Today, January 5, 2026
January 5: Christmastide (Christide, Christmastime, The 12 Days Of Christmas): The Twelfth Day Of Christmas: Twelfth Night (Epiphany Eve)" -- A festival observed on the evening of the Twelfth Day of Christmas in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany the following day. In Western Christianity, Epiphany is the feast that commemorates principally the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, also known as Three Kings' Day and in some traditions as Little Christmas, which celebrates the revelation (theophany) of God incarnate as Jesus Christ. Different traditions mark the date of Twelfth Night as either January 6, with the counting beginning on December 26 (Saint Stephen's Day, The Feast Of Saint Stephen). A superstition in some English-speaking countries suggests it unlucky to leave Christmas decorations hanging after Twelfth Night (a tradition also variously attached to the festivals of Candlemas (February 2), Good Friday, Shrove Tuesday, and Septuagesima). Popular customs include eating king cake (also known as a three king's cake), singing Christmas carols, chalking the door (on the front door of one's home to bless the home), having one's house blessed, merrymaking, and attending church services. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/the-birth-of-jesus-holy-child-dvd-mp4-download-usb-flash-driv4.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5: National Screenwriters Day: -- On January 5, when the credits roll on your favorite show or movie, admire the writers! You've probably heard of Steven Spielberg, the great director, who is known for Saving Private Ryan, Raiders of The Lost Arc, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. But do you know that Spielberg didn't write any of those movies? They were all written by the screenwriter (Robert Rodat, Lawerence Kasdan, and Melissa Mathison respectively). Inside the industry, these screenwriters are well known for their ability. They crack the story, create great roles for actors, and write memorable dialogue. But there are also writers in living rooms all around the world, tapping away at their keyboards, writing what could be the next breakout movie! Go to the National Screenwriters Day website to find out the latest updates and see interviews with top screenwriters about their mysterious vocation. You should also look up the origins of your favorite movie. Who is the screenwriter? Then, send a shoutout using #NationalScreenwritersDay on social media! The website ScreenwritingU, the leading education source for screenwriters worldwide, founded National Screenwriters Day. Its purpose is to recognize the talents behind the scripts coming out of the television and film world. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/preston-sturges-the-rise-and-fall-of-an-american-dreamer-dvd.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5: Carver Day: -- January 5, 1943: #DOTD: #RIP: George Washington Carver, the most prominent black scientist of the early 20th century, known as "Black Leonardo (da Vinci)", American agricultural scientist, Tuskegee Institute professor, environmentalist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion (Birthdate Unknown, 1864) #dies at the age of 79 from anemia that resulted from a bad fall he had taking down a flight of stairs in his home; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. He is buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. Due to his frugality, Carver's life savings totaled 60K USD, all of which he donated in his last years and at his death to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation. On his grave it iss written, "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world." George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Diamond Grove (now Diamond), Newton County, Missouri, near Crystal Place, sometime in the mid-1860s. On June 18, 1941, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Rochester. While at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee, Alabama, Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially successful. Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a "Black Leonardo". On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/black-civil-rights-films-africanamerican-history-dvd.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1875: White Supremacy: Terrorism: Anti-Black Racism: Anti-Black Racism In The United States: Race Riots: Race Riots In The United States: The Reconstruction Era (Reconstruction): The Freedmen Massacres: The Vicksburg Massacre (The Vicksburg Riot): -- President Ulysses S. Grant, who had captured Vicksburg, Mississippi during the American Civil War on July 4, 1863, was forced to send Federal troops back to Vicksburg, eleven years later, to quell riots between freedmen and white residents of the city. During Reconstruction, former slaves were granted citizenship and the vote by the 14th and 15th Amendments. The freedmen eagerly registered and flooded the polls, while many former Confederates were not allowed to vote. In Mississippi's 1874 election, the Republican Party carried a 30,000 majority in what had been a Democratic Party stronghold when only whites voted. Republicans took the governor's office and some legislative seats. In August 1874, the Vicksburg city government elected a White reform party consisting of Republicans and Democrats. White city officials went after the county government, which had a