January 12 ...

In 1588 the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, John Winthrop, was born in Suffolk, England. In 1628 Charles Perrault, the French author of Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Puss in Boots, was born in Paris, France. In 1729 Edmund Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland. In 1737 John Hancock was born in Braintree (now in Quincy), MA. In 1773 America's first public museum was organized in Charleston, SC. In 1781 a British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, VA. In 1856 painter John Singer Sargent was born in Florence, Italy. In 1876 author Jack London was born in San Francisco. In 1906 comedian Henny Youngman was born Liverpool, England. In 1907 Sergei Korolyov, the head Soviet rocket engineer and designer during the Space Race in the 1960s, was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. In 1915 the US House rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote. In 1932 Ed Sullivan started his radio program on CBS; he later became the host of television's The Ed Sullivan Show. Also on this day, Arkansas Democrat Mrs. Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to the US Senate. In 1944 Allied troops attacked Monte Casino, Italy; also on this day, former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier was born in Beufort, SC. In 1945 German forces in Belgium retreated in Battle of Bulge; also on this day, Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe. In 1948 the US Supreme Court ruled that states could not discriminate against law-school applicants because of race. In 1957 Elvis Presley recorded All Shook Up. In 1960 Scent of Mystery, the only film made in 'Smell-O-Vision,' opened in Chicago. In 1964 founder of Amazon.com Jeff Bezos was born in Albuquerque, NM. In 1966 television series Batman premiered on ABC TV. In 1971 President Nixon ordered development of the NASA space shuttle; also on this day, All In the Family debuted on CBS-TV. In 1976 mystery writer Agatha Christie died in Wallingford, England at age 85. In 1991 the US Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to use military power to force Iraq out of Kuwait. In 1993 memorial services were held in Paris for ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev and in New York for jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, both of whom had died on January 6. In 2001 Hewlett-Packard Corp. co-founder William Hewlett died in Palo Alto, CA at age 87. In 2005 NASA launched Deep Impact. The spacecraft was planned to impact on Comet Tempel 1 after a six-month, 268 million-mile journey. In 2010 an earthquake struck Haiti, killing over 300,000 people and destroying most of the country's capital, Port-au-Prince.