On This Day in History - January 14th - Almanac

Today is Sunday, Jan. 14, the 14th day of 2024 with 352 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn 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; painter Berthe Morisot in 1841; 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; photographer/designer Sir Cecil Beaton in 1904; 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney in 1919; drag racing driver Don "Big Daddy" Garlits in 1932 (age 92); singer Jack Jones in 1938 (age 86); civil rights activist Julian Bond in 1940; actor Faye Dunaway in 1941 (age 83); astronaut Shannon Lucid in 1943 (age 81); actor Holland Taylor in 1943 (age 81); evangelist/actor/singer Marjoe Gortner in 1944 (age 80); journalist Nina Totenberg in 1944 (age 80); musician T. Bone Burnett in 1948 (age 76); actor Carl Weathers in 1948 (age 76); filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan in 1949 (age 75); Washington Post columnist Maureen Dowd in 1952 (age 72); film director Steven Soderbergh in 1963 (age 61); television news anchor Shepard Smith in 1964 (age 60); actor Emily Watson in 1967 (age 57), rapper/actor LL Cool J, born James Todd Smith, in 1968 (age 56); actor Jason Bateman in 1969 (age 55); rock musician Dave Grohl in 1969 (age 55); actor Kevin Durand in 1974 (age 50); rock singer Caleb Followill in 1982 (age 42); actor Emma Greenwell in 1989 (age 35); actor Grant Gustin in 1990 (age 34).

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 2020, Ken Jennings won the Jeopardy!: The Greatest of All Time competition, taking home a $1 million cash prize. He beat out other record-setting Jeopardy! contestants James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter.

In 2021, former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder pleaded not guilty to two charges related to the Flint water contamination crisis.

A thought for the day: "A hot dog at the ballpark is better than steak at the Ritz." -- American actor Humphrey Bogart