January 10th is

Oysters Rockefeller Day * ….    Save the Eagles Day

Bittersweet Chocolate

Cut Your Energy Costs 

Peculiar People Day

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MORE!  Julius Caesar, Katharine Blodgett and Daniel Ortega, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bahamas – Majority Rule Day

Bénin – Vaudoun/Traditional Day

Mexico – Playa del Carmen, Cancun:
The BPC Music Festival

Sweden –Kiruna: Snow Festival

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On This Day in HISTORY

49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war; the year before the Roman Senate, led by Pompey, had ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as governor of Gaul had finished, but Caesar thought he would be prosecuted if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a magistrate; Pompey then accused Caesar of insubordination and treason

1776 – Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense

1839 – Indian tea becomes available in Britain for the first time, which is much less expensive than Chinese tea, and quickly increases tea’s popularity

1840 – The penny post, a standard rate paid for by the sender instead of the recipient, begins in Britain

1861 – Florida secedes from the union

1863 – The London Underground, the world’s oldest underground railway, opens between London Paddington station and Farringdon station

1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil

1887 – Robinson Jeffers born, American poet-playwright-philosopher

1889 – In New Orleans, Jules Alciatore of the famed Antoine’s Restaurant creates Oysters Rockefeller *

1898 – Katharine Blodgett born, physicist- inventor, 1st woman research scientist for General Electric’s Schenectady, NY laboratory (1920); 1st woman awarded Ph.D. in Physics from University of Cambridge (1926); received eight U.S. patents; invented low-reflectance “invisible” glass

1901 – The first great Texas oil gusher is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas

1905 – Albert Arlen born, Australian composer and playwright

1910 – Jean Martinon born, French conductor-composer

1920 – The Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I; and the League of Nations holds its first meeting in Geneva

1924 – Max Roach born, American jazz percussionist-composer

1927 – Fritz Lang’s futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany

1927 – Johnnie Ray born, American jazz-blues singer-songwriter

1928 – The Soviet Union orders the exile of Leon Trotsky

1943 – Jim Croce, American singer-songwriter, is born

1945 – Rod Stewart born, British rock singer-songwriter

1946 – The first General Assembly of the United Nations opens in London, attended by representatives from fifty-one nations

1946 – The U.S. Army Signal Corps successfully conducts Project Diana, bouncing radio waves off the Moon and receiving the reflected signals

1953 – Pat Benatar, American singer-songwriter, is born

1956 – Elvis Presley records “Heartbreak Hotel,” “I Was the One,” “I’m Counting On You,” “I Got a Woman” and “Money Honey” in Nashville

1962 – NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket launch vehicle, which became known as the Saturn V Moon rocket, which launched every Apollo Moon mission

1966 – Tashkent Declaration, a peace agreement signed between India and Pakistan that resolved the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965

1971 – Masterpiece Theatre premieres on PBS with host Alistair Cooke; its first drama series is The First Churchills

1978 – The Soviet Union launches two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a rendezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory

1984 – The United States and Holy See (Vatican City) re-establish full diplomatic relations after almost 117 years, overturning the U.S. Congress’s 1867 ban on public funding for such a diplomatic envoy

1985 –Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and vows to continue transition to socialism and alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba; American policy continues to support the Contras in their revolt against the Nicaraguan government

1990 – Time-Warner is formed by the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications

2007 – President George W. Bush says he’s sending a “surge” of 21,500 U.S. forces to Iraq

2011 – A judge orders former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to serve three years in prison for his role in a scheme to illegally funnel corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002 – Delay remaines free on bond as he appeals, and eventually his conviction is overturned by the Texas Third Court of Appeals

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Visuals

• Oysters Rockefeller
• Golden Eagle
• International flags
• Julius Caesar, believe quote
• Thomas Paine – trying men’s souls quite
• London’s Paddington Station, circa 1890s
• Antoine’s Restaurant, main dining room
• Uncredited newspaper photo of  Katharine Blodgett with her glass
• Elvis Presley album cover
• Daniel Ortega

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