January's Today in Your History
A look at the people, events and popular culture that shaped our lives
AARP Members Only Access, January 2023
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PHOTO BY: Michael Caulfield/WireImage/Getty Images
Jan. 31: Taylor Swift becomes the youngest artist to win the Grammy for album of the year (2010)
At the 52nd Grammy Awards on Jan. 31, 2010, Taylor Swift took home four trophies, including the coveted album of the year for Fearless. At the tender age of 20 years, 49 days, Swift officially became the youngest performer to win in the category, surpassing the previous title holder, Alanis Morissette, who was 21 years, 272 days when she won for 1995’s Jagged Little Pill. “I just hope that you know how much this means to me … that we get to take this back to Nashville!” said Swift in her acceptance speech. “Our families are freaking out in their living rooms! ... This is the story all of us when we’re 80 years old and we are telling the same stories over and over again to our grandkids and they’re so annoyed with us, this is the story we’re going to be telling over and over again.” Swift held on to her record for a decade, until 2020, when musical wunderkind Billie Eilish earned her own album of the year win at just 18 years, 39 days of age. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images
Jan. 30: The Lone Ranger was introduced on a Detroit radio station (1933)
Ninety years ago today, on Jan. 30, 1933, the Lone Ranger made his first appearance on Detroit’s WXYZ radio station. John Reid was a Texas Ranger who survived an ambush by outlaws before becoming something of an Old West superhero, donning a black mask and fighting evil alongside his trusty steed Silver and his Native American sidekick, Tonto. He was anything but historically accurate: Radio station owner George Trendle and writer Fran Striker simply created the character as the American answer to Zorro. Swedish American actor George Seaton was the original voice of the Lone Ranger, and he claimed to have created the catchphrase “Hi-yo, Silver!” because he couldn’t whistle, but he left the role behind after 2½ months to become a writer in New York City. The radio show was a runaway hit, and by 1939, the Lone Ranger was saving the day three times a week for an audience of more than 20 million American listeners; beyond that, he began appearing in movies, television shows and comic strips, plus a never-ending series of tie-ins, including toy guns, lunchboxes and Halloween costumes. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Art Images via Getty Images
Jan. 29: The Rubik’s Cube makes its global debut (1980)
The world got a little more colorful on Jan. 29, 1980, when the Rubik’s Cube made its international debut at the British Toy & Hobby Fair in London. Comprising 26 colored boxes, the puzzle toy had come together in its earliest form in 1974, when it was dreamed up by the Hungarian architecture professor Erno Rubik, then 29. He was hoping to invent an object that would twist and move without falling apart, and he crafted the original design out of wood. Rubik later added colors to better visualize the way the object was moving, and as he began manipulating the box, he quickly realized that he might not be able to get back to where he had started: After all, mathematicians later calculated that the cube could be rearranged in 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 iterations! Shortly after its debut, the Rubik’s Cube became one of the hottest fads of the 1980s, with 100 million units sold in the first three years. In the decades since, “speedcubing” has developed as a competitive sport, and Yusheng Du of China holds the current record for solving a 3-by-3 cube at a blazingly fast 3.47 seconds. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Jan. 28: Elvis Presley makes his national television debut (1956)
“We’d like at this time to introduce to you a young fellow who, like many performers … came out of nowhere to be an overnight big star,” announced Cleveland disc jockey Bill Randle on the Jan. 28, 1956, episode of Stage Show. “This young fellow we saw for the first time while making a movie short. We think tonight that he’s going to make television history for you. We’d like you to meet him now — Elvis Presley!” With that, American audiences caught their first glimpse of the hip-swiveling rock phenom during his national television debut on a CBS variety series hosted by big band leaders Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Dressed in a black shirt, a white tie and a tweed jacket, Presley performed a medley of “Shake, Rattle and Roll” and “Flip, Flop and Fly,” followed by “I Got A Woman,” and the audience was unsurprisingly entranced. The performance was a moderate success; The Perry Como Show attracted almost double the viewers during the time slot. Nonetheless, Presley was asked back to perform on Stage Show five more times, earning a total of $1,250 per episode. Though he went on to become a superstar, Presley wasn’t exactly a welcome presence on the show during early rehearsals: Jackie Gleason, who produced the series, reportedly said, “I don’t like this guy,” and a member of the Dorseys’ band reminisced, “We didn’t like him because he looked dirty, and he needed a haircut. We thought he never bathed.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Jan. 27: Laverne & Shirley premieres on ABC (1976)
