On This Day in History - January 14th - Almanac

Today is Monday, Jan. 14, the 14th day of 2019 with 351 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include Roman general Mark Antony in 83 B.C.; American turncoat Gen. Benedict Arnold in 1741; Thornton Waldo Burgess, author of Peter Rabbit, in 1874; philosopher/medical missionary/Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer in 1875; novelist John Dos Passos in 1896; 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney in 1919; drag racing driver Don "Big Daddy" Garlits in 1932 (age 87); singer Jack Jones in 1938 (age 81); civil rights activist Julian Bond in 1940; actor Faye Dunaway in 1941 (age 78); astronaut Shannon Lucid in 1943 (age 76); actor Holland Taylor in 1943 (age 76); evangelist/actor/singer Marjoe Gortner in 1944 (age 75); journalist Nina Totenberg in 1944 (age 75); musician T. Bone Burnett in 1948 (age 71); actor Carl Weathers in 1948 (age 71); Washington Post columnist Maureen Dowd in 1952 (age 67); filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan in 1949 (age 70); film director Steven Soderbergh in 1963 (age 56); television news anchor Shepard Smith in 1964 (age 55); actor Emily Watson in 1967 (age 52), rapper/actor LL Cool J, born James Todd Smith, in 1968 (age 51); actor Jason Bateman in 1969 (age 50); rock musician Dave Grohl in 1969 (age 50); actor Kevin Durand in 1974 (age 45); rock singer Caleb Followill (Kings of Leon) in 1982 (age 37); actor Emma Greenwell in 1989 (age 30); actor Grant Gustin in 1990 (age 29).

On this date in history:

In 1794, Dr. Jesse Bennett of Edom, Va., performed the first successful Caesarean section.

In 1907, an earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica, killed more than 1,000 people.

In 1935, a semi-official check of voters in the Saar plebiscite indicated that nearly 80 percent were in favor of reunification with Germany. A victory for Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

In 1943, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill opened a 10-day World War II strategy conference in Casablanca, Morocco.

In 1952, NBC's Today premiered. It was the program that started the morning news show format as it is now known.

In 1953, Josip Broz Tito was chosen president of Yugoslavia. He would serve until May 1980.

In 1954, Marilyn Monroe married baseball star Joe DiMaggio. The two would divorce less than a year later.

In 1963, George Wallace was inaugurated as the governor of Alabama, promising his followers, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

In 1969, a series of explosions aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise off Hawaii killed 27 men.

In 1993, David Letterman accepted a multimillion-dollar deal to move his late-night talk show to CBS in August after his NBC contract expired.

In 2005, a U.S. Army reservist, Spc. Charles Graner, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for abusing detainees at Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Graner, who said he didn't regret his actions, was released from prison after 6 1/2 years.

In 2007, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and the judge who approved the 1982 killing of 148 Shiite men and boys were executed by hanging in Baghdad. Saddam was hanged two weeks earlier.

In 2011, anti-government protesters forced the ouster of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

In 2012, a suicide bomber disguised as a policeman targeted Shiite pilgrims near the southern Iraqi city of Basra, killing at least 53 people and wounding 137.

In 2012, Taiwanese President Ma Ying Jeou was re-elected.

A thought for the day: "We're being ripped off and screwed by a bunch of liars, thieves, crooks, and criminals, and they're not the folks below. Don't look in the streets; look in the corporate suites!" -- Jerry Brown