January 8
Activity of the day
Today is . . .
- Feast day of Our Lady of Prompt Succor
On this day . . .
- George Washington delivers the first State of the Union Address in New York City (1790)
- An electrically operated computer is patented by Herman Hollerith (1889)
- Britain introduces food rationing (1940)
- French general Charles de Gaulle becomes the first president of the Fifth Republic (1959)
- Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time (1962)
- The trial opens in Washington of seven men accused of bugging
Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex
in Washington, DC (1973)
Births
- Wilkie Collins, English pioneer of detective stories (1824)
- Dennis Wheatley, English thriller writer (1897)
- Elvis Presley, American singer (1935)
- Shirley Bassey, Welsh-born singer (1937)
- Stephen Hawking, English mathematician (1942)
- David Bowie, British pop singer (1947)
Deaths
- Marco Polo, Italian explorer (1324)
- Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and scientist (1642)
- Paul Verlaine, French poet (1895)
- Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts (1941)
- Sydney Greenstreet, English born actor (1954)
- Françoise Miterrand, French president (1996)
- Michael Tippett, English composer (1998)