Today in Your History — January
A look at the people, events and popular culture that shaped our lives
AARP Members Only Access, January 2022
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PHOTO BY: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo
Jan. 31: McDonald’s opens its first restaurant in Moscow (1990)
In the wee hours of the morning on January 31, 1990, Russians began lining up in droves, many in fur coats and hats, to try the hottest new restaurant in Pushkin Square: McDonald’s! George Cohon, who headed up the fast-food giant in Canada, had been working for 14 years to open the golden arches in the USSR, even hoping to serve hamburgers at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but Soviet officials thought it would be a “national embarrassment” to have American fast food at their big event. When the restaurant finally opened in 1990, the 900-seat location was the world’s largest McDonald’s at the time; more than 27,000 Russians had reportedly applied for jobs, with some 630 getting hired. TV commercials announced, “If you can’t go to America, come to McDonald’s in Moscow.” Those who stopped by on opening day were greeted by musicians playing folk music on accordions, and dancing characters, including both Mickey Mouse and Baba Yaga, a Russian fairy-tale witch. The location sold an estimated 34,000 burgers that day, which shattered the previous single-day sales record of 9,100 — even though the cost of a Bolshoi Mak (that’s a Big Mac to you), fries and a drink was the equivalent of half a day’s wages for the average worker. And while the taste of American fast food may have been novel, it was the service that shocked a lot of Russians. “It was crazy,” says Svetlana Polyakova, who was working in the kitchen that day and now heads PR for McDonald’s in Russia. “I saw faces that were really surprised by the friendliness of the cashiers. For Soviet people to hear ‘Please, come here,’ ‘Thank you’ and ‘Come again’ — it was so rare in the Soviet service culture.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Freddie Reed/Mirrorpix/Courtesy Everett Collection
Jan. 30: The Beatles play their last public performance on the Apple Corps rooftop in London (1969)
On Jan. 30, 1969, the Beatles went out with a bang playing what would end up being their final public performance together. Looking for a way to close out their new album and a documentary project, then called “Get Back,” the Fab Four considered performing a set in the Sahara Desert, at the pyramids in Giza, inside a Roman amphitheater in Tunisia or even aboard the QE2 ocean liner. But they ended up going with somewhere at once simpler and more attention-grabbing: the rooftop of the Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row in London. It was their first live performance in more than two years, and they played 42 minutes, accompanied by guest keyboardist Billy Preston. Excited Londoners on their lunch breaks gathered for a tight setlist of “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “One After 909” and “Dig a Pony,” including multiple takes of a few of the songs. When the Metropolitan Police shut down the impromptu concert, John Lennon had the last word: “I’d like to say, ‘thank you’ on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition!” That offhand quote ended up being the last sound to ever appear on their final album, Let It Be, which was released in May 1970 after they broke up. The concert was recently featured in Peter Jackson’s acclaimed Disney+ docuseries The Beatles: Get Back, and it was such a hit that Disney decided to repackage the footage as a 60-minute feature to be shown in IMAX theaters on the concert’s 53rd anniversary and then in limited release in mid-February. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Jan. 29: Deng Xiaoping and Jimmy Carter sign new accords at the White House (1979)
On Jan. 29, 1979, Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping became the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit the White House since Madame Chiang Kai-shek in 1943. “There is a Chinese saying that seeing once is worth more than a hundred descriptions,” President Carter said during the welcoming ceremony. “For too long, the Chinese and the American peoples have not been able to see each other for themselves. We are glad that time is past.” As part of the historic state visit, Deng and Carter signed game-changing accords, designed to normalize relations between the two world powers and to build on America’s recent official full diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China on Jan. 1. The state dinner also marked the first time Richard Nixon returned to the White House after his resignation nearly five years earlier; Carter had originally refused to invite Nixon, but Deng said that he would visit the former president at his home in California if he couldn’t attend. After dining on stuffed veal loin and seafood timbale, chestnut mousse and chocolate truffles, the leaders continued on to the Kennedy Center for a performance by some of America’s greatest artists of the time: John Denver, the Harlem Globetrotters, the Joffrey Ballet and Shirley MacLaine. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Courtesy Everett Collection
Jan. 28: The supergroup USA for Africa records “We Are the World” (1985)
