On This Day January 24

1986
Voyager II flies within 50,679 mile of Uranus, discovering previously unknown moons and rings.

1848
Gold is discovered on Sutter's Mill, by James Marshall, starting the California gold rush.

1826
Creek Indians sign a treaty granting them the right to stay on their land two more years.

1968
Mary Lou Retton, American gymnast. In 1984 she became the first U.S. woman to win an individual Olympic gymnastics medal. She won four that year, including the gold for all-around best gymnast.

1960
Nastassja Kinski (Nastassja Nakszynski), German actress. Film: Cat People.

1949 d. 1982
John Belushi, American Emmy-winning comedian. TV: Saturday Night Live.

1941
Ray Stevens, American comic singer, Gitarzan (1969), Everything is Beautiful (1970, #1) and The Streak (1974).

1941
Neil Diamond, American singer, songwriter. Music: I'm a Believer (1966, #1 for the Monkees) and Craklin' Rosie (1970, #1).

1920
Jerry Maren (Gerald Marenghi), American 4-foot-3 actor. Film: The Wizard of Oz (1939, Lollipop Kid who gave the lollipop to Dorothy), Buster Brown, the original Oscar Mayer wiener character, and the original McDonald's Mayor McCheese.

1918
Oral Roberts, American evangelist, founder of Oral Roberts University (1965). In 1987 he announced "God will call me home" if he didn't raise $4.5 million in three months.

1917
Ernest Borgnine, American actor. TV: McHale's Navy (Lt. Cdr. Quinton McHale) and Airwolf (Dominic Santini).

1915 d. 1992
Mark Goodson, American producer. TV: To Tell the Truth, What's My Line?, The Price Is Right, and Family Feud.

1905 d. 1995
J. Howard Marshall (Jeremiah Howard Marshall II), American oil billionaire. At age 89, he married 26-year-old Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith.

1888 d. 1958
Ernst Heinkel, German aircraft designer/manufacturer. He designed the first rocket airplane powered solely by liquid fuel.

1573 d. 1631
John Donne, English poet. He is best remembered for the line "No man is an island..." from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624). (Source: An Almanac of the Christian Church)

1993 b. 1908
Thurgood Marshall, American civil-rights lawyer, first black U.S. Supreme Court justice (1967-91), and legal director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

1989 b. 1946
Ted Bundy, American serial killer. Convicted of two Florida sorority house murders, he was executed in the state prison's electric chair.

1986 b. 1911
L. Ron Hubbard (Lafayette Ronald Hubbard), American author, founded the Church of Scientology and author of Dianetics.

1973 b. 1886
George Graff, American lyricist, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.

1971 b. 1895
Bill Wilson (William Griffith Wilson aka Bill W.), American cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous (1935).

1965 b. 1874
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, English statesman. He coined the expression "Iron Curtain" (1946).

1930 b. 1835
Rebecca Latimer Felton, American politician, first woman U.S. senator (October 3 - November 22, 1922).

1879 b. 1814
Heinrich Geissler, German inventor. He invented an electric light in 1858 - 21 years before Edison. Now known as the Geissler tube, it consisted of a gas-filled vacuum tube which would light up when electricity was applied.

1860 b. 1785
James Pollard Espy, American meteorologist, founder of modern weather predicting.

1848 b. 1815
Horace Wells, American dentist, first to use nitrous oxide (laughing gas) for dental anesthesia (1844).

1813 b. 1739
George Clymer, American politician, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

1626 b. circa 1580
Sir Samuel Argall, English adventurer, deputy governor of Virginia (1617-19). In 1618 he decreed a punishment of one night of imprisonment and a week as a slave for missing church services.

January 24

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