On Jan. 27, 1976, ABC aired the first episode of Laverne & Shirley, a spinoff of Happy Days that followed two friends of the Fonz named Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams) who worked at a Milwaukee brewery in the 1950s. In that first episode, the duo attend a society party thrown by their boss’s family, and they wear dresses that their friend Squiggy got for them from a wax museum his uncle owns. The fun is cut short when a guest accuses the girls of having stolen the dresses from her apartment, and they end up stripping down and leaving the party in their slips. New York Times critic John J. O’Connor touted the sitcom as proof that, as he explained it, “working-class white ethnic is big again,” and he had particular praise for the titular pair: “Miss Williams and Miss Marshall touch all the best bases, a hit of Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas here, a bit of Giùlietta Masina in La Strada there, touches of Lucille Ball, Eve Arden and that crowd all over the place.” High praise for a midseason sitcom with relatively untested talent. The show proved to be a smash success, and by 1978 Laverne & Shirley was the most-watched series on television, with an audience of nearly 23 million. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images
Jan. 26: Condoleezza Rice becomes the first Black woman to be sworn in as secretary of state (2005)
After the resignation of Secretary of State Colin Powell in November 2004, President George W. Bush named his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as Powell’s successor. The former provost of Stanford University, Rice had been something of a wunderkind: She entered college at 15 and briefly considered pursuing a career as a concert pianist before getting into politics. On Jan. 26, 2005, shortly after Bush’s second inauguration, the Senate approved Rice’s nomination by a vote of 86 to 13, and she was sworn in later that day, becoming the first Black woman to hold the position. During her swearing-in ceremony, Bush remarked, “Over the past four years, America has benefited from the wise counsel of Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and our family has been enriched by our friendship with this remarkable person. We love her — I don’t know if you’re supposed to say that about the secretary of state.” Rumors swirled for years that she might be poised to run for president, but she decided against seeking higher office. “I think my father thought I might be president of the United States,” she said in a speech at the Republican National Convention in 2012. “I think he would’ve been satisfied with secretary of state. I’m a foreign policy person, and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation’s chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Jan. 25: The first Emmy Awards ceremony takes place in Hollywood (1949)
On Jan. 25, 1949, the first Emmy Awards were held at the Hollywood Athletic Club and hosted by Walter O’Keefe, and they got their name from a surprising source: No, there wasn’t some TV pioneer named Emmy, but instead, it’s a feminized take on the word “immy,” an industry nickname for the image orthicon tube used in TV cameras of that era. Television was in its infancy, so the awards show honored only Los Angeles–area programming; tickets cost $5 to attend in person, or viewers could catch it on the local station KTSL. During the event, only six awards were handed out, including most popular television program to Pantomime Quiz and most outstanding television personality to 22-year-old Shirley Dinsdale and her puppet sidekick Judy Splinters. A special Emmy was given to Louis McManus, the television engineer who designed the statuette. Members of the Television Academy rejected 47 pitches before they approved McManus’ winning design, a winged muse of art who was holding up an atom and modeled after his wife. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Shutterstock
Jan. 24: Today in Computer History: Apple unveils its game-changing Macintosh computer (1984)