After a bevy of British pop stars released “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in December 1984 to aid Ethiopian famine relief, Harry Belafonte had a brilliant idea: America’s biggest musicians should get in on the world-saving action. He tapped Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson to pen the tune, alongside producer Quincy Jones, and then they began to amass their Avengers-like supergroup, which came to be known as USA for Africa. On the night of Jan. 28, dozens of stars began arriving at A&M Studios in Los Angeles, where Jones had placed a sign that read “Check your egos at the door.” The nearly 50 artists who showed up included Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers and Bob Dylan. Stevie Wonder joked that if they didn’t get the recording done in a single take, he and Ray Charles would drive everyone home. It took a bit longer, and after a marathon 12-hour recording session, they released the single in March. It went on to raise more than $75 million for famine relief and win four Grammys, including song of the year and record of the year. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: George Rose/Getty Images
Jan. 27: Whitney Houston sings “The Star-Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl” (1991)
Just 10 days after the United States entered the Persian Gulf War in January 1991, Whitney Houston channeled our collective patriotism into one of the all-time great performances of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” when she sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XXV in Tampa. Together with her bandleader and arranger Rickey Minor and composer John Clayton Jr., Houston somehow made this 177-year-old song all her own, changing the time signature to four beats per measure, slowing down on certain notes for dramatic effect and adding vocal flourishes on the high notes that sounded timeless rather than ostentatious. While it was later revealed that the song had been prerecorded, it didn’t diminish the performance’s impact; she released the anthem as a charity single, which hit the Top 40, and she said at the time, “They say the national anthem is the hardest song to sing, but it gets a whole lot easier to use those notes when you think about the many men and women risking their lives in the Middle East.” Later, after the September 11 attacks, she rereleased the song, and it peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Ed Bailey/ AP Photo
Jan. 26: The Phantom of the Opera opens and goes on to become the longest-running show in Broadway history (1988)
Riding in on a wave of great press from its hit run in London’s West End, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera stormed onto Broadway in January 1988 with as much force as a falling one-ton chandelier. “It may be possible to have a terrible time at The Phantom of the Opera, but you’ll have to work at it,” wrote Frank Rich in his New York Times review. “Only a terminal prig would let the avalanche of pre-opening publicity poison his enjoyment of this show, which usually wants nothing more than to shower the audience with fantasy and fun, and which often succeeds, at any price.” The show went on to pick up seven Tonys, including best musical and best actor in a musical for the Phantom himself, Michael Crawford, but its juggernaut status was still in its early days. In 2006, the still-running musical officially became the longest-running show in Broadway history, and it has grossed more than $1.25 billion from its New York production alone. Taking into account productions elsewhere around the globe, Phantom has been seen by more than 145 million people in 41 countries and 17 languages. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Courtesy Everett Collection
Jan. 25: One Hundred and One Dalmatians premieres (1961)
Sleeping Beauty may now seem like one of the high points in the Disney canon, but when it was released in 1959, audiences didn’t quite know what to make of its highly stylized (and expensive-to-produce) animation technique. Desperate for a big box office win, the studio found success with the January 1961 release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, based on the 1956 children’s book by Dodie Smith. The film was one of the first to use the money-saving animation technique known as xerography, by which images could be photocopied onto acetate instead of hand-inked by the ink and paint department — perfect when you’re trying to replicate all those puppies and all those spots. The gamble paid off, and One Hundred and One Dalmatians was both a critical success and the highest-grossing film of 1961. Time magazine’s pun-filled review called it “one of the nicest things that have happened so far this year to dog’s best friend: a full-length (80 minutes) animutted curtoon that should please just about everybody but cats and will probably make the youngsters yap-happy. It is the wittiest, most charming, least pretentious cartoon feature Walt Disney has ever made.” But perhaps its biggest contribution to society was that it introduced Americans to the terrifyingly realistic Cruella De Vil, who ranks 39th on American Film Institute’s list of the greatest villains in history. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
Jan. 24: Hunters in Guam find a Japanese soldier hiding in the jungle 28 years after World War II (1972)
