencken, Journalist.

1962 ~ Death of Fritz Kreisler, Austrian violinist.

1963 ~ Death of Robert Frost, Poet.

1996 ~ France ended nuclear testing.

2002 ~ In his State of the Union Address, President Bush coined the term "Axis of Evil".

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1649 ~ King Charles I of England was beheaded.

1862 ~ The first Union ironclad warship, the USS Monitor was launched.

1933 ~ The first episode of the ''Lone Ranger'' radio program was broadcast on station WXYZ in Detroit.

1937 ~ Birthday of Boris Spassky, World Chess Champion.

1948 ~ Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated.

1968 ~ Viet Cong guerillas and North Vietnamese soldiers launched the Tet offensive.

1969 ~ Last public performance by The Beatles.

1972 ~ Thirteen Roman Catholic civil rights marchers were shot to death by British soldiers in Northern Ireland on what became known as "Bloody Sunday”.

1991 ~ The first major ground battle of the Gulf War was fought at the frontier port of Al Khafji in Saudi Arabia.

2003 ~ Richard Reid, the "Shoe bomber" jailed for life.

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1606 ~ Guy Fawkes was executed for his part in the Gunpowder Plot.

1797 ~ Birthday of Franz Schubert, Composer.

1865 ~ The U.S. House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.

1919 ~ Birthday of Jackie Robinson, Baseball Player & Barrier Breaker.

1929 ~ The Soviet Union exiled Leon Trotsky.

1950 ~ President Harry S. Truman announced a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.

1956 ~ Death of A. A. Milne, Author (Winnie the Pooh).

1958 ~ James Van Allen discovered the Van Allen radiation belt.

1990 ~ George Cohon opened McDonald's Corp. first Moscow restaurant in Pushkin Square.

1996 ~ An explosives-filled truck rammed into the gates of the Central Bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka killing 91 and injuring 1,400.

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1851 ~ Death of Mary Shelley, English Author (Frankenstein).

1896 ~ Puccini’s opera La Bohème premiered in Turin.

1920 ~ The Royal Canadian Mounted Police was established.

1929 ~ Frenchman Charles Rigoulet became the first weightlifter to lift over 400 pounds (181 kg) in the "clean and jerk" method.

1960 ~ Four black college students began a sit-in protest against racial segregation at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they'd been refused service.

1979 ~ Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran.

1979 ~ Patty Hearst, whose prison sentence for bank robbery had been commuted by President Jimmy Carter, left a federal prison near San Francisco.

2003 ~ Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas upon reentry killing all seven astronauts.

2004 ~ Hundreds of people were killed and injured in a stampede duringthe Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

2004 ~ Super Bowl XXXVIII: One team defeated the other team, 32-29. During the half-time show Janet Jackson's right breast was bared.

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Eudaimonia