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1219 – Floods in Northern Netherlands after storm, thousands perish.
1412 – The Medici family is appointed official banker of the Papacy.
1493 – Columbus leaves the new world and sets sail for Spain returning from his first trip
1777 – Vermont declares independence from NY
1879 – Record 13″ of snow falls in NYC (broken Jan 7, 1996)
1909 – British explorer Ernest Shackleton finds magnetic south pole
1951 – World’s largest gas pipeline opens (Brownsville Texas to 134th St, NYC)
1963 – Khrushchev claims to have a 100-megaton nuclear bomb 1970 – Buckminster Fullerreceives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.
1979 – Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi of Iran flees Iran for Egypt
1980 – Paul McCartney jailed in Tokyo for 10 days on marijuana possession
1989 – Police arrest writer Vaclav Havel in Prague
1991 – US and 27 allies attack Iraq for occupying Kuwait
2002 – The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the remaining members of the Taliban.
2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.
2006 – Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia’s new president. She becomes Africa’s first female elected head of state.
Deaths
1979 –Ted Cassidy, actor , dies at 46.
Theodore Crawford Cassidy, all 6 feet 9 inches of him was an American actor. One of his more memorable roles was playing the butler, Lurch on the TV show Addams Family. In fact he also played the character Thing as well. Though the character of Lurch was intended to be mute, Cassidy ad-libbed his signature line, “You rang?” The subtle humor and the deepness of his voice was immediately a hit. Thereafter, it was a recurring phrase written into the script. Click here to watch.
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