Daily Calendar for Friday, January 3, 2025

Born

  • Lucretia Mott (social reformer) –
  • Larkin Goldsmith Mead (sculptor) –
  • J.R.R. Tolkien (author) –
  • Marion Davies (actress) –
  • Victor Borge (pianist & comedian) –
  • Joan Walsh Anglund (illustrator) –
  • Dabney Coleman (actor) –
  • Stephen Stills (musician) –
  • John Paul Jones (musician) –
  • Mel Gibson (actor) –
  • Eli Manning (football player) –
  • Greta Thunberg (Swedish environmental activist ) –

Died

  • Jack Ruby (convicted killer of Lee Harvey Oswald) –
  • Conrad Hilton (hotelier) –
  • Alfred Henry "Freddy" Heineken (Dutchman who helped make his namesake beer one of the world’s most popular) –

Events

  • Martin Luther was formally excomunicated from the Roman Catholic church by Pope Leo X–
  • General George Washington defeated the British under Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton–
  • First covered skating rink in Canada opened, in Halifax, Nova Scotia–
  • Construction began on the Brooklyn Bridge in N.Y.C.–
  • First free kindergarten opened, Florence, Massachusetts–
  • Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000 and a $350,000 loan. The loan was to finance Frazee’s Broadway production of the musical No, No, Nanette–
  • Benito Mussolini proclaimed a Fascist dictatorship in Italy–
  • British broadcaster of propaganda from Nazi Germany during WW II, William Joyce (nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw), was hanged in Great Britain for treason–
  • Dragnet made its television debut–
  • Members of the newly created U.S. Civil Rights Commision took office–
  • President Eisenhower signed proclamation making Alaska the 49th state–
  • Moscow State Symphony first Soviet orchestra to play in the United States (in N.Y.C.).–
  • The U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Cuba–
  • The Vatican excommunicated Cuban premier, Fidel Castro, from the Roman Catholic church–
  • Times Beach, Missouri, declared a federal disaster area after fall floods spread dangerous amounts of the toxic chemical dioxin–
  • Soprano Leontyne Price made her farewell appearance at New York’s Metropolitan Opera–
  • Aretha Franklin became the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame–
  • Miss Canada pageant canceled due to costs and changing times–
  • Spirit rover landed on Mars–

Weather

  • Greatest accumulation of ice ever in U.S. history after 3 day period, 8 inches in Idaho–
  • Fifty degrees below zero F at Canton, New York–
  • Areas of northern Fairfield County in Connecticut received up to an inch of ice.–