On Jan. 22, 1984, Ridley Scott directed an instantly iconic Super Bowl commercial, which paired dystopian imagery with a cryptic message about the future of personal computers: “On Jan. 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” Two days later, as promised, Steve Jobs took to the stage at De Anza College’s Flint Center in Cupertino, California, to unveil his history-changing personal computer. What made it so unique? Featuring a 9-inch black-and-white monitor and space for one floppy disk, the original Mac was the first computer to successfully use a mouse. For the first time, users could click on an icon to run a program (such as MacPaint or MacWrite) instead of typing out its name on a command line. Despite its revolutionary design, consumers quickly tired of its slow 128K RAM, leading the company to introduce a 512 KB “Fat Mac” that September. Apple sold the Mac for a whopping $2,500, and it only moved 50,000 units in the first three months — definitely not representative of the juggernaut Apple would become in later years. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
Jan. 23: The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first class in a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1986)
In 1983, Atlantic Records cofounder Ahmet Ertegun came up with the idea for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which would permanently enshrine the legends of 20th century popular music. He assembled a team of experts, including record executives and Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, to begin nominating their top picks. On Jan. 23, 1986, the group inducted its inaugural class at a ceremony at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where Quincy Jones joked, “I thought I’d seen everything, but now we’ve got rock ’n’ roll at the Waldorf.” The earliest inductees represented a who’s who of rock greats: In attendance to be inducted were Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, the Everly Brothers, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis. Little Richard was recovering from a car accident and couldn’t attend, while Sam Cooke, Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley were inducted posthumously. Also included in that first class were a trio of nonmusicians who had helped birth the genre, including Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, and three musicians who influenced the early rock sound: country singer Jimmie Rodgers, boogie-woogie pianist Jimmy Yancey and Delta bluesman Robert Johnson. The night would forever be remembered for its blending of legends and contemporary stars, such as when Keith Richards said of Chuck Berry, “I lifted every lick he ever played.” Berry’s response? “Dy-no-mite!” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Jan. 22: Conan O’Brien ends his brief tenure as the host of The Tonight Show after a series of disagreements with NBC (2010)
Quirky funnyman Conan O’Brien had been a fixture at NBC since 1988, when he began writing for Saturday Night Live, and in 1993, the network gave him his own late-night show to replace David Letterman in the 12:30 time slot. Sixteen years later, when Jay Leno departed The Tonight Show, O’Brien inherited perhaps the most coveted hosting gig in TV in June 2009, though the succession drama that ensued was almost as juicy and contentious as a Shakespeare play: Leno stayed at the network with his own 10 p.m. talk show, O’Brien struggled in the ratings and rumors swirled that Leno’s show would be pushed back to 11:35, in a move that many critics viewed as a slap in the face to O’Brien. On Jan. 12, just seven months into his Tonight Show tenure, Conan announced he’d be leaving the show, arguing that if he accepted the time slot shift, he would “seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting.” Ten days later, O’Brien bid farewell in his typically zany fashion, which included a bit called “The Expensive Thing That NBC Has to Pay For” — a fossilized ground sloth skeleton spraying beluga caviar on a Picasso. “We just bought this on NBC’s credit card to the tune of $65 million,” he joked. His final guests included Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell and Neil Young plus an exit interview with an “NBC employee” played by Steve Carell. The episode ended in spectacular fashion with an all-star cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” that included Beck, Ben Harper and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, with O’Brien on guitar and Ferrell on cowbell. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Sahm Doherty/Getty Images
Jan. 21: President Jimmy Carter pardons almost all Vietnam draft evaders (1977)
During the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of men had illegally evaded the draft by either fleeing the country (mostly to Canada) or not registering with the Selective Service boards. In an effort to heal the nation, Jimmy Carter made a campaign promise to pardon them — a move he once called “the single hardest decision I have had to make during the campaign.” On his first full day in office, Jan. 21, 1977, he granted blanket amnesty, with Proclamation 4483, or the Granting Pardon for Violations of the Selective Service Act. The action proved controversial on all sides: Veterans’ groups thought it rewarded those who had broken laws, while amnesty groups believe Carter’s plan didn’t go far enough, because it didn’t include deserters, soldiers who had been dishonorably discharged or civilian anti-war demonstrators. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Colin Davey/Getty Images
