On This Day in History - January 10th - Almanac

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 10, the 10th day of 2017 with 356 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury. Evening stars are Neptune, Venus, Mars and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include; silent screen actor Francis X. Bushman in 1883; poet Robinson Jeffers in 1887; actor Ray Bolger in 1904; actor Paul Henreid in 1908; Max Patkin, the Clown Prince of Baseball, in 1920; singer Johnnie Ray in 1927; musician Ronnie Hawkins (The Band) in 1935 (age 82), historian Stephen Ambrose in 1936; actor Sal Mineo in 1939; Olympic decathlon champion Bill Toomey in 1939 (age 78); singer Jim Croce in 1943; singer Frank Sinatra Jr. in 1944; singer-songwriter Rod Stewart (Faces) in 1945 (age 72); musician Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) in 1948 (age 69); actor William Sanderson in 1948 (age 69); X-rated film actor Linda Lovelace in 1949; boxer George Foreman in 1949 (age 68); singer Pat Benatar in 1953 (age 64); singer Shawn Colvin in 1956 (age 61); and New Zealand screenwriter Fran Walsh in 1959 (age 58).

On this date in history:

In 1789, the first nationwide U.S. presidential election was conducted. Electors chosen by the voters unanimously picked George Washington as president and John Adams as vice president.

In 1861, Florida seceded from the United States.

In 1878, a constitutional amendment that would give women the right to vote was introduced into the U.S. Senate. It wasn't until 42 years later that the amendment was enacted.

In 1901, oil was discovered at the Spindletop claim near Beaumont, Texas, launching the Southwest oil boom.

In 1920, the League of Nations came into being as the Treaty of Versailles went into effect.

In 1946, the first meeting of the U.N. General Assembly convened in London.

In 1957, "Six dynamite blasts heavily damaged four Negro churches [in Montgomery, AL] and the homes of two ministers early today...It was the worst flareup of racial violence in the South's bus integration movement. -- There were no injuries."

In 1984, the United States established full diplomatic relations with the Vatican for the first time in 116 years.

In 2003, North Korea announced it was withdrawing from the 1979 nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

In 2008, Edmund Hillary, who gained international fame as a member of the first climbing party to scale Mount Everest, died in Auckland, New Zealand, at age 88.

In 2011, Mississippi sisters Gladys and Jamie Scott, in their 30s, were released from prison after serving 16 years of life sentences for an $11 armed robbery Their sentences were suspended on the condition that Gladys donate a kidney to her sister, who required daily dialysis.

In 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama chose White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew as the next secretary of the Treasury Department.

In 2014, Target said personal information on 70 million to 110 million of its customers was stolen during a holiday-period security breach. The upper total was nearly triple the figure earlier reported by the company.

A thought for the day: "The Constitution was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness." -- Woodrow Wilson