On January 23, 1997, a day after her unanimous confirmation by the Senate, Madeline Albright is sworn in as America's first female Secretary of State. At the time, she is the highest ranking female official in the history of the U.S. government. Born in Czechoslovakia, and a refugee from the communist takeover in the late '40's, Albright earned a PhD in law and government from Columbia University and rose through the ranks of the State Department and the National Security Council. Many considered her appointment to the highest seat on the President's Cabinet to be the official breaking of the "glass ceiling" that prevented the advancement of women in business and government. On January 20, 1920, the Dutch government refuses to extradite Wilhelm II, former Kaiser of Germany. Wilhelm abdicated his position with the German surrender of World War I and fled to the Netherlands in November 1918. Declared a war criminal by the Treaty of Versailles, Wilhelm was nevertheless protected by Queen Wilhemina and allowed to settle in Holland. He was included in a blanket offer of amnesty to members of the Dutch government by Winston Churchill when the Nazis occupied Holland in 1940, but refused to leave. He died a year later. On January 20, 1984 in Madison Square Garden, Hulk Hogan defeats The Iron Shiek to win the World Wrestling Federation Championship for the first time. Hogan, born Terry Gene Bollea in Augusta, GA, had developed his "Hulk" persona over several years as a "heel" with the WWF, but began to change his image after landing a role in the film Rocky III. He was a last-minute replacement foe for the Shiek, who was originally supposed to wrestle the popular former champion Bob Backlund. Hogan electrified the crowd by entering the arena to "Eye of the Tiger" from the Rocky III soundtrack, then becoming the first wrestler to break the Shiek's "Camel Clutch" submission hold. Hogan would hold the title for 4 years and would reclaim it 4 times in his career, building a following called "Hulkamania" and becoming arguably the most popular professional wrestler of all time.
On January 24, 1965 Winston Churchill, who guided Great Britain through WWII as Prime Minister, dies in London at age 90. Born to noble blood in 1874, Churchill enjoyed a successful military career in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, but took the blame for several disastrous campaign in WWI while serving as first lord of the admiralty. Moving into politics between the wars, Churchill was recalled as first lord when WWII broke out and ascended to Prime Minister in 1940. Promising the world that GB would "never surrender", Churchill was instrumental in rallying the English people when Hitler turned his sights on them, and in orchestrating the alliance that saw GB, the US and the Soviet Union cooperate in the defeat of the Germans. On January 24, 2018, 41 A.D. Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar - known historically as Caligula - is assassinated by conspiring members of his Praetorian Guard and member of the Senate. Little is known about Caligula's accomplishments as emperor, other than his construction of two aqueducts and his annexation of Mauretania. Historians choose to focus on stories of his extravagance and sexual perversion, portraying him as an insane tyrant. On January 24, 1972, two farmers on the Pacific island of Guam are checking shrimp traps on an inland river when they encounter an elderly man who attacks them. The farmers subdue the attacker and bring him to local police. His name is Shoichi Yokoi, and he is the last survivor of 10 Japanese soldiers who had went into hiding rather than surrender when U.S. Marines occupied the island in 1944. The last of the other nine had died in 1964, and Yokoi had survived for the last nine years in a cave, coming out to hunt at night, and making clothes and primitive tools of whatever he could find. Returned to Japan, Yokoi is welcomed home as a hero (he had learned of Japan's surrender in 1952 but refused to give up). Yokoi died in 1997. The cave on Guam in which he lived for 28 years is now a tourist attraction. (Yokoi having a haircut after his discovery) Yokoi is not the last Japanese soldier to surrender. In 1974, two more are discovered, and "sightings" of holdouts hiding out on various Pacific islands are reported into the early 1990's.
Churchill is one of the greatest people in history. A minor point he wasn’t noble (related to the king) but an aristocrat being a direct descendant of the 1st Duke of Marlborough. His life in WWII is well known but what he did before was almost as amazing. A graduate of Sandhurst, England’s West Point, he served in the Calvary in India , Afghanistan and participated in the last massed calvary charge of the British Empire in Sudan. During the Boer War he became a hero for several daring actions getting into parliament. He was a minister in the British government and an early proponent of aircraft. As First Lord of the Admiralty before WWI he transformed battleship design with the Dreadnaught the first all big gun ship in history. He converted the navy from coal to oil building it into the shield that protected England through two world wars. After losing his position due to the Dardanelles disaster he served in the trenches as a colonel in the army. After the war as colonial secretary he negotiated the partition of Ireland and creation of the Irish Free State. Through all of this he had to earn money to feed his family. He won the Nobel prize for literature. Truly a protean man.