Jan. 20: The Iran hostage crisis officially ends (1981)
Just minutes after the Jan. 20, 1981, inauguration of newly elected President Ronald Reagan, the Iran hostage crisis came to a dramatic close when 52 U.S. hostages were finally freed and allowed to return home to America. They had been in captivity for 444 days, beginning in November 1979, when militant students seized the embassy to protest the American government’s decision to allow the deposed shah to seek medical treatment in New York. Why did they wait for the new president? Due to his campaign rhetoric, Reagan was expected to take a much more aggressive course of action, perhaps even sparking an American invasion. The outgoing administration also incentivized the hostage release by promising to free up $8 billion in seized Iranian assets. The following day, outgoing president Jimmy Carter flew to an Air Force hospital in West Germany to meet with the freed Americans before they returned home, and later addressed the assembled press, calling it “one of the most moving and gratifying experiences” of his life. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Zuma Press Inc/Alamy
Jan. 19: Snow falls in Miami for the first and only time (1977)
On Jan. 19, 1977, the usually tropical Miami experienced a surprising meteorological phenomenon, when snow fell on the city for the first time in recorded history. An arctic cold front moved down the Floridian peninsula, causing flakes to fall from about 8 to 9:30 a.m., though most of them melted upon hitting the ground — sadly, no one was having snowball fights on South Beach that day. Flurries could be seen as far south as Homestead Air Force Base, beating the record for the southernmost snowfall in the continental United States. With lows hitting 31ºF, the freak cold caused $100 million in damage to local crops in Dade County alone. Before 1977, you’d have to go all the way back to February 1899, when snow fell from Fort Myers to Fort Pierce, to find records of snow anywhere near this far south. Despite the damage and the dangerous conditions on roadways, you could sense some childlike glee running through the region, with The Miami News even publishing a special “Souvenir Edition” featuring the front-page headline: “That Day That Couldn’t Happen: Snow in Miami!” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP/Shutterstock
Jan. 18: Lisa Marie Presley files for divorce from Michael Jackson (1996)
The recently deceased Lisa Marie Presley married King of Pop Michael Jackson in May of 1994 in a spur-of-the-moment ceremony in the Dominican Republic. The romance only lasted 20 months, and on Jan. 18, 1996, Presley filed for divorce from the scandal-plagued singer, citing irreconcilable differences. As tabloids were quick to point out, Jackson had tempted fate at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards when he awkwardly kissed Presley onstage at Radio City Music Hall and said, “And just think, nobody thought this would last.” According to the court filings, Presley had listed their date of separation as Dec. 10, 1995, four days after he collapsed during rehearsals for a televised special, and she later told Oprah Winfrey that she had suspected drug use. Later, after MJ’s death, Presley wrote in a blog post on her MySpace, “The hardest decision I have ever had to make, which was to walk away and let his fate have him, even though I desperately loved him and tried to stop or reverse it somehow.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bill Allen/AP Photo
Jan. 17: President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his farewell address about the “military-industrial complex” (1961)
On Jan. 17, 1961, outgoing president Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his televised farewell address, which would go on to be regarded as one of the most famous speeches in American history. Revered for his service as an Allied military commander during World War II, Ike surprised American viewers when, instead of touting his Cold War achievements and military victories, he used the roughly 10-minute speech to issue a warning: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” The speech was notable for many reasons, not least of which was its candor. At one point, he admits, “I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment.” When researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas A&M University polled 137 leading scholars about the 100 best speeches of the 20th century, Eisenhower’s farewell address placed 18th. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Charles Tasnadi/AP Photo
Jan. 16: The White House announces the start of Desert Storm (1991)
