January 3rd History, Trivia, and Fun Facts |
January 3rd History Highlights |
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January 3rd is… |
Festival of Sleep Day J.R.R. Tolkien Day National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day National Drinking Straw Day Women Rock! Day |
January 3rd Birthday Quotes |
He who looks on a true friend looks, as it were, upon a kind of image of himself: wherefore friends, though absent, are still present; though in poverty, they are rich; though weak, yet in the enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to assert, though dead, they are alive. Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air. Once you decide that it is the art that is important and not how popular and well received you are, you no longer have an albatross. Fear is the lock and laughter the key to your heart. If anyone tells you it’s impossible to be fabulous and smart and make a ton of money using math, well, they can just get in line behind you – and kiss your math. |
January 3rd Birthdays |
106 BC – Cicero, Roman philosopher, lawyer, and politician (died in 43 BC) 1793 – Lucretia Mott/Coffin, American woman’s rights advocate (died in 1880) 1892 – J.R.R. Tolkien, English writer, poet, and philologist (died in 1973) 1905 – Anna May Wong, American actress (died in 1961)[75] 1907 – Ray Milland, Welsh-American actor, and director (died in 1986) 1909 – Victor Borge, Danish-American pianist, and conductor (died in 2000) 1911 – John Sturges, American director, and producer (died in 1982) 1926 – W. Michael Blumenthal, American economist, and politician 1926 – George Martin, English composer, conductor, and producer (died in 2016) 1929 – Sergio Leone, Italian director, producer, and screenwriter (died in 1989) 1932 – Dabney Coleman, American actor 1937 – Glen A. Larson, American director, producer, and screenwriter, created Battlestar Galactica (died in 2014) 1939 – Bobby Hull, Canadian ice hockey player 1945 – Stephen Stills, American singer-songwriter 1946 – John Paul Jones, English bass player 1950 – Victoria Principal, American actress 1952 – Jim Ross, American professional wrestling commentator 1956 – Mel Gibson, American-Australian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter 1962 – Darren Daulton, American baseball player (died in 2017) 1973 – Dan Harmon, American screenwriter, and producer 1975 – Danica McKellar, American actress 1981 – Eli Manning, American football player 1985 – Nicole Beharie, American actress 2003 – Greta Thunberg, Swedish environmental activist |
January 3rd History |
1521 – Martin Luther was excommunicated by Roman Catholic Church 1777 – Washington defeated the British at the Battle of Princeton, NJ 1847 – Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco 1870 – Construction work began on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, New York, United States 1871 – Oleomargarine was patented (#110626) by Henry Bradley in Binghamton, NY 1888 – The Drinking Straw, invented by Marvin C. Sone, was patented (#US375962) January 3, 1900 Birthday (fictional) Jim Corrigan, The Spectre, DC Comics 1919 – Professor Ernest Rutherford succeeded in splitting the atom. He split nitrogen atoms into oxygen atoms. 1920 – New York Yankees purchased Babe Ruth from Red Sox for $125,000 1924 – British Egyptologist Howard Carter found the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen (King Tut) 1938 – March of Dimes was established 1951 – Dragnet premiered on NBC 1959 – Alaska was admitted as 49th U.S. state 1970 – #1 Hit January 3, 1970 – January 30, 1970: B. J. Thomas – Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head 1970 – Jon Pertwee made his first appearance as the Third Doctor in the Doctor Who episode Spearhead from Space. It also marks the first time that the series was broadcast in color. (colour in the UK) 1973 – George Steinbrenner III bought the Yankees from CBS for $12 million 1976 – #1 Hit January 3, 1976 – January 9, 1976: Bay City Rollers – Saturday Night 1977 – Apple Computers incorporated 1977 – Holly Hallstrom joined Janice Pennington and Dian Parkinson as a showcase model on The Price is Right 1979 – The USA cable network was founded 1983 – Plinko was added as a Pricing Game for the series The Price Is Right 1987 – Unsolved Mysteries premiered (as a special) on NBC 1987 – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the 1st female artist, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin 1991 – First television sets to feature closed-caption display are introduced in the U.S. 1993 – ABC and CBS simultaneously broadcast their own movies based on the Amy Fisher story with ABC’s starring Drew Barrymore and CBS’s starring Alyssa Milano. NBC had already beaten the other networks airing their own version about six days prior. 1997 – Bryant Gumbel anchored his last episode of the Today Show. 2000 – Final daily edition of the Peanuts comic strip. |
Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts |
“Err on the side of awesome.” – Brandon Sanderson Worrying works! 90% of the things I worry about never happen… I wonder who The Simpsons’ other next-door neighbor is… One of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World: Colossus of Rhodes, built in 280 BC, destroyed in the earthquake of 226 BC Useless Pronunciation: B as in bee “It is useless to hold a person to anything he says while he’s in love, drunk, or running for office.” – Shirley MacLaine During the filming of “The Shining”, Stanley Kubrick would reportedly call Stephen King at 3 AM to ask him questions like “Do you believe in God?” US President #8 Martin Van Buren (1837-1841) Van Buren was born on December 5, 1782, making him the first President born a U.S. citizen. All the presidents prior were originally British Subjects. The biggest film of 1990: Home Alone (Comedy) earned ~ $286,000,000 Until 1971, the Postmaster General was a cabinet position and included in the presidential line of succession. The term dead ringer comes from the practice of substituting a thoroughbred horse with a look-a-like to trick bookies. Spongebob is a dish sponge, but his parents are actual sea sponges. Spongebob is adopted! All mammals, from mice to whales, have roughly the same number of heartbeats in a lifetime: 1 billion. “Let’s go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday.” – Steve Jobs The Chinese population census margin of error (26 million) is beggir than the population of 180 countries. If it weren’t for Google’s Autocomplete function, I probably wouldn’t have ever heard of the French town of Pornichet. You can’t pump your own gas in New Jersey because of the Retail Gasoline Act of 1949. |
More Pop Culture History Resources |
