This day in history...

I borrowed the Gefilter from Neil, Geddy and Alex, of course.

 

Paddleball is a huge Easter tradition in my wife's family; they always each (8 kids) got one in their Easter baskets.

 

On January 25, 1971, in Los Angeles, California, cult leader Charles Manson and four of his followers are convicted in the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others. All four were sentenced to death, but the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty a year later, and Manson and his followers’ death sentences were reduced to life imprisonment. Manson died in prison in 2017.


On January 25, 1924, athletes from around the globe gather in Chamonix in the French Alps for "International Winter Sports Week." Spectators are thrilled by the ski jump and bobsled as well as 12 other events involving a total of six sports, which are mostly dominated by Scandinavian competitors. Meanwhile, the International Olympics Committee has been trying for more than 10 years to organize a Winter Olympics separate from the summer games (ice hockey was contested at the 1920 games in Antwerp). In 1925, the IOC retroactively designated the International Winter Sports Week, which it had originally sanctioned, to be the first Winter Olympics.

On January 25, 1995, Russia gets a nuke scare. The country's early-warning defense radar detects an unexpected missile launch near Norway, and Russian military command estimates the missile to be only minutes from impact on Moscow. Moments later, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, his defense minister, and his chief of staff were informed of the missile launch. The nuclear command systems switched to combat mode, and the nuclear suitcases carried by Yeltsin and his top commander are activated for the first time in the history of the Soviet-made weapons system. Five minutes after the launch detection, Russian command determined that the missile’s impact point would be outside Russia’s borders. Three more minutes passed, and Yeltsin was informed that the launching was likely not part of a surprise nuclear strike by Western nuclear submarines. These conclusions came minutes before Yeltsin and his commanders should have ordered a nuclear response based on standard launch protocols. Later, it was revealed that the missile was carrying a scientific package, and that Russia had been notified of the impending launch 9 days in advance. But no one in the defense ministry passed the word to the early-warning center of the imminent launch.

 

On January 26, 1950, the Republic of India is born. Led by Mohandus Gandhi's passive resistance movement, the people of India have struggled for independence from Great Britain for decades. Self-rule had been promised during World War II, but differences between the Hindu and Muslim populations slowed the process. Eventually, Lord Mountbatten, the viceroy of India, forced through a compromise plan, dividing the former Mogul Empire into the independent nations of India and Pakistan.

On January 26, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip guides a fleet of 11 British ships carrying convicts to the colony of New South Wales on the Australian continent. Phillips was commissioned by the British government 2 years earlier to establish an agricultural work camp for prisoners on the island. His first party of about a thousand colonists includes 700 convicts. Left to his own conscience as to how to govern the colony, Phillips was harsh but fair, flogging and sometimes hanging troublesome colonists but also appointing convicts to positions of oversight and responsibility. He told the government before setting sail,"In a new country there will be no slavery and hence no slaves.” By the turn of the 19th century the colony had begun to prosper, and the colonists begin to rally around the January 26 date as their founding day. In 1818, January 26 became an official holiday, marking the 30th anniversary of British settlement in Australia. As Australia became a sovereign nation, it became the national holiday known as Australia Day.

On January 26, 1998, President Bill Clinton holds a televised press conference in which he tells the nation,"I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Enough said.

 

On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops enter Auschwitz, Poland, freeing the survivors of the network of concentration camps. The Western World gets its first glimpses of the true nature of The Holocaust.

January 27, 1967: Fire - caused by faulty wiring - breaks out in the command capsule of the Apollo 1 spacecraft during a pre-launch test, killing astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chafee.

On January 27, 1973, The Paris Peace Accord brings an end to the Viet Nam War. The United States, South Vietnam, Viet Cong, and North Vietnam are signatories, but there are actually two versions of the treaty. South Vietnam’s refusal to recognize the Viet Cong’s Provisional Revolutionary Government results in a 2nd accord which does not mention the VC government.

What will you produce today? On January 27, 1970, John Lennon writes and records Instant Karma, one of his most successful songs as a solo artist. “I wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch and we’re putting it out for dinner,” Lennon said later. Actually, the song wasn't "put out" for another 13 days, but Lennon did in fact write and record the song in a single day.

 

On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing all 7 aboard. The dead include Christa McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, who won a competition to earn the first seat on a shuttle to go to an ordinary US citizen. The disaster grounds the space shuttle program for 2 years, until investigators determine that the cold weather on the morning of the launch caused an O-ring seal on of the solid fuel booster rockets to fail, causing a chain reaction of events that resulted in the explosion.


On January 28, 1973 at 8am local time, a cease-fire goes into effect across Viet Nam, as agreed to the previous day by the Paris Peace Accord. But its only temporary; over the next two days, South Vietnamese forces continued to take back villages occupied by communists in the two days before the cease-fire deadline and the communists tried to capture additional territory. A seamingly unending chain of retaliations follow. Its estimate nearly 3,000 combat incidents a month will continue to occur over the next 11 months, resulting in about 60,000 deaths on both sides.

On January 28, 1985, dozens of pop music's biggest stars relocate themselves from that night's American Music Awards to a nearby studio, where they will record "We Are The World." Producer Quincy Jones posted a message for those participating: "Check your egos at the door.” There were undoubtably some huge egos present; in addition to songwriters Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, the participants included Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, Tina Turner, Paul Simon, Smokey Robinson, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Diana Ross and several of Jackson's recording artist brothers and sisters. Singer/activist Harry Belafonte also sang and gets credit for starting the movement that leads to this night, inspired by the success of "Do They Know Its Christmas", recorded by a collection of British and Irish rockers the previous year under the name Band Aid. The group gets the song recorded in a single night, and "We Are The World" is released for sale 5 weeks later. It goes on to sell more than 7 million copies and raises more than $60 million for African famine relief.