majority of African Americans. Rather than using legal means, the White League threatened the life of Peter Crosby, the black county sheriff and tax collector. Crosby escaped and took a train to Jackson, Mississippi. In Jackson the Governor, Adelbert Ames, of Massachusetts, was a former Union general, who had earned the Medal Of Honor for his actions at First Manassas in 1861. Ames had no forces to send, and depended on the national government for troops to reinstate ousted officials. Crosby returned to Vicksburg where he was arrested by members of the White League. On December 7, 1874, a group of blacks marched into Vicksburg from the countryside to restore him to power and were met by an armed militia made up of whites, some Democrats and some Republicans. The leader of the black militia was allowed to visit Crosby in jail where the deposed sheriff told his supporters to go home. They were outnumbered and outgunned. As the black militia was turning to leave town, the group of whites opened fire. In the fighting, two whites and 29 blacks were killed. Some historians estimate as many as 300 people were killed in the ensuing violence. Both sides gave differing versions of the sequence of events. On December 21, Grant gave a Presidential Proclamation for the people in Vicksburg to stop fighting. Philip Sheridan in Louisiana dispatched troops who reinstated Crosby as sheriff and restored the peace. In early 1875, J.P. Gilmer, a white man, was hired to serve as Crosby's deputy. Gilmer was a former Confederate from Alabama who had moved to Mississippi and joined the Republican Party. Gilmer had established a store in Scooba, Mississippi, but left after killing a man. After a disagreement, Crosby tried to have Gilmer removed from office. Gilmer responded by shooting Crosby in the head on June 7, 1875. Gilmer was arrested for attempted assassination, but never brought to trial. Crosby survived the wound but never made a full recovery. Although the troops Grant sent stopped the riot, problems in Mississippi persisted. In 1875, under what became known as "The Mississippi Plan", the Democrats conducted a political battle to reverse Republican strength in the state. White paramilitary organizations such as the Red Shirts arose to serve as "the military arm of the Democratic Party." Black voters were intimidated by violence and the Democrats were able to regain control of the legislature. The success of the plan in Mississippi was followed in South Carolina and North Carolina. The military occupation of Southern states to maintain order proved unpopular and in 1877 the Republican Party agreed to remove the troops and allow the Democrats to regain control. This Compromise of 1877 allowed a Republican to be chosen as President in the disputed election of 1876. Reconstruction had ended and white southerners and the Democratic Party would control politics in most southern states until the 1960's. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/sold-down-the-river-black-liberty39s-loss-after-civil-war-dvd-mp4-394.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1882: #BOTD: #HBD! Herbert Bayard Swope, American editor and journalist who spent most of his career at the New York World, the first and three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Reporting, member and intimate of the precursor to the Algonquin Round Table known as the Thanatopsis Inside Straight and Pleasure Club, called the "best reporter in America" by Lord Northcliffe of the London Daily Mail, known for saying, "I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time", credited with coining the phrase "Cold War" (d. June 20, 1958) is #born in St. Louis, Missouri, to German immigrants Ida Cohn and Isaac Swope, a watchcase maker. He was the youngest of four children - the younger brother of businessman and General Electric president Gerard Swope. Swope was the first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Reporting in 1917 for a series of articles that year entitled "Inside the German Empire". The articles formed the basis for a book released in 1917 entitled Inside the German Empire: In the Third Year of the War (ISBN 9781436646178), which he co-authored with James W. Gerard. Swope led the official press delegation at the Paris Peace Conference. In 1920, he became executive editor of the New York World and remained in the role for nine years until his resignation in 1929 following a disagreement with its owners. Following the U.S. declaring war on Germany, Swope became the assistant of his friend Bernard Baruch of the War Industries Board. From 1942 to 1946, he was personal consultant to the U.S. Secretary of War. He was spokesman for Baruch when Baruch was U.S. delegate to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. Although standard editorial pages have been printed by newspapers for many centuries, Swope established the first modern op-ed page in 1921. When he took over as editor in 1920, he realized that the page opposite the editorials was "a catchall for book reviews, society boilerplate, and obituaries." Swope served as the editor for New York World's 21-day crusade against the Ku Klux Klan in October 1921, which won the newspaper the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1922. As an example of investigative journalism, it was ranked 81st of the top 100 journalism stories of the 20th century by New York University's journalism department. His home was known as Land's End, Prospect Point, Sands