Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

January 4

1990
Manuel Noriega surrenders to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges.

1989
Two U.S. Navy F-14 fighters shoot down two Libyan MiG-23 fighters.

1988
Jesse Jackson reveals that he was once addicted to a pain killer, although only for less than a day.

1987
Rev. Oral Roberts announces "God will call me home" if he doesn't raise $4,500,000 in three months.

1982
Sally Forth comic strip, by Greg Howard, begins syndication.

1980
Pres. Carter announces punitive measures to be taken against the USSR in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

1977
First woman major-league baseball play-by-play TV announcer is hired, Mary Shane for the Chicago White Sox.

1936
First pop music best-seller chart is published, in The Billboard.

1912
The Moon reaches its closest distance from the Earth for this century (221,441 miles).

1896
Utah becomes the 45th state. Utah is Navajo for "higher up."

1950
Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapovy, Russian Siamese twins, the only known Siamese twins having 2 heads, 4 arms, and 2 legs. (source: Guinness Book of World Records)

1937
Dyan Cannon (Samille Diane Friesen), American actress. Film: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) and Heaven Can Wait (1978).

1935
Floyd Patterson, heavyweight boxing champion (1956-59, 1960-62). He was the first boxer to regain the world heavyweight title.

1930     d. 1994
Sorrell Booke, American actor. TV: Dukes of Hazzard (Boss Hogg).

1927
Thomas Noguchi, Los Angeles County coroner, performed autopsies on Marilyn Monroe (1962), Robert Kennedy (1968), Janis Joplin (1970), and John Belushi (1982).

1914
Jane Wyman (Sarah Jane Fulks), American Oscar-winning actress. Film: Johnny Belinda (1948, Oscar, deaf-mute rape victim). TV: Falcon Crest (Angela Channing). She is the ex-wife of Ronald Reagan.

1906     d. 1964
William Bendix, American actor. TV: The Life of Riley (Chester Riley).

1838     d. 1883
General Tom Thumb (Charles Sherwood Stratton), American dwarf, 3 ft. 4 in. tall, travelled with P.T. Barnum. (source: Guinness Book of World Records)

1822     d. 1887
Washington Charles DePauw, American banker, for whom DePauw University is named.

1809     d. 1852
Louis Braille, French teacher of the blind. Blind since the age of three, he created the Braille reading system for the blind.

1785     d. 1863
Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm, German author. He and his brother wrote Grimm's Fairy Tales (1812-15).

1990     b. ????
Charles Stewart, American murderer. He killed his pregnant wife and shot himself (October 1989), blaming it on a fictional black robber who jumped into his car. He committed suicide when his story began to unravel.

1986     b. 1904
Christopher Isherwood, English-born American author. Writings: Goodbye Berlin (1939, a collection of short stories including Sally Bowles upon which the musical Cabaret was based).

1965     b. 1888
T.S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot), American Nobel-winning poet, playwright.

1960     b. 1895
Dudley Nichols, American screenwriter. He became the first person to refuse an Oscar (1935, Best Screenplay for The Informer).

1941     b. 1859
Henri Louis Bergson, French philosopher, Nobel-winning author. His Creative Evolution redefined evolution.

1877     b. 1794
Cornelius Vanderbilt, American railroad magnate, and for whom Vanderbilt University is named.

1854     b. 1763
Thomas Campbell, Irish religious leader. He and his son founded the Church of the Disciples of Christ in America.

1821     b. 1774
Elizabeth Ann Seton, first American-born Roman Catholic saint (canonized 1975). She founded the U.S. branch of the Sisters of Charity (1809).

1789     b. 1738
Thomas Nelson, American patriot, signer of the Declaration of Independence, governor of Virginia (1781).

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