Five months after Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces invaded and occupied their tiny, oil-rich neighbor, Kuwait, President George H.W. Bush delivered a televised address in which he announced the start of Operation Desert Storm, a military campaign to end the invasion. Leading up to the campaign, the president had lobbied hard for an armed intervention rather than simple economic sanctions, and he had secured the support of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who had assured him, “Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.” Bush announced the campaign on the same day that U.S. Army and Air Force helicopters had begun bombing Iraqi anti-aircraft facilities and radar sites. “As I report to you, air attacks are underway against military targets in Iraq,” the president announced. “We are determined to knock out Saddam Hussein’s nuclear bomb potential. We will also destroy his chemical weapons facilities. Much of Saddam’s artillery and tanks will be destroyed.” He used his speech to call attention to the many atrocities that had been committed against innocent Kuwaiti civilians and ensured the public that “this will not be another Vietnam.” Indeed, the battle was swift: A ground offensive began on Feb. 24, and Kuwait was liberated in less than four days, with a cease-fire being declared by Feb. 28. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Web Pix/Alamy
Jan. 15: Wikipedia makes its debut (2001)
Former bond trader Jimmy Wales teamed up with editor Larry Sanger to work on an online encyclopedia called Nupedia, which would be written by scholars and require a time-consuming review process. By January 2001, they had completed only a handful of articles, so they devised a secondary product that would change the internet, for better or worse: Wikipedia, as they called it, would be based on wiki software, or collaborative software, which allows users to collaboratively edit and write on a web browser. It officially launched on Jan. 15, 2001, as part of Nupedia, and when that website’s advisory board objected to its free-for-all nature, the founders relaunched it as its own independent website. In its earliest days, Wikipedia failed to cause much of a stir online, though it wouldn’t be long before it began slowly but surely attracting new users and editors. Within its inaugural year, Wikipedia included about 20,000 articles in 18 languages — including Polish, Hebrew and Esperanto. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images
Jan. 14: Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe get married in San Francisco (1954)
On this date in 1954, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio tied the knot in an unfussy ceremony at San Francisco City Hall. Because they had both already been divorced, they couldn’t get married in a Catholic church — but that didn’t stop the newlyweds from posing for photos on the steps of the nearby Saints Peter and Paul Church. The always-glamorous Monroe went surprisingly demure with an off-the-rack, two-piece, dark brown serge wedding suit with a white fur collar from Macy’s. Unsurprisingly, crowds of fans and photographers hounded the pair after Monroe let her plans slip to someone at her movie studio, who leaked the news to the press. The couple had opted for spur-of-the-moment nuptials before DiMaggio was set to head off to Japan on baseball business, and they turned the trip into a honeymoon; while there, Monroe was asked to perform in Korea for the troops, leaving the Yankee Clipper alone and unhappy in Japan. The marriage was short-lived, with DiMaggio reportedly getting furious when he saw the famous subway grate scene on the set of The Seven Year Itch, and Monroe publicly announced their separation only nine months after the wedding. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Romain Fellens/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
Jan. 13: The Beatles release the Yellow Submarine soundtrack in the U.S. (1969)
In November 1968, the Beatles released their trippy animated classic Yellow Submarine, and they put out an official soundtrack the following January, which hit shelves in the United States on the 13th. The unusual album included only the six Beatles tracks featured in the film, including “All Together Now” and “It’s All Too Much,” plus seven instrumental arrangements from George Martin, recorded with a 41-piece orchestra. Yellow Submarine peaked at number two on the Billboard 200 album chart, and, ironically, the album that kept it from reaching the top was the Fab Four’s own self-titled “White Album.” The U.S. release included the iconic cartoon version of the Beatles on the front cover with some truly bizarre liner notes, credited to Dan Davis, that told the centuries-spanning biography of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: “Somewhere during the hours between the years 700 and 750 (anno Domini), a brother from the Northumbrian monastery wrote a youthful thane of King Hygelac (King of the Geats) named Beowulf … a hero. A super-hero who arrived from far by sea to rescue Heorot … a feasting hall built by a benevolent old king called Hrothgar … a feasting hall that exuded the pleasures of food and music and perpetual celebration and all that was raison d’être … a feasting hall which for years had been ravaged by the villainy of an evil spirit named Grendel.” Does it make any sense? We’re not sure — but it goes on like that for 653 words. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Jan. 12: Dynasty premieres on ABC (1981)