On Jan. 24, 1972, two hunters in Guam stumbled upon a shocking discovery: not some buried treasure or long-lost species but a 56-year-old Japanese soldier named Shoichi Yokoi who had been hiding out in the jungle since World War II — almost 28 years! When American forces arrived on the island in 1944, a few Japanese combatants fled into the forest rather than surrender, digging out underground shelters hidden within a bamboo thicket. Over the years, his fellow escapees died, presumably of starvation or in a flood, and he survived on breadfruit, mangos, papayas and nuts, plus small creatures including venomous toads, rats, snails and river eels, which he caught with a trap he wove from wild reeds. When he was found, Yokoi was wearing pants and a jacket he had woven out of bark fibers, and for years he had kept his hair trimmed with army scissors, before they rusted. At a local hospital, officials told Yokoi that he had officially been declared dead in October 1944 and had been posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant. His one wish? To meet the emperor. As he told reporters, “It was my belief in the emperor that kept me … from surrendering and humiliating myself as a prisoner of war.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Jan. 23: Roots premieres on ABC (1977)
When Alex Haley’s centuries-spanning Roots: The Saga of an American Family hit bookstore shelves in 1976, it became something of a phenomenon: It topped the New York Times best sellers list for 22 weeks and sold 15 million copies in less than a year. By January 1977, it would reach an even wider audience with its epic miniseries adaptation, which premiered on Jan. 23 and was broadcast over eight consecutive nights. Part one follows the tragedy of a West African man named Kunta Kinte (played memorably by LeVar Burton), who is captured by slave traders and shipped off to America. Other cast members in that first episode included Cicely Tyson, Ed Asner and, yes, O.J. Simpson. Maya Angelou, who played Kunta Kinte’s grandmother, wrote in an essay for The New York Times upon the release of the miniseries: “In the face of today’s racial and class strife, I don’t believe that any modern black writer would work 12 years only to answer the perennial questions ‘Why am I here?’ and ‘How did I come so lonely to this place?’ I believe, rather, that Haley has given us the subsequent question: ‘Admitting all that has gone before, admitting our duplicity, our complicity and our greed, what do we, all Americans, do next?’” It was clearly a question that American audiences were willing to contend with, as the miniseries attracted an estimated 130 million viewers, winning nine Primetime Emmys (out of 37 nominations), a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Courtesy of The Advertising Archives
Jan. 22: Apple’s famous “1984” commercial airs during the Super Bowl (1984)
The Super Bowl commercial reached its peak as an art form on Jan. 22, 1984, during the third quarter of Super Bowl 18. Inspired by George Orwell’s dystopian novel, the minute-long mini-masterpiece was directed by Ridley Scott, who was riding high off his recent successes, Alien and Blade Runner. In the short, uniformed drones file into an auditorium as the giant face of Big Brother (played by David Graham) indoctrinates them with propaganda about Information Purification Directives and Unification of Thoughts. Amid the gray-toned drudgery, a heroine played by English athlete Anya Major comes bounding through the crowd, wearing a white tank top and red running shorts, pursued by helmeted police. She hurls a sledgehammer up at the screen, destroying it in a blast of light, as a voice announces: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” The Age of the Personal Computer was upon us. The full 60-second ad spot aired only once, but its impact can still be felt today: It’s been named the best commercial of all time by TV Guide and Advertising Age, and in 2017, Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik called it “the only great Super Bowl commercial ever.” He continues: “There can only be one ‘1984’ ad, just as there can be only one Hoover Dam or one Eiffel Tower. Everything else is a copy.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Jan. 21: The Women’s March hits the streets of D.C. — and everywhere else (2017)
Spurred on by the inauguration of President Donald Trump the day before, the Women’s March is believed to be the largest single-day protest in American history. According to an unofficial count by The Washington Post, there were between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 participants across the country, with their best guess being 4,157,894. If a number that large makes your eyes glaze over, it represents about 1 percent of the total U.S. population — or more than double the combined armed forces of the United States! Marches popped up all around the world, including in Antarctica, but the main event took place in Washington, D.C., where an estimated 470,000 people assembled on or near the National Mall. For those keeping score, that’s about three times the size of the crowds at Trump’s inauguration. Among those in attendance at the nation’s capital were Cher, Madonna, Scarlett Johansson, Katy Perry and America Ferrera. One of the lasting images of the protests are the pink knit “pussy hats,” which were inspired by vulgar comments by Trump and transformed into something empowering. They’ve become such a symbol of the ingenuity and scrappiness of the march that they’ve since been included in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and D.C.’s National Museum of American History. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Cynthia Johnson/Getty Images
