January 29

January 29 is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 336 days remaining, (337 in leap years).

Events

• 904 – Sergius III comes out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed Pope Christopher.
• 1595 – William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet is probably first performed.
• 1676 – Feodor III becomes Tsar of Russia.
• 1814 – France defeated Russia and Prussia in the Battle of Brienne.
• 1845 – The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is published for the first time (New York Evening Mirror).
• 1850 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.
• 1856 – Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross.
• 1861 – Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.
• 1863 – Bear River Massacre
• 1886 – Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.
• 1891 – Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen of Hawaii, its last monarch.
• 1900 – The American League is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with 8 founding teams.
• 1916 – World War I: Paris is first bombed by German zeppelins .
• 1929 – The Seeing Eye Dog organization is formed.
• 1933 – President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.
• 1936 – The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced.
• 1944 – Battleship Missouri is launched.
• 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cisterna takes place in central Italy.
• 1944 – World War II: About 300 men, women, and children die in the Massacre in Koniuchy in Poland.
• 1959 – Sleeping Beauty, the last animated feature produced by Walt Disney to be based upon a fairy tale, was first released.
• 1963 – First inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame are announced.
• 1964 – 1964 Winter Olympic Games open in Innsbruck, Austria.
• 1958 – Police capture Charles Starkweather in Wyoming.
• 1966 – The first of 608 performances of Sweet Charity opens at the Palace Theatre in New York City.
• 1986 – The Height 611 UFO Incident
• 1990 – The trial of the former skipper of the Exxon Valdez, Joseph Hazelwood, begins in Anchorage, Alaska. He is accused of negligence that resulted in America's worst oil spill.
• 1995 – Super Bowl XXIX: The San Francisco 49ers defeat the San Diego Chargers 49–26 and become the first NFL team to win five Super Bowl titles.
• 1996 – President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear testing.
• 1996 – La Fenice, Venice's opera house, is destroyed by fire.
• 1996 – First release of Duke Nukem 3D.
• 1998 – In Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic, killing one and severely wounding another. Serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph is suspected as the culprit.
• 2001 – Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia storm parliament and demand that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals.
• 2002 – In his State of the Union Address, United States President George W. Bush describes "regimes that sponsor terror" as an Axis of Evil.
• 2004 – A whale explodes in the town of Tainan, Taiwan. A build-up of gas in the decomposing 56-foot long Sperm whale is suspected of causing the explosion.

Births

• 1688 – Emanuel Swedenborg, naturalist and theosophist (d. 1772)
• 1717 – Jeffrey Amherst, British Military leader (d. 1797)
• 1737 – Thomas Paine, American patriot, radical, pamphleteer (d. 1809)
• 1749 – King Christian VII of Denmark (d. 1808)
• 1843 – William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (d. 1901)
• 1860 – Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short story writer (d. 1904)
• 1862 – Frederick Delius, English composer (d. 1934)
• 1866 – Romain Rolland, French dramatist, winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1915 (d. 1944)
• 1874 – John D. Rockefeller Jr., American entrepreneur (d. 1960)
• 1876 – Havergal Brian, composer (d. 1972)
• 1880 – W.C. Fields, American actor (d. 1946)
• 1885 – Leadbelly, musician (d. 1949)
• 1898 – Angel Ortíz de Villajos Cano, Spanish musician and composer
• 1901 – Allen Du Mont, television pioneer
• 1905 – Barnett Newman, painter (d. 1970)
• 1911 – Peter von Siemens, German industrialist (d. 1986)
• 1913 – Peter von Zahn, German journalist and writer (d. 2001)
• 1915 – Victor Mature, American actor (d. 1999)
• 1918 – John Forsythe, actor
• 1923 – Paddy Chayefsky, writer (d. 1981)
• 1923 – Ivo Robic, singer and songwriter (d. 2000)
• 1924 – Luigi Nono, Italian composer (d. 1990)
• 1926 – Franco Cerri, Italian jazzman
• 1926 – Abdus Salam, Pakistani physicist, co-winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics (d. 1996)
• 1927 – Edward Abbey, environmentalist (d. 1989)
• 1929 – Gordon Solie, professional wrestling announcer (d. 2000)
• 1932 – Tommy Taylor, English footballer (d. 1958)
• 1939 – Germaine Greer, writer, feminist
• 1940 – Katharine Ross, American actress
• 1942 – Claudine Longet, French singer, dancer
• 1945 – Tom Selleck, actor
• 1947 – Linda B. Buck, scientist
• 1948 – Marc Singer, Canadian actor
• 1950 – Jody Scheckter, South African racing driver
• 1950 – Ann Jillian, American actress
• 1952 – Tommy Ramone, Hungarian-American musician and record producer, drummer with The Ramones
• 1954 – Oprah Winfrey, actress, talk show host, producer, publisher
• 1954 – Yukinobu Hoshino, Japanese mangaka
• 1960 – Greg Louganis, Olympics gold medalist in diving
• 1960 – Gia Carangi, supermodel (d. 1986)
• 1962 – Nicholas Turturro, American actor
• 1964 – Andre Reed, American football player
• 1965 – Dominik Hasek, NHL goalie
• 1968 – Edward Burns, actor
• 1970 – Heather Graham, actress
• 1970 – Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, shooter
• 1973 – Jason Schmidt, Major League Baseball All-Star
• 1975 – Sara Gilbert, actress
• 1976 – Grigorios Paliouras, Canadian, scientist
• 1978 – Mikko Kent, Finnish-American Consultant
• 1981 – Jonny Lang, musician

Deaths

• 1119 – Pope Gelasius II
• 1743 – Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus, chief minister of France under Louis XV (b. 1653)
• 1820 – King George III of the United Kingdom (b. 1738)
• 1870 – Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1797)
• 1906 – King Christian IX of Denmark (b. 1818)
• 1928 – Douglas Haig, British soldier (b. 1861)
• 1933 – Sara Teasdale, American poet (b. 1884)
• 1946 – Harry Hopkins, politician
• 1951 – Frank Tarrant, Australian cricketer (b. 1880).
• 1956 – H. L. Mencken, journalist
• 1962 – Fritz Kreisler, Austrian violinist (b. 1875)
• 1963 – Robert Frost, American poet (b. 1874)
• 1964 – Alan Ladd, actor
• 1969 – Allen Dulles, American director of the Central Intelligence Agency (b. 1893)
• 1970 – Basil Liddell Hart, military historian (b. 1895)
• 1977 – Freddie Prinze, actor, comedian (b. 1954)
• 1980 – Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer, and comedian (b. 1893)
• 1986 – Leif Erickson, American actor
• 1991 – Yasushi Inoue, historian
• 1992 – Willie Dixon, composer, musician (b. 1915)
• 1994 – Ulrike Maier, skier (skiing accident) (b. 1967)
• 1998 – Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco
• 1999 – Lili St. Cyr, exotic dancer (b. 1918)
• 2002 – Harold Russell, actor
• 2002 – Dick "Night Train" Lane, American football player
• 2003 – Frank Moss, U.S. Senator from Utah (b. 1911)
• 2004 – Joe Viterelli, American actor
• 2005 – Eric Griffiths, guitarist (The Quarrymen) (b. 1940)

External links

• BBC: On This Day

January 28 – January 30 – December 29 – February 29 — listing of all days