29 January

Events

• 1676 - Feodor III becomes Tsar of Russia
• 1845 - The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is published for the first time (New York Evening Mirror).
• 1850 - Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the United States Congress
• 1856 - Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross
• 1861 - Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.
• 1886 - Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.
• 1891 - Liliuokalani proclaimed Queen of Hawaii
• 1900 - The American League is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with 8 founding teams.
• 1916 - World War I: Paris is bombed by German zeppelins for the first time.
• 1929 - Seeing Eye Dog organization is formed
• 1933 - President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany
• 1936 - First inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced
• 1944 - Battleship Missouri is launched
• 1944 - Battle of Cisterna in central Italy
• 1963 - First inductees into the Football Hall of Fame are announced
• 1964 - 1964 Winter Olympic Games open in Innsbruck, Austria
• 1958 - Police capture Charles Starkweather in Wyoming.
• 1966 - The first of 608 performances of Sweet Charity opens at the Palace Theatre in New York City.
• 1990 - The trial of the former skipper of the Exxon Valdez, Joseph Hazelwood, begins in Anchorage, Alaska. He is accused of negligence that resulted in America's worst oil spill.
• 1995 - Super Bowl XXIX: The San Francisco 49ers defeat the San Diego Chargers 49-26 and become the first NFL team to win five Super Bowl titles.
• 1996 - President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear testing.
• 1996 - La Fenice, the opera house of Venice, Italy, is destroyed by fire.
• 1998 - In Birmingham, Alabama a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic killing one and severely wounding another. Serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph is suspected as the culprit.
• 2001 - Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia storm parliament and demand that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals.

Births

• 1688 - Emanuel Swedenborg, naturalist and theosophist, (d. 1772)
• 1717 - Jeffrey Amherst, British Military leader, (d. 1797)
• 1737 - Thomas Paine, patriot, radical, pamphleteer, (d. 1809)
• 1749 - King Christian VII of Denmark, (d. 1808)
• 1843 - William McKinley, 25th President of the United States, (d. 1901
• 1860 - Anton Chekhov, playwright and short story writer, (d. 1904)
• 1862 - Frederick Delius, composer, (d. 1934)
• 1866 - Romain Rolland, dramatist, winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1915, (d. 1944)
• 1874 - John D. Rockefeller Jr., entrepreneur, (d. 1960)
• 1876 - Havergal Brian, composer, (d. 1972)
• 1880 - W.C. Fields, actor, (d. 1946)
• 1885 - Leadbelly, musician, (d. 1949)
• 1901 - Allen Du Mont, television pioneer
• 1905 - Barnett Newman, painter, (d. 1970)
• 1911 - Peter von Siemens, industrialist, (d. 1986)
• 1913 - Peter von Zahn, journalist and writer
• 1915 - Victor Mature, actor, (d. 1999)
• 1917 - John Raitt, actor, singer
• 1918 - John Forsythe, actor
• 1923 - Paddy Chayefsky, writer, (d. 1981)
• 1924 - Luigi Nono, composer, (d. 1990)
• 1927 - Edward Abbey, environmentalist, (d. 1989)
• 1939 - Germaine Greer, writer, feminist
• 1950 - Jody Scheckter, South Africa racing driver
• 1945 - Tom Selleck, actor
• 1954 - Oprah Winfrey, actress, talk show host, producer, publisher
• 1960 - Greg Louganis, Olympics gold medalist in swimming
• 1968 - Edward Burns, actor
• 1970 - Heather Graham, actress
• 1970 - Sean Scullion, activist & author
• 1975 - Sara Gilbert, actress
• 1981 - Jonny Lang, musician
• 1982 - Arthur O'Keeffe

Deaths

• 1743 - Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus, chief minister of France under Louis XV (b. 1653)
• 1820 - King George III of the United Kingdom (b. 1738)
• 1837 - Aleksandr Pushkin, Russian poet (b. 1799)
• 1906 - King Christian IX of Denmark (b. 1818)
• 1928 - Douglas Haig, British soldier (b. 1861)
• 1933 - Sara Teasdale, poet (b. 1884)
• 1946 - Harry Hopkins, politician
• 1963 - Robert Frost, poet (b. 1874)
• 1964 - Alan Ladd, actor
• 1969 - Allen Dulles, Director of the CIA (b. 1893)
• 1977 - Freddie Prinze, actor, comedian (b. 1954)
• 1980 - Jimmy Durante, actor, singer, comedian, vaudevillian (b. 1893)
• 1991 - Yasushi Inoue, historian
• 1992 - Willie Dixon, composer, musician (b. 1915)
• 1994 - Ulrike Maier, alpine skiing world champion, in a downhill skiing accident (b. 1967)
• 1999 - Lili St. Cyr, exotic dancer (b. 1918)
• 2002 - Harold Russell, actor
• 2002 - Daniel Pearl, journalist (one possible date) (b. 1963)
• 2003 - Frank Moss, U.S. Senator from Utah (b. 1911)

Holidays and observances

January 28 - January 30 - December 29 - February 29 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Referenced By