Jan. 20: The first Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated (1986)
On the third Monday of January, in 1986, decades of hard work finally paid off with the first national celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. While legislation to declare a new holiday had been introduced in Congress as early as 1968 shortly after King’s death, it was blocked along the way by politicians like North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, who introduced a filibuster and presented a 400-page report accusing MLK of being a communist. But supporters kept working hard: Stevie Wonder released the song “Happy Birthday” to promote the holiday, the King Center organized a march on Washington with an estimated half-million people, and King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, got 6 million people to sign a petition of support. Eventually, the House passed the bill declaring a national holiday in 1983 by 53 votes; the Senate followed suit, passing it by 12 votes, with Ronald Reagan signing the bill into law in November 1983. “This is not a Black holiday,” Coretta Scott King said at the time of the signing. “It is a people’s holiday.” Amazingly, MLK Day wasn’t officially celebrated as a paid holiday by all 50 states until the year 2000, when South Carolina finally passed legislation. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Paul Sancya/ AP Photo
Jan. 19: Howard Dean delivers the scream heard ’round the world (2004)
During the 2004 election cycle, the antiwar former Vermont governor Howard Dean had been steadily climbing in the polls until his political dreams came crashing down on the night of Jan. 19, when he placed third in the Iowa caucuses. He tried to cheer up his supporters at a raucous rally by rattling off the names of states he planned to win in the coming months, capping it off with a rousing “Yeah!” But the audiovisual gods had other plans for him: Because the unidirectional microphones silenced the background crowd noise and amplified Dean’s vocals, his “Yeah!” came across to those who weren’t in the room as more of an unhinged holler into the abyss rather than a rallying cry. It soon emerged as arguably the first political meme: The scream was played and replayed a reported 633 times on network and cable news within the next four days, it was remixed into rap and dance songs, and the “I have a scream” speech became a favorite among late-night hosts, with David Letterman saying that the people of Iowa “didn’t want a president with the personality of a hockey dad.” While the sonic snafu has been credited with prematurely ending Dean’s campaign, the candidate himself doesn’t buy that reading. “The honest truth is that I just wasn’t ready for prime time,” he later told Esquire. “I came from a state of 600,000 people, I had an intensely passionate following, I wasn’t anticipating how rough it would be, and we didn’t really have much discipline on the campaign. I was an undisciplined candidate.” But it wasn’t all bad news for him: Dean became the chair of the Democratic National Committee the next year. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
Jan. 18: The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe’s Olympic medals (1983)
A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Jim Thorpe was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal, when he picked up top honors for both the decathlon and the pentathlon at the 1912 Games in Stockholm. He played professional baseball and football and also excelled at basketball, hockey, swimming, boxing and lacrosse, and in 1950, the Associated Press named him the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century. But his record had one blemish: In 1913, the International Olympic Committee had stripped Thorpe of his gold medals, when it decided that his earlier semiprofessional baseball career had violated amateur rules and thus disqualified him from the Olympics. (He had been paid $2 per game.) It wasn’t until 30 years after his death that the IOC finally restored his medals on Jan. 18, 1983. In a special ceremony attended by many of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the IOC returned the medals to his family. “After 70 years,” said his daughter Charlotte Thorpe, “the marathon has finally ended.” In 2018, he was once again honored when his likeness was included on the back of the Sacagawea $1 coin — complete with his Native name, Wa-Tho-Huk, or “Bright Path.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Karin Cooper/Getty Images
Jan. 17: Matt Drudge breaks the story of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair (1998)
