On This Day in History - January 19th - Almanac

Today is Sunday, Jan. 19, the 19th day of 2020 with 347 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars and Uranus. Evening stars are Neptune, Uranus and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include Scottish engineer James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, in 1736; Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1807; American short story writer/poet Edgar Allan Poe in 1809; French post-Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne in 1839; Ebony magazine founder John H. Johnson in 1918; former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar in 1920 (age 100); author Patricia Highsmith in 1921; actor Jean Stapleton in 1923; actor Tippi Hedren in 1930 (age 90); television newscaster Robert MacNeil in 1931 (age 89); singer Phil Everly in 1939; British stage singer/actor Michael Crawford in 1942 (age 78); singer Janis Joplin in 1943; actor Shelley Fabares in 1944 (age 76); singer Dolly Parton in 1946 (age 74); chef Paula Deen in 1947 (age 73); singer/actor Desi Arnaz Jr. in 1953 (age 67); artist Cindy Sherman in 1954 (age 66); actor Katey Sagal in 1954 (age 66); comedian Paul Rodriguez in 1955 (65); painter Thomas Kinkade in 1958; author Edwidge Danticat in 1969 (age 51); actor Shawn Wayans in 1971 (age 49); comedian Frank Caliendo in 1974 (age 46); actor Jodie Sweetin in 1982 (age 38); filmmaker Damien Chazelle in 1985 (age 35); U.S. Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Shawn Johnson in 1992 (age 28); rapper Mac Miller, born Malcolm James McCormick, in 1992; actor Logan Lerman in 1992 (age 28).

On this date in history:

In 1861, Georgia seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy.

In 1920, threats against the life of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, because of his activities in suppressing criminal radicalism, led officials to take every precaution to guard the head of the Justice Department.

In 1938, the Spanish Nationalist air force bombed Barcelona and Valencia, killing 700 civilians and wounding hundreds more.

In 1961, President Eisenhower met with his successor, John F. Kennedy, to complete plans for the transition of power. Both met privately at first before conferring with the incoming and outgoing secretaries of State, Treasury and Defense.

In 1966, Indira Gandhi was elected prime minister of India.

In 1975, China published a new Constitution that adopted the precepts and policies of Mao Zedong.

In 1977, U.S. President Gerald Ford pardoned Iva Toguri D'Aquino, who had been convicted of treason for her World War II Japanese propaganda broadcasts as Tokyo Rose.

In 1983, police in Bolivia arrested Klaus Barbie, the so-called Butcher of Lyons. Barbie was a Nazi Gestapo chief accused of for the capture, torture and deaths of thousands of Jewish people and French resistance workers in Lyon, France.

In 1995, Russian forces captured the presidential palace in the rebel republic of Chechnya.

In 2007, former U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, the only member of Congress to plead guilty in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. Ney was released after 17 months.

In 2010, Republican Scott Brown, a little-known former state senator, scored a major political upset by winning a special Massachusetts election over a heavily favored Democrat to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Democratic legend Ted Kennedy. Brown was defeated by Elizabeth Warren in the 2012 general election.

A thought for the day: "The one certain way for a woman to hold a man is to leave him for religion." -- British novelist Muriel Spark