GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS FRIDAY, January 19, the 19th day of 2018 with 346 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 7:09 and sunset is @ 4:39. The moon is waxing. The morning stars are stars are Jupiter, Saturn & Mercury. The evening stars are Mars, Neptune, Uranus & Venus.
ON THIS DAY IN: 1419 – Rouen surrendered to Henry V, completing his conquest of Normandy.
1764 – John Wilkes was expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.
1793 – King Louis XVI was tried by the French Convention, found guilty of treason and sentenced to the guillotine.
1825 – Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett of New York City patented a canning process to preserve salmon, oysters and lobsters.
1861 – Georgia seceded from the Union.
1883 – Thomas Edison’s first village electric lighting system using overhead wires began operation in Roselle, NJ.
1907 – The first film reviews appeared in “Variety” magazine.
1915 – George Claude, of Paris, France, patented the neon discharge tube for use in advertising signs.
1915 – More than 20 people were killed when German zeppelins bombed England for the first time. The bombs were dropped on Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn.
1937 – Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record. He flew from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
1942 – The Japanese invaded Burma (later Myanmar).
1944 – The U.S. federal government relinquished control of the nation’s railroads after the settlement of a wage dispute.
1949 – The salary of the President of the United States was increased from $75,000 to $100,000 with an additional $50,000 expense allowance for each year in office.
1952 – The National Football League (NFL) bought the franchise of the New York Yankees from Ted Collins. The franchise was then awarded to a group in Dallas on January 24.
1953 – Sixty-eight percent of all TV sets in the U.S. were tuned to CBS-TV, as Lucy Ricardo, of “I Love Lucy,” gave birth to a baby boy.
1955 – U.S. President Eisenhower allowed a filmed news conference to be used on television (and in movie newsreels) for the first time.
1957 – Philadelphia comedian, Ernie Kovacs, did a half-hour TV show without saying a single word of dialogue.
1966 – Indira Gandhi was elected prime minister of India.
1969 – In protest against the Russian invasion of 1968, Czech student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Prague’s Wenceslas Square.
1971 – At the Charles Manson murder trial, the Beatles‘ “Helter Skelter” was played. At the scene of one of his gruesome murders, the words “helter skelter” were written on a mirror.
1971 – “No, No Nanette” opened at the 46th Street Theatre in New York City.
1977 – U.S. President Ford pardoned Iva Toguri D’Aquino (the “Tokyo Rose”).
1979 – Former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell was released on parole after serving 19 months at a federal prison in Alabama.
1981 – The U.S. and Iran signed an agreement paving the way for the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months and for arrangements to unfreeze Iranian assets and to resolve all claims against Iran.
1983 – China announced that it was bannning 1983 purchases of cotton, soybeans and chemical fibers from the United States.
1993 – IBM announced a loss of $4.97 billion for 1992. It was the largest single-year loss in U.S. corporate history.
1995 – Russian forces overwhelmed the resistance forces in Chechnya.
1996 – U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury. The investigation was concerning the discovery of billing records related to the Whitewater real estate investment venture.
1997 – Yasser Arafat returned to Hebron for the first time in more than 30 years. He joined 60,000 Palestinians in celebration over the handover of the last West Bank city in Israeli control.
2000 – In New York’s Time Square, the first WWF restaurant opened.
2001 – Texas officials demoted a warden and suspended three other prison workers in the wake of the escape of the “Texas 7.”
2006 – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was launched. The mission was the first to investigate Pluto.
2013 – In Scottsdale, AZ, the original Batmobile for the TV series “Batman” sold at auction for $4.6 million. It was the first of six Batmobiles produced for the show.