The fallout from President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky would go on to become one of the biggest scandals of the ’90s, but you might have forgotten who originally broke the news story. It wasn’t The Washington Post or The New York Times but instead a fledgling news aggregation site called the Drudge Report, run by the fedora-wearing, Walter Winchell–obsessed gossipmonger Matt Drudge. “At the last minute, at 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, Newsweek magazine killed a story that was destined to shake official Washington to its foundation: A White House intern carried on a sexual affair with the President of the United States!” wrote Drudge, whose previous job before founding his newsletter-turned-website was managing the CBS Studios gift shop. If you want to learn more about how Drudge scooped the story of the century from Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, check out the recent Ryan Murphy–directed series Impeachment: American Crime Story, which features comedian and actor Billy Eichner as Drudge. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Everett Collection
Jan. 16: The last episode of Bonanza airs (1973)
In November 1972, NBC abruptly canceled Bonanza, which at that point had been on the air for more than 13 years. On Jan. 16, the finale aired, and with more than 400 episodes under its belt, Bonanza ended as the second-longest-running TV Western in history, after Gunsmoke. But if fans expected the series finale to provide some closure for the Cartwright clan, they were in for a rude awakening. Without time to write a proper sendoff, the show’s producers aired an episode called “The Hunter,” which was directed and co-written by Little Joe himself, series star Michael Landon. It’s a weird, scary plot — more akin to a psychological thriller than a Western — in which Joe crosses paths with a psychopath named Corporal Bill Tanner (played by Tom Skerritt), who escapes from prison and then stalks and murders his “prey.” He gives Joe four hours to hide before the hunt begins. Whew! It’s surely pulse-quickening, but it hardly qualifies as a series finale for one of the biggest hits ever on television. As Lorne Greene, who played Ben Cartwright, remarked at the time, “If we had known this was coming, we would have gone out with a bang and not a whimper.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Steven Day/AP Photo
Jan. 15: Captain Chesley Sullenberger safely lands a plane on the Hudson River (2009)
On Thursday, Jan. 15, 57-year-old pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III, better known as “Sully,” became an instant American icon with one of the most heroic moments in aviation history: the Miracle on the Hudson. At approximately 3:25 p.m., US Airways flight 1549 took off from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, and about two minutes into the trip, the Airbus A320 flew into a flock of geese, severely damaging both engines. Unable to make it back to LGA or to an airport in New Jersey, Sully showed quick thinking and made an emergency landing on the Hudson River, gliding to the surface and staying afloat until the passengers and crew were rescued. Later that year he was included on the Time 100 list, with aviation pioneer Gen. Chuck Yeager writing, “I don’t know Captain ‘Sully,’ and I have only spoken to him briefly, but I am sure that he feels as I do about what he was able to do in a plane: Duty! It was his job. And it sure is nice to be able to stand up in front of people and tell them what happened.” In 2016 Sullenberger received one of the highest honors available to American heroes: Tom Hanks played him in the Clint Eastwood–directed film Sully. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Walter Iooss Jr./Sports Illustrated via Getty Images/Getty Images
Jan. 14: The Miami Dolphins win the Super Bowl, completing the only perfect season in NFL history (1973)
When the Miami Dolphins defeated the Washington Redskins 14-7 at Super Bowl VII, in front of a record crowd of 85,462 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum, they achieved something that no team had in the entire 53-year history of the NFL: a perfect, undefeated season. (No team has managed to pull off the feat since either.) The Don Shula–led squad went on to win its second Super Bowl the following year. In 2019, as part of the NFL 100 Greatest series, a panel of 80 experts named the 1972 Dolphins the greatest team in league history. “Perfection is perfection,” said fullback Larry Csonka. “Close? Get a cigar. There’s only one team that drinks the champagne.” On Dec. 22, 2019, Shula — the winningest head coach in league history — and other surviving team members were toasted with Dom Pérignon and honored with golden footballs during the Dolphins’ last home game of the season. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CBW/Alamy
Jan. 13: Johnny Cash records an album at Folsom State Prison (1968)
Back in 1955, the Man in Black recorded one of his most famous tunes, “Folsom Prison Blues,” after seeing a film called Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison. As the song’s popularity grew, inmates began writing letters to Cash, requesting that he play a show for them. By the 1960s, with his career in decline and his problem with drugs worsening, Cash decided to take a big risk and book a concert at California’s Folsom Prison. Dressed in black, Cash played two performances, at 9:40 a.m. and 12:40 p.m., backed by musicians that included Carl Perkins, the Tennessee Three and June Carter, whom he would go on to marry in March. Four months later he released the career-revitalizing live album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, which went on to be certified double platinum and win a 1969 Grammy for best album notes. “Prisoners are the greatest audience that an entertainer can perform for,” Cash wrote in those liner notes. “We bring them a ray of sunshine in their dungeon and they’re not ashamed to respond, and show their appreciation.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CBS/Courtesy Everett Collection