On this date in 1981, the prime-time soap opera Dynasty premiered on ABC with a three-hour special event that had New York Times critic Tom Buckley calling it “an embarrassingly obvious knockoff of Dallas.” Tom Shales of The Washington Post wrote that it was “unpredictable only in the sense that it’s hard to foresee in precisely which order the cliches will plop out.” The campy Denver-set melodrama followed the rivalry between the Carringtons and the Colbys, and that premiere episode saw oil tycoon Blake Carrington (John Forsythe) marrying his former secretary Krystle (Linda Evans). Throughout its nine seasons on the air, Dynasty included such over-the-top plot points as kidnappings, amnesia, a terrorist attack at a wedding in the fictional nation of Moldavia, characters coming back from beyond the grave and an infamous cat fight in a lily pond. Fans ate it all up, and by the 1984-85 season it was the most-watched show in the country, though critics remained skeptical: It only won a single Primetime Emmy during its run, for outstanding costume design in 1984, an award it shared with Mama’s Family. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images
Jan. 11: The surgeon general reports that cigarettes can cause lung cancer (1964)
On Jan. 11, 1964, Surgeon General Luther Terry released a bombshell report on the link between smoking cigarettes and certain diseases. He and an advisory committee had consulted more than 7,000 articles and concluded that cigarettes were a direct cause of lung and laryngeal cancer in men, a probable cause of lung cancer in women, and the main cause of chronic bronchitis. The tobacco industry was so powerful in those days that Terry chose to release the report on a Saturday, so it wouldn’t have an immediately crushing impact on the stock market. But despite the damning evidence presented, many in the media and the general public weren’t exactly surprised by the findings: The following day, The New York Times published an article about the report, writing, “It is now official; it could hardly have been otherwise in view of findings by many physicians’ and health organizations in the United States and Europe. … To put it bluntly, smoking is harmful to health — and remedial action must be taken.” One year later, Congress passed the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965, which impelled tobacco companies to start including health warnings on cigarette packages. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images
Jan. 10: David Bowie dies at age 69 (2016)
Seven years ago today, music lovers were shocked to hear the tragic news that David Bowie had died. just two days after turning 69, at his home in New York City’s Soho neighborhood. The shape-shifting rocker had been diagnosed with liver cancer 18 months prior, but he only knew that the cancer was terminal for about three months before his death, and he had told only a few close friends and family members. On Jan. 8, his birthday, Bowie had released his final studio album, Blackstar, and it’s a work filled with dark imagery and references to death; take, for instance, the lyrics in the song “Lazarus,” in which he sings, “Look up here, I’m in heaven/ I’ve got scars that can’t be seen.” In the aftermath of his passing, Bowie’s longtime producer Tony Visconti wrote in a touching Facebook message: “He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life — a work of Art. He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift.” It was Bowie’s first album to top the charts in America, and the album and its songs went on to win five Grammys. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Underwood & Underwood/Underwood Archives/Getty Images
Jan. 9: The United Nations headquarters opens in New York (1951)
On Oct. 24, 1945, the treaty establishing the United Nations was officially ratified, and less than six years later the organization moved into its new home along the East River in Manhattan. Occupying an 18-acre site, the headquarters comprise four main buildings designed by a team of 11 international architects, including Oscar Niemeyer of Brazil and Le Corbusier of France. Though construction would continue on into 1952, the complex officially opened its doors to the press on Jan. 9, 1951, and The New York Times reported: “Beginning today a good many of the dispatches bearing on the future of our little planet will be datelined ‘United Nations, N.Y.’” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images