On January 25, 1968 the Israeli submarine INS Dakar disappears in the Mediterranean with her crew of 69. The Dakar was one of 3 WWII era British submarines that had been modernized and purchased by the Israelis the year before. After testing off Scotland, the Dakar sailed for her new home port of Haifa. She radioed her position on a daily basis as planned until the final position check off Crete on Jan. 24. Except for one garbled message just after midnight on the 25th, that was the last anyone heard from the Dakar. Her final position remains a mystery. On January 25, 1905 a digger in the Premier Mine of Praetoria, South Africa unearths a 3,106 carat diamond, the largest ever found. It is presented to the mine's owner, Sir Thomas Cullinan, who dubs it the Cullinan Diamond. It would be sold to the Transvaal government and presented to British King Edward VII. Sent to an Amsterdam diamond cutter, the Cullinan would be cut into 9 large diamond and about 100 smaller stones. The 2 largest stones, "The Star of Africa I" and "Star of Africa II" are 530 and 317 carats respectively, and are mounted in the Crown Jewels as part of the Royal Scepter and Imperial State Crown. The Star of Africa I alone is valued at more than $400 million. On January 25, 1949, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences holds the first Emmy Awards. The ATAS was formed 3 years earlier at the suggestion of Sid Cassyd, a former film editor and entertainment reporter who felt the fledgling medium needed an organization to foster its growth. The Emmy Award itself was designed by TV engineer Louis McManus and depicts a winged woman (McManus used his wife as the model) holding aloft an atom, to represent the collaboration of art and science. The name Emmy is a feminized version of immy, the industry name for the image orthicon tube used in the earlier TV cameras. The first Emmy was presented to ventriloquist Shirley Dinsdale for Most Outstanding Television Personality.
On January 26, 1838, the State of Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to pass a prohibition law, making it a misdemeanor for stores and taverns to sell alcoholic beverages. The law stated that the penalty for violation would be a fine set at the discretion of the local judge, and that the fines would go to funding public schools. "Temperance societies" had begun springing up around the country since the turn of the century, as Americans began growing concerned with the effects of liquor. More states will gradually follow suit over the next 80 years, leading to the nationwide Prohibition Act (the 18th Amendment) in 1917. On January 26, 1926 in London, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gives the first public demonstration of his "televisor." The device scans moving images and transmit them as electrical pulses via a cable to a low-resolution screen. Baird's work is based on a German experiment started in 1884, but his device is a big improvement. By 1928, Baird will transmit images via phone lines from London to New York, and will also demonstrate a version that transmits color images. His device is considered the first true television. On January 26, 1945, Company B, 1st Battalion, 15th Regiment, 3rd Division is attacked by German forces near the town of Holtzwihr in southern France. The company commander, a newly-field promoted 18-year old 2nd lieutenant who had just taken command that morning, orders his company to take shelter in some nearby woods. He then climbs onto a burning tank destroyer and, for the next hour, holds off the German advance with his rifle and the tank's machine gun, while simultaneously directing artillery counter-fire via a field radio. He is wounded in the process, but only retreats when he ran out of ammunition, after killing about 50 German infantrymen. For his extraordinary act of courage, Audie Murphy, already the most decorated enlisted man in U.S. Army history, will be awarded the Medal of Honor and his third award of the Purple Heart. He already had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, 2 Silver Stars, 2 Bronze Stars, the Legion of Merit, 2 distinguished unit citations, the French Legion of Honor, and 3 awards of the French Croix de Guerre. Murphy's wounds prevented his planned entry into West Point, and following the war he embarked on a moderately successfully movie career. Perhaps his best known role was portraying himself in 1950's To Hell and Back, which included a highly condensed version of his Medal of Honor heroics.