Jan. 12: All in the Family airs its first episode, with a content warning (1971)
On this date in 1971, CBS aired the first episode of Norman Lear’s satirical sitcom All in the Family, which was based on the British show Till Death Us Do Part. And it came with a disclaimer from the network: “The program you are about to see is All in the Family. It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices and concerns. By making them a source of laughter, we hope to show — in a mature fashion — just how absurd they are.” The story of Archie and Edith Bunker eventually went on to win 22 Emmys and is often cited as one of the greatest TV shows of all time, but its success wasn’t immediately apparent. “All in the Family is either going to be instant smash or instant disaster,” wrote Sue Cameron in her review for The Hollywood Reporter. “Unfortunately for Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear … the latter is more likely to occur. The majority of television viewers will find this show tasteless, crude, and very unfunny.” She concluded: “CBS has said it put this show on the air hoping that audiences will laugh at all sides, realizing that all the hate in today’s world is absurd. It doesn’t work. It just adds to the problem.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Jeff Roberson/AP Photo
Jan. 11: Mark McGwire admits to using steroids when he broke the home run record (2010)
During the 1998 MLB season, St. Louis Cardinals player Mark McGwire broke a major league record when he hit 70 home runs in a single season, handily surpassing Roger Maris’ 61. For years baseball fans speculated that he had used steroids (his teammate Jose Canseco said as much in his 2005 book Juiced), but no one had undeniable proof until January 2010, when McGwire finally came clean in a statement to the Associated Press upon being hired as the Cardinals hitting coach: “I never knew when, but I always knew this day would come. ... I used steroids during my playing career, and I apologize.” He continued: “I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish, and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.” In a televised interview with Bob Costas on the MLB Network, McGwire fought back tears as he said that he had called Maris’ widow, Pat, to apologize. “She was disappointed,” he said, “and she has every right to be.” He also told Costas that he “absolutely” could have still broken the record without using steroids, explaining that it was the “most regrettable thing” he’d ever done in his life. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Anthony Neste/Getty Images
Jan. 10: The Sopranos premieres (1999)
HBO ushered in a new era of “prestige television” with the January 1999 premiere of David Chase’s New Jersey–set Mafia drama The Sopranos, which starred James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, Edie Falco as his wife, Carmela, and Lorraine Bracco as his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi. Viewers may have gone into the show with preconceived notions of what a mobster show would look like, but as the New York Times headline announced, we were in for something completely different: “No Horse Heads, but Plenty of Prozac.” Critic Caryn James wrote, “What The Sopranos adds is a clever 90’s twist. Tony has been having panic attacks, not due to qualms of conscience, but because business isn’t what it used to be.” While the show would go on to pick up 21 Emmy wins out of 112 nominations, it was far from a sure thing when it was in production. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: David Paul Morris/Getty Images
Jan. 9: Apple unveils the iPhone (2007)
IPhones and their many imitators have become so ubiquitous during the past decade that it might be hard to imagine that we hadn’t heard of them at all before Jan. 9, 2007. It was on that date that Apple chairman Steve Jobs unveiled his company’s groundbreaking invention at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. “IPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone,” Jobs said. “We are all born with the ultimate pointing device — our fingers — and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse.” During the presentation, Jobs demonstrated the phone’s web-browsing capabilities, used Google Maps to find a nearby Starbucks (and prank order “4,000 lattes to go”) and played a voicemail from former Vice President Al Gore. Following the announcement, Apple’s stock prices rose by more than 7 percent, surpassing $92. Later that year, in November, after 1.4 million iPhones had been sold, Time magazine named it the best invention of the year: “The thing is hard to type on. It’s too slow. It’s too big. It doesn’t have instant messaging. It’s too expensive. (Or, no, wait, it’s too cheap!) It doesn’t support my work email. It’s locked to AT&T. Steve Jobs secretly hates puppies. And — all together now — we’re sick of hearing about it! ... But when that day is over, Apple’s iPhone is still the best thing invented this year.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
