January 11 in History

Some interesting things happened today:

49BCE - Julius Caesar led his army across the Rubicon, plunging Rome into civil war.

1785 - Continental Congress convened in NYC.

1805 - The Michigan Territory was created.

1813 - The 1st pineapples were planted in Hawaii

1861 - Alabama seceded from the Union.

1874 - Gail Borden, inventor of condensed milk, dies.

1878 - For the first time, milk was delivered in glass bottles -- by one Alexander Campbell, in New York. Up to that time, moo juice had been ladled out of a container by the milkman, right into the customer’s own container.

1879 - The Zulu war against British colonial rule in South Africa began.

1902 - Popular Mechanics magazine was published for the first time. Initially, there were only five paying subscribers and a few hundred others who paid a nickel at newsstands. In September, 1903, the magazine became a monthly.

1913 - The first sedan-type car was unveiled at the National Automobile Show in New York City. The car was manufactured by the Hudson Motor Company.

1922 - Insulin, then called isletin, was 1st used to treat diabetes.

1928 - Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Bolshevik revolution and early architect of the Soviet state, was shipped out by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Alma-Ata in remote Soviet Central Asia.

1935 - Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California.

1940 - Sergei Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet premiered in Leningrad.

1941 - Adolf Hitler established the Afrika Korps.

1943 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt flew to Morocco for a top-secret meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. No U.S. president had previously flown while in office because the Secret Service regarded flying as a dangerous mode of transport. Air travel was the only realistic option for the trip to Casablanca because German submarines lurking in the Atlantic made a surface crossing too risky.

1963 - The 1st discotheque opened, Whiskey-a-go-go in LA.

1964 - Surgeon General Luther Terry released a report that said that smoking cigarettes is a definite health hazard.

1970 - Super Bowl IV (at New Orleans): Kansas City Chiefs 23, Minnesota Vikings 7. Tickets: $15.00.

1973 - Major-league baseball agreed to allow the American League to experiment with the designated hitter rule for the next three years.

1973 - Trial of Watergate burglars began in Washington, DC.

1984 - Thriller, the album by Michael Jackson, became the all-time best-selling LP.

Birthdays:

1755 - Alexander Hamilton

1807 - Ezra Cornell (Western Union/Cornell U)

1842 - William James

1910 - Schoolboy (Lynwood Thomas) Rowe

1923 - Carroll Shelby (Mustangs)

1943 - Jim Hightower

1952 - Ben Crenshaw

1972 - Amanda Peet

 

I saw that it was Hamilton's Bday and when I looked at other stuff, it just seemed interesting... particularly the Rubicon and Continental Congress.