Today is Thursday, Jan. 29, the 29th day of 2015. There are 336 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On Jan. 29, 1845, Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” was first published in the New York Evening Mirror.
On this date:
In 1820, Britain’s King George III died at Windsor Castle.
In 1843, the 25th president of the United States, William McKinley, was born in Niles, Ohio.
In 1861, Kansas became the 34th state of the Union.
In 1919, the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which launched Prohibition, was certified by Acting Secretary of State Frank L. Polk.
In 1936, the first inductees of baseball’s Hall of Fame, including Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth, were named in Cooperstown, New York.
In 1956, editor-essayist H.L. Mencken, the “Sage of Baltimore,” died at age 75.
In 1958, actors Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were married in Las Vegas.
In 1964, Stanley Kubrick’s nuclear war satire “Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” premiered in New York, Toronto and London. The Winter Olympic Games opened in Innsbruck, Austria. Actor Alan Ladd, 50, died in Palm Springs, California.
In 1975, a bomb exploded inside the U.S. State Department in Washington, causing considerable damage, but injuring no one; the radical group Weather Underground claimed responsibility.
In 1990, former Exxon Valdez skipper Joseph Hazelwood went on trial in Anchorage, Alaska, on charges stemming from the 1989 oil spill. (Hazelwood was acquitted of the major charges, and convicted of a misdemeanor.)
In 1995, the San Francisco 49ers became the first team in NFL history to win five Super Bowl titles, beating the San Diego Chargers, 49-26, in Super Bowl XXIX.
In 1998, a bomb rocked an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, killing security guard Robert Sanderson and critically injuring nurse Emily Lyons. (The bomber, Eric Rudolph, was captured in May 2003 and is serving a life sentence.)
Ten years ago: Jetliners from China landed in rival Taiwan for the first time in 56 years. Serena Williams defeated Lindsay Davenport 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 in the Australian Open final. Ashley McElhiney, the first female coach of a men’s pro basketball team, was fired after an on-court dispute with Sally Anthony, co-owner of the Nashville Rhythm of the ABA. Irina Slutskaya won a sixth title at the European Figure Skating Championships.
Five years ago: In a remarkably sharp face-to-face confrontation, President Barack Obama chastised Republican lawmakers during a GOP event in Baltimore for opposing him on taxes, health care and the economic stimulus, while they accused him in turn of brushing off their ideas and driving up the national debt. A jury in Wichita, Kansas, swiftly convicted abortion opponent Scott Roeder of murder in the shooting death of Dr. George Tiller, one of the only doctors to offer late-term abortions in the U.S. Haitian authorities detained 10 U.S. Baptist missionaries who were transporting 33 children to a Dominican Republic orphanage, though as it turned out, most of the children had living parents; all of the Americans were later released.
One year ago: The state of Missouri executed Herbert Smulls for the 1991 slaying of jeweler Stephen Honickman in suburban St. Louis.
Today’s birthdays: Writer-composer-lyricist Leslie Bricusse is 84. Feminist author Germaine Greer is 76. Actress Katharine Ross is 75. Feminist author Robin Morgan is 74. Actor Tom Selleck is 70. Rhythm-and-blues singer Bettye LaVette is 69. Actor Marc Singer is 67. Actress Ann Jillian is 65. Rock musician Louie Perez (Los Lobos) is 62. Rhythm-and-blues/funk singer Charlie Wilson is 62. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey is 61. Actor Terry Kinney (TV: “Black Box”; “Oz”) is 61. Country singer Irlene Mandrell is 59. Actress Diane Delano is 58. Actress Judy Norton Taylor (TV: “The Waltons”) is 57. Rock musician Johnny Spampinato is 56. Olympic gold-medal diver Greg Louganis is 55. Rock musician David Baynton-Power (James) is 54. Rock musician Eddie Jackson (Queensryche) is 54. Actor Nicholas Turturro is 53. Rock singer-musician Roddy Frame (Aztec Camera) is 51. Actor-director Edward Burns is 47. Actress Heather Graham is 45. U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is 45. Actor Sharif Atkins is 40. Actress Sara Gilbert is 40. Actor Justin Hartley is 38. Actor Sam Jaeger is 38. Actor Andrew Keegan is 36. Actor Jason James Richter is 35. Blues musician Jonny Lang is 34. Pop-rock singer Adam Lambert (TV: “American Idol”) is 33.
Thought for today: “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” — Robert Frost, American poet (born 1874, died this date in 1963).
Associated Press
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