Jan. 8: President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a war on poverty (1964)
In his first State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared an “unconditional war on poverty,” a problem that then plagued 1 in 5 Americans. “Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom,” he said. “The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.” His goal, therefore, would be “not only to relieve the symptoms of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.” Enacted over the next few years, the War on Poverty included the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the expansion of Social Security benefits, the establishment of Job Corps, the permanent enactment of the food stamps program and much, much more. And while there has been debate over the decades about the initiative’s effectiveness, a 2013 study by Columbia University showed that, when you take into account social safety nets, the number of Americans living in poverty had dropped from 26 percent in 1967 to 16 percent in 2012. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection
Jan. 7: The Spice Girls release their debut single “Wannabe” in the U.S. (1997)
After storming up the British charts for the better part of 1996, the Spice Girls released their hit debut song “Wannabe” in the United States on Jan. 7, 1997, and they quickly proved capable of ushering in yet another British Invasion. The monster single about female friendship and empowerment peaked as the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in February, and it stayed on top for four weeks. Twenty years later, in a list of 1997’s 100 greatest songs, critic Andrew Unterberger placed “Wannabe” at No. 1, writing, “Before the Spice Girls, top 40 was in a period of relative aimlessness, but after it, pop had found purpose again: Groups were back, personality was back, and stars were back.” In a 2014 study by the University of Amsterdam and Manchester’s Museum of Science & Industry, “Wannabe” was named the catchiest song of the past 60 years, with participants taking an average of only 2.3 seconds to recognize the track. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Everett Collection
Jan. 6: ‘Schoolhouse Rock!’ premieres on ABC (1973)
With its cute animation style and catchy tunes (many by jazz composer Bob Dorough), Schoolhouse Rock! taught a generation of Americans about conjunctions, multiplication tables, suffrage, famous inventors and more — and chances are you can still hum along to many of the tunes even decades later. The show premiered on the morning of Saturday, Jan. 6, 1973, with a series of animated musical shorts airing between regularly scheduled cartoons. The first four segments were ”Three Is a Magic Number,” “My Hero Zero,” “Elementary, My Dear,” and “The Four-Legged Zoo,” and the original series went on to air through 1985. Creators Thomas George Yohe and George Newall had conceived of the series while they were executives at a New York advertising agency, and a colleague asked Newall to set the multiplication tables to music to help his son remember them for school. The resulting song was such a hit that Michael Eisner, who was the head of ABC children’s programming at the time, bought the cartoon, which eventually went on to win four Daytime Emmys. President Barack Obama, who invoked Schoolhouse Rock! in a 2013 CNN interview about getting a bill passed, produced an updated take on the show called We the People for Netflix, featuring songs by the likes of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brandi Carlile, Adam Lambert and Janelle Monáe. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Joe Marquette/AP Photo
Jan. 5: Sonny Bono is killed in a skiing accident (1998)
The entertainer and one half of Sonny and Cher did a 180 later in life, turning to politics, first as the mayor of Palm Springs and later as a Republican member of Congress from California. Sadly, at the age of 62, his life was cut short during a family ski vacation to Heavenly Ski Resort in South Lake Tahoe, when he crashed into a tree and died of massive head injuries — less than a week after Robert F. Kennedy’s son Michael was killed when he hit a tree in Aspen. Later that week, Bono’s funeral was attended by the likes of former President Gerald Ford, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Tony Orlando, dozens of members of Congress and Cher, who delivered a moving eulogy as she fought back tears: “He was smart enough to take an introverted 16-year-old girl and a guy with a bad voice and turn them into the most successful, beloved couple of our generation.” He was buried in Cathedral City, California, where his headstone appropriately reads “And the beat goes on,” and he was later immortalized with a memorial fountain and statue in Palm Springs. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Sophie James/Alamy
Jan. 4: Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, opens in Dubai (2010)
