Today is Thursday, Jan. 14, the 14th day of 2021. There are 351 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
- On Jan. 13, 1784, the United States ratified the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War; Britain followed suit in April 1784.
On this date:
- In 1858, Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, and his wife, Empress Eugenie, escaped an assassination attempt led by Italian revolutionary Felice Orsini, who was later captured and executed.
- In 1914, Ford Motor Co. greatly improved its assembly-line operation by employing an endless chain to pull each chassis along at its Highland Park, Michigan, plant.
- In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and French General Charles de Gaulle opened a wartime conference in Casablanca.
- In 1963, George C. Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama with the pledge, “Segregation forever!” — a view Wallace later repudiated.
- In 1964, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, in a brief televised address, thanked Americans for their condolences and messages of support following the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, nearly two months earlier.
- In 1968, the Green Bay Packers of the NFL defeated the AFL’s Oakland Raiders, 33-14, in the second AFL-NFL World Championship game (now referred to as Super Bowl II).
- In 1970, Diana Ross and the Supremes performed their last concert together, at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.
- In 1972, the situation comedy “Sanford and Son,” starring Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson, premiered on NBC-TV.
- In 1975, the House Internal Security Committee (formerly the House Un-American Activities Committee) was disbanded.
- In 1994, President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed an accord to stop aiming missiles at any nation; the leaders joined Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk in signing an accord to dismantle the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine.
- In 2010, President Barack Obama and the U.S. moved to take charge in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, dispatching thousands of troops along with tons of aid.
- In 2013, Lance Armstrong ended a decade of denial by confessing to Oprah Winfrey during a videotaped interview that he’d used performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France.
Today’s Birthdays:
Blues singer Clarence Carter is 85. Singer Jack Jones is 83. Actor Faye Dunaway is 80. Actor Holland Taylor is 78. Actor Carl Weathers is 73. Singer-producer T-Bone Burnett is 73. Movie writer-director Lawrence Kasdan is 72. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd is 69. Rock singer Geoff Tate (Queensryche) is 62. Movie writer-director Steven Soderbergh is 58. Actor Mark Addy is 57. Former Fox News Channel anchorman Shepard Smith is 57. Actor/producer Dan Schneider is 57. Rapper Slick Rick is 56. Actor Emily Watson is 54. Actor-comedian Tom Rhodes is 54. Rock musician Zakk Wylde is 54. Rapper-actor LL Cool J is 53. Actor Jason Bateman is 52. Rock singer-musician Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) is 52. Actor Kevin Durand is 47. Actor Jordan Ladd is 46. Actor Ward Horton is 45. Actor Emayatzy Corinealdi is 41. Retro-soul singer-songwriter Marc Broussard is 39. Rock singer-musician Caleb Followill (Kings of Leon) is 39. Actor Zach Gilford is 39. Actor Jake Choi is 36. Actor Jonathan Osser is 32. Actor-singer Grant Gustin is 31. Singer/guitarist Molly Tuttle is 28.