Jan. 8: Harvey Milk becomes the first openly gay person elected to political office in California (1978)
Harvey Milk shattered the “lavender ceiling” on Jan. 8, 1978, when he became the first openly gay politician elected to public office in California history. After serving in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, Milk moved to San Francisco, where he opened a camera store and became a leading advocate in the burgeoning fight for gay rights. He ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, losing twice, in 1973 and 1976, before finally winning a seat in 1977 and taking office the following January. Soon, he introduced a bill that would ban discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation, and Mayor George Moscone signed it into law with a pen that Milk had given him. Sadly, Milk’s political career was cut short when he and Moscone were assassinated by a disgruntled former supervisor on Nov. 27, 1978. President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Jan. 7: Charley Pride becomes the first Black singer to perform at the Grand Ole Opry (1967)
Hot off the success of his hit single “Just Between You and Me,” Charley Pride was invited to become the first Black singer to perform at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, 56 years ago today on Jan. 7, 1967. Despite his groundbreaking achievement, Pride wasn’t the first African American performer to grace this hallowed stage: That honor belongs to harmonica player DeFord Bailey, who was a regular from 1929 to 1941. As one of 11 children in a family of sharecroppers, Pride grew up listening to Hank Williams on Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts, but he initially flirted with the idea of pursuing baseball instead of music, even becoming a pitcher and outfielder in the Negro American League. For his Opry debut, Pride honored Williams by playing a cover of his “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You),” followed by his own debut single “The Snakes Crawl at Night.” Decades later, in 1993, Pride joined Bailey as only the second Black member of the Grand Ole Opry, and their ranks rose to three when Darius Rucker — yes, the former lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish — was inducted in 2012. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Ploghaus/picture alliance via Getty Images
Jan. 6: The Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed because it’s leaning too much (1990)
Much of the tourist appeal of the medieval Leaning Tower of Pisa is, well, its lean, but by 1990, things were getting a bit out of hand: The building was tilting at 5.5 degrees, and a computer model estimated that it should have fallen over when it reached 5.44 degrees. After the shocking collapse of the Civic Tower of Pavia in 1989, the Italian government made the difficult decision to close Pisa’s biggest tourist attraction for the first time in 800 years. Prior to that point, more than 1 million visitors had come to visit the tower annually. Over the span of the next decade, engineers worked to straighten out the architectural icon, using corkscrew drills to remove tons of soil from underneath one side of the tower and adding lead weights to force the foundation into the hole that was created. In December 2001, the tower finally reopened to the public after about $25 million in repairs, and its tilt was reduced by about 16 inches. In 2018, experts from the tower’s Surveillance Group announced that its tilt had shrunk by an additional 1.5 inches, or as Professor Salvatore Settis explained, “It’s as if it’s had two centuries taken off its age.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Jan. 5: Bruce Springsteen releases his debut album (1973)
Fifty years ago today, New Jersey’s greatest export, Bruce Springsteen, released his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., which earned him early comparisons to Bob Dylan for his poetic lyrics. Though the album only sold a very un-Boss-like 25,000 copies, the song “Blinded by the Light” became a number one hit in 1977 when it was covered by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. In his review for Rolling Stone, legendary rock critic Lester Bangs wrote, “[What] makes Bruce totally unique and cosmically surfeiting is his words. Hot damn, what a passel o’ verbiage! He’s got more of them crammed into this album than any other record released this year, but it’s all right because they all fit snug. … Some of ’em can mean something socially or otherwise, but there’s plenty of ’em that don’t even pretend to, reveling in the joy of utter crass showoff talent run amuck and totally out of control.” Despite the album failing to make much of a splash on the charts, Rolling Stone later included it at number 379 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In a fun bit of music history serendipity, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. wasn’t the only first album from a future Rock & Roll Hall of Fame act released that day: Aerosmith’s self-titled debut also dropped on Jan. 5, 1973! —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Jan. 4: Nancy Pelosi becomes America’s first female speaker of the House (2007)