On this date in 2010, the architecture world soared to new heights with the opening of the $1.5 billion Burj Khalifa in Dubai: With more than 160 floors and a height of 2,717 feet, it was the tallest building in the world, marking a moment of triumph for the United Arab Emirates and its quest to become a global powerhouse in record time. To put that height into perspective, it’s almost two times taller than the Empire State Building, including the spire and antenna. Chicago-based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill — who are also responsible for New York City’s One World Trade Center and Chicago’s Willis Tower — drew inspiration from minarets, desert flowers and Frank Lloyd Wright’s never-built Illinois Sky-City. “Not since 1311, when the spire of Lincoln Cathedral first topped the Great Pyramid of Giza, has the tallest structure in the world been located in the Arab world,” wrote Geraldine Bedell in The Observer. “Some Arabs, not unreasonably, interpret criticism of the building as resentment at Dubai’s presumption in setting itself up as a world city.” As you might expect, the opening ceremonies were a dazzling display, featuring parachute jumps, dancing fountains and 10,000 choreographed fireworks. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: STF/AFP via Getty Images
Jan. 3: Manuel Noriega surrenders after 10 days of psychological warfare that included blasting rock music (1990)
In December 1989, U.S. troops invaded Panama with the goal of overthrowing its new military dictator, Manuel Noriega, who was wanted on drug-trafficking charges. Noriega quickly sought refuge in the Vatican nunciature (or embassy) in Panama City, and not wanting to break diplomatic protocol, American troops decided not to enter the building. How then to smoke him out? They turned to an unexpected weapon in their arsenal: really loud rock music. The American military encircled the embassy with Humvees equipped with speakers, and the military radio station in Central America blasted rock songs at deafening volumes. They chose tunes that were loaded with maximum irony: “Give It Up” by K.C. and the Sunshine Band, “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi, “The End” by The Doors, “I Fought the Law” by The Bobby Fuller Four, “All I Want is You” by U2 and, of course, “Panama” by Van Halen, to name just a few. President George H.W. Bush’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, later said that he found the move “undignified,” but it worked. And on Jan. 3, Noriega surrendered, at which point he was flown to Miami and convicted on drug-trafficking charges. As was widely reported at the time, he was more of an opera lover. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Chicago Sun-Times Collection/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
Jan. 2: Nixon implements a national speed limit of 55 mph (1974)
As a result of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, OPEC imposed an oil embargo on the United States, leading to skyrocketing oil prices, gas shortages and drivers lining up (sometimes for miles!) to refill their tanks. On Jan. 2, 1974, President Richard Nixon signed a bill that would limit highway speeds to 55 mph, and states were given 60 days to comply if they wanted to continue receiving federal highway trust funds. Nixon argued at the time that America could save about 200,000 barrels of fuel a day by slowing down a bit, but the plan quickly faced detractors in places like Wyoming, where the speed limit had been a zippy 75 mph. The 55 mph limit soon came to be derided as “the double nickel,” and by the early ’80s, The New York Times was reporting that, according to legislators in Western states, it was one of America’s most unpopular laws since Prohibition. But it had its benefits: Fatalities from highway accidents dropped by about 9,000 in 1974. The law remained in place until November 1995, when President Bill Clinton signed the $6 billion National Highway System bill. While he said he was “deeply disturbed” by the repeal of a law that had saved lives, he decided not to veto the bill and deprive states of much-needed highway improvement funds. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Jan. 1: The last televised cigarette ad airs during the Johnny Carson show (1971)
President Richard Nixon signaled the end of an era when, on April 1, 1970, he signed legislation banning cigarette commercials on TV and the radio. The ban would go into effect on Jan. 2, 1971, to allow for one last (lucrative) hurrah on New Year’s Day during college bowl games. On Jan. 1, shortly before midnight, Virginia Slims aired one final commercial during The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and it’s a doozy. The ad begins with a chorus of old-fashioned women singing about how they don’t want to vote or smoke — while secretly passing around a cigarette and sneaking a few puffs. It then cuts to a modern woman proudly and confidently smoking, as the jingle kicks in: “You’ve come a long way, baby, to get where you got to today.” And then, the sales pitch: “This is the taste for today’s woman, with rich Virginia flavor you’ll like, tailored slim for your hands, for your lips.” Before the ban went into effect, tobacco companies had been spending $150 million annually on television commercials (about $1 billion today). To make up for lost revenue, the networks began selling cheaper, 30-second advertising slots, thus revolutionizing the industry with an influx of the shorter, snappier commercials. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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