January 8, 2015

 
January 8 is the eight day of the year.
 
 
There are 357 days remaining until the end of the year.
 
Sunrise Today: 7:25 AM↑ 118° Southeast
 
Sunset Today: 5:08 PM↑ 242° Southwest
 
Daylight Hours: 9 hours, 42 minutes (+59s)
 
Moonrise Today: 8:48 PM↑ 81° East
 
Moonset Today: 9:18 AM↑ 281° West
 
The Moon is 89.9% illuminated, Waning Gibbous
 
High Tide  at 2:06 am at 5.1
 
and12:51 pmat5.4
 
Low tideat 7:07 am at2.7
 
and at 7:25pm at0.1
 
 
Today is National Joy Germ Day 
It's also Man Watcher’s Day
 
1989: Dozens die as plane crashes on motorway
A Boeing 737 airplane crashes onto the M1 motorway near East Midlands airport, killing 46 people.
 
 
1996: France's former president Mitterrand dies
France mourns its longest serving president Francois Mitterrand who died today.
 
2001: Bulger killers win anonymity for life
The identities and whereabouts of the two boys who murdered toddler James Bulger in 1993 will be kept secret for the rest of their lives, the High Court has ruled.
 
1991: One dead as train crashes into buffers
One person dies and hundreds are injured when a commuter train from Kent crashes into buffers at Cannon Street station in London.
 
1961: French vote for Algerian freedom
The French people vote to grant Algeria its independence in a referendum after seven years of guerilla war.
 
1979: Vietnam forces Khmer Rouge retreat
Hundreds of Khmer Rouge troops are fleeing Cambodia after being crushed by Vietnamese-led rebel forces.
 
1959: De Gaulle becomes president
General Charles de Gaulle is proclaimed first President of the new Fifth Republic in France during a brief ceremony at the Elysée Palace in Paris.
 
On Jan. 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson outlined his 14 points for peace after World War I.
 
On Jan. 8, 1867, Emily Greene Balch, a leader of the women's movement for peace during and after World War I and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, was born. 
 
1642Astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.
 
1815U.S. forces led by Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.
 
1912The African National Congress was founded in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
 
1918President Woodrow Wilson outlined his Fourteen Points for peace after World War I.
 
1959Charles De Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France's Fifth Republic.
 
1964President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty.
 
1982AT&T settled the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.
 
1987The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 2,000 for the first time, ending the day at 2,002.25.
 
1998Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was sentenced in New York to life in prison.
 
2007A Moroccan man convicted of aiding three of the four pilots who committed the 9/11 attacks was sentenced by a German court to the maximum 15 years in prison.
 
2011Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot and critically wounded when a gunman opened fire as the congresswoman met with constituents in Tucson; six people were killed and 12 others were injured. (Jared Lee Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges in connection with the shooting.)
 
 
 
307 – Jin Huidi, Chinese Emperor of the Jin dynasty, is poisoned and succeeded by his son Jin Huaidi.
 
387 – Siyaj K'ak' conquers Waka
 
871 – Alfred the Great leads a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by Danelaw Vikings.
 
1297 – François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, leads his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco.
 
1455 – The Romanus Pontifex is written.
 
1499 – Louis XII of France marries Anne of Brittany.
 
1697 – Last execution for blasphemy in Britain; of Thomas Aikenhead, student, at Edinburgh.
 
1735 – Premiere performance of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
 
1746 – Second Jacobite rising: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.
 
1790 – George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in New York, New York.
 
1806 – Cape Colony becomes a British colony.
 
1811 – An unsuccessful slave revolt is led by Charles Deslondes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana.
 
1815 – War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans – Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.
 
1835 – The United States national debt is zero for the only time.
 
1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Springfield
 
1867 – African American men are granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.
 
1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.
 
1889 – Herman Hollerith is issued US patent #395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' — his punched card calculator.
 
1904 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system.
 
1906 – A landslide in Haverstraw, New York, caused by the excavation of clay along the Hudson River, kills 20 people.
 
1912 – The African National Congress is founded.
 
1918 – President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I.
 
1920 – The steel strike of 1919 ends in a complete failure for the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers labor union.
 
1940 – World War II: Britain introduces food rationing.
 
1945 – World War II: Philippine Commonwealth troops under the Philippine Commonwealth Army units enter the province of Ilocos Sur in Northern Luzon and attack Japanese 
Imperial forces.
 
1956 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
 
1961 – In France a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria.
 
1962 – The Harmelen train disaster killed 93 people in the Netherlands.
 
1963 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
 
1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
 
1971 – Bowing to international pressure, President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto releases Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from prison, who had been arrested after 
declaring the independence of Bangladesh.
 
1973 – Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched.
 
1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
 
1975 – Ella T. Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband.
 
1977 – Three bombs explode in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.
 
1979 – The tanker Betelgeuse explodes in Bantry Bay, Ireland.
 
1981 – A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".
 
1982 – Breakup of the Bell System: AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
 
1989 – Kegworth air disaster: British Midland Flight 92, a Boeing 737-400, crashes into the M1 motorway, killing 47 of the 126 people on board.
 
1989 – Beginning of Japanese Heisei period.
 
1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.
 
1996 – An Antonov An-32 cargo aircraft crashes into a crowded market in Kinshasa, Zaire, killing up to 237 on the ground; the aircraft's crew of 6 survive the crash.
 
2002 – President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.
 
2003 – Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashes near Diyarbakır Airport, Turkey, killing the entire crew and 70 of 75 passengers.
 
2003 – Air Midwest Flight 5481 crashes at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 people on board.
 
2004 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
 
2005 – The nuclear sub USS San Francisco collides at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man is killed, but the sub surfaces and is repaired.
 
2009 – A 6.1-magnitude earthquake in northern Costa Rica kills 15 people and injures 32.
 
2011 – The attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona at a Safeway grocery store, for which Jared 
Lee Loughner is subsequently arrested, kills six people and wounds 13, including Giffords.
 
Births
 
Historic Birthdays
 
Frank Nelson Doubleday 1/8/1862 - 1/30/1934
American publisher
 
 
Carl R. Rogers 1/8/1902 - 2/4/1987
American psychologist
 
 
Peter Arno 1/8/1904 - 2/22/1968
American cartoonist
 
 
Evelyn Wood 1/8/1909 - 8/26/1995
American educator
 
 
Jose Ferrer 1/8/1912 - 1/26/1992
American actor and director
 
 
Elvis Presley 1/8/1935 - 8/16/1977
American singer
 
 
1904 – Tampa Red, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 1981)
 
1923 – Larry Storch, American actor
 
1931 – Bill Graham, German-American music promoter (d. 1991)
 
1933 – Charles Osgood, American journalist
 
1938 – Bob Eubanks, American game show host
 
1941 – Graham Chapman, English comedian and actor (d. 1989)
 
1942 – Stephen Hawking, English physicist and author
 
1947 – David Bowie, English singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (The Riot Squad, Tin Machine, The Hype, and Arnold Corns)
 
1964 – Ron Sexsmith, Canadian singer-songwriter
 
1975 – Tift Merritt, American singer-songwriter