In November 2022, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, 82, announced that she would step down from House Democratic leadership, marking the end of her 15-year tenure at the head of the party. It was a journey that started Jan. 4, 2007, when Pelosi was elected the first female speaker of the House in the nation’s history, taking the gavel from outgoing Republican Speaker John Boehner. In her new role, she was second in line to the presidency after the vice president, the closest a woman had ever come to the highest office in the land. “It is an historic moment for the Congress, and a historic moment for the women of this country,” she said. “It is a moment for which we have waited over 200 years. For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling. For our daughters and our granddaughters, the sky is the limit, anything is possible for them.” After the announcement that she would step down (but not retire from Congress), House Democrats unanimously selected New York’s Hakeem Jeffries to become the first Black congressional party leader. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Abbie Rowe/PhotoQuest/Getty Images
Jan. 3: Alaska becomes America’s 49th state (1959)
After statehood bills passed through the House and Senate in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the proclamation that admitted Alaska as America’s 49th state on Jan. 3, 1959. As part of the proceedings that day, Ike also signed an executive order establishing the design of the new 49-star American flag, which comprised seven staggered rows of seven stars each. (Eisenhower preferred a design of nine rows, alternating between five and six stars each, but he told a guest that he had been overruled by his advisers.) “Gentlemen, I think that all of us recognize this as an historic occasion,” Eisenhower said during the noon ceremony. “Certainly for myself I feel very highly privileged and honored to welcome the 49th state into the Union. Such a ceremony has not taken place in almost half a century, so at least I have the feeling of self-gratification that I am not just one of a group in this kind of ceremony.” He extended “best wishes and hope for prosperity and success” from Alaska’s “sister states.” The Last Frontier remained the newest state only through August, when Hawaii joined it as number 50 — and that 49-star flag that Eisenhower so disliked only remained in place for one year, from July 4, 1959, to July 4, 1960. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Jan. 2: Mahatma Gandhi begins his march for peace (1947)
At the start of 1947, a few months before India gained independence from British colonial rule that August, Mahatma Gandhi faced a subcontinent that was rife with sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims. On Jan. 2, 1947, he wrote in his diary, “All around me is utter darkness. When will God take me out of this darkness into His light?” That day, he embarked on a seven-week barefoot walk through villages torn apart by religious conflicts in an attempt to establish peace. His mission was to ensure an independent but unified India that would see all of its religious groups living together in harmony; sadly only half of that goal was realized when the newly independent nation was divided into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. A little more than a year after his historic march, Gandhi was assassinated on Jan. 30, 1948, by a young Hindu radical named Nathuram Godse. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Jan. 1: The Oprah Winfrey Network debuts (2011)
In May 2011, after 25 years of dominating American daytime television and racking up countless Emmy Awards, Oprah Winfrey officially brought an end to her eponymous talk show. But fans of the Queen of All Media didn’t have to be worried that she’d disappear from the airwaves for too long. On Jan. 1 of that year, Winfrey launched a new cable channel: the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN for short. The network replaced the Discovery Health Channel, which was available in about 80 million homes, and it kicked off on noon of New Year’s Day with a sneak preview of the new series Kidnapped by the Kids, Miracle Detectives and Winfrey’s new chat show, Oprah Presents Master Class, featuring Jay-Z as the first guest. Before the launch, Winfrey told her, ahem, own magazine, O, that she had been dreaming of creating a network as early as 1992, and she described the endeavor as “a channel where people will see themselves, and their ideals and their values and their hopes, see their struggle, see who they are through the lives of others — in a real way that enriches them.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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