Judi’s Reviews > On This Day: The History of the World in 366 Days > Status Update

January 11

'Tis the star-spangled banner;
O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free,
and the home of the brave!
Francis Scott Key, lyricist, who died today, 1814.

January 10

1839 Indian tea is auctioned for the first time in Britain.

January 9

This vice brings in one hundred million francs in taxes every year. I will certainly forbid it at once — as soon as you can name a virtue that brings in as much revenue,
Napoleon III, upon being asked to ban smoking. The emperor died today in exile in Kent at the age of 65 — 1873.

January 8

1895 French poet Paul Verlaine dies in poverty.

January 7

1970 Woodstock Festival — the biggest-ever rock event, held over three days last August with an attendance of half a million — caused $35,000 damage, neighbours claimed today in a civil action against Max Yasgur, the farmer who owns the land on which the festival was held.

January 6 Twelfth Night

1884 Gregor Mendel, the Austrian botanist who discovered the principles governing the inheritance of characteristics in living things, dies aged 62.

January 5

How could they tell?
Dorothy Parker, US writer, on being told that John Calvin Coolidge, 30th US president, had died today, 1933.

January 3

Human law is only by virtue of its accordance with right reason, and by this means it is clear that if flows from eternal law. In so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; and in such a case, it is no law at all, but rather an assertion of violence.

Thomas Aquinas, who died today in Rome, 1274.

January 2

1769 The British Royal Academy opens with painter Sir Joshua Reynolds as its first president.

January 1

AMERICA SLAVES "MUST BE UNCHAINED"

1863 As civil war rages in America, President Abraham Lincoln today declared freedom for all slaves in the southern states that have rebelled against his government. In Washington huge crowds of emancipated slaves celebrated the announcement, which honours a pledge made but the President before the war began. "The old South must be destroyed and replaced by new ...