Point, New York. He hosted parties with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, Winston Churchill, Averell Harriman, Albert Einstein, Alexander Woollcott - as well as F. Scott Fitzgerald. These associations, along with other similarities to the houses and events in The Great Gatsby, helped give rise to reports that Fitzgerald had modeled Daisy Buchanan's home in the 1925 novel after Swope's home. It was purchased in 1921 by Malcolm D. Sloane, whose wife renamed the estate "Keewaydin". The house had been a site for a Vanity Fair photo shoot with Madonna and had been a location for the 1978 shooting of The Greek Tycoon, a film on the life of Aristotle Onassis. Keith Richards' family lived there for a time in the early 1980s. On April 16, 1947, Bernard Baruch, American financier, statesman and influential advisor to Democratic presidents who exerted great political and economic influence on world affairs during the first half of the twentieth century, read a speech during the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House Of Representatives written by Herbert Bayard Swope, which proclaimed "Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war" to describe the deteriorating relations between the United States and the Soviet Union -- a speech since known as he "We Are Today In The Midst Of A Cold War" Speech. Newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann gave the term wide currency with his book The Cold War. When asked in 1947 about the source of the term, Lippmann traced it to a French term from the 1930s, "La Guerre Froide". The descriptor "Cold War" immediately found common currency in the public domain, and became was the label of choice to refer to state of East-West relations until the fall of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991. The definition of the term "cold war" has now become fixed as a war waged through indirect conflict. Historically, a Cold War is a state of conflict between nations that does not involve direct military action but is pursued primarily through economic and political actions, propaganda, acts of espionage or proxy wars waged by surrogates. This term is most commonly used to refer to the American-Soviet Cold War of 1947-1989. The surrogates are typically states that are satellites of the conflicting nations, i.e., nations allied to them or under their political influence. Opponents in a cold war will often provide economic or military aid, such as weapons, tactical support or military advisors, to lesser nations involved in conflicts with the opposing country. The expression "cold war" was rarely used before 1945. Some writers credit the fourteenth century Spaniard Don Juan Manuel for first using the term (in Spanish) regarding the conflict between Christianity and Islam; however the term employed was "tepid" rather than "cold". The word "cold" first appeared in a faulty translation of his work in the 19th century. In 1934, the term was used in reference to a faith healer who received medical treatment after being bitten by a snake. The newspaper report referred to medical staff's suggestion that faith had played a role in his survival as a "truce in the cold war between science and religion". Regarding its contemporary application to a conflict between nation-states, the phrase appears for the first time in English in an anonymous editorial published in The Nation Magazine in March 1938 titled "Hitler's Cold War". The phrase was then used sporadically in newspapers throughout the summer of 1939 to describe the nervous tension and spectre of arms-buildup and mass-conscription prevailing on the European continent (above all in Poland) on the eve of World War II. It was described as either a "cold war" or a "hot peace" in which armies were amassing in many European countries. Graham Hutton, Associate Editor of The Economist used the term in his essay titled "The Next Peace" published in the August 1939 edition of The Atlantic Monthly (today The Atlantic). It elaborated on the notion of cold war perhaps more than any English-language invocation of the term to that point, and garnered a least one sympathetic reaction in a subsequent newspaper column. The Poles claimed that this period involved "provocation by manufactured incidents." It was also speculated that cold war tactics by the Germans could weaken Poland's resistance to invasion. During the war, the term was also used in less lasting ways, for example to describe the prospect of winter warfare, or in opinion columns encouraging American politicians to make a cool-headed assessment before deciding whether to join the war or not. At the end of World War II, English writer George Orwell had used the prase "cold war" s a general term in his essay "You And The Atomic Bomb", published October 19, 1945 in the British newspaper Tribune. Contemplating a world living in the shadow of the threat of nuclear warfare, Orwell looked at American philosopher and political theorist James Burnham's predictions of a polarized world, writing "Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery... James Burnham's theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications -- that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of "cold war" with its neighbours." Orwell repeated ths use of the term "cold war" in a March 10. 1946 article in The Observer, writing "after the Moscow conference last December, Russia began to make a 'cold war' on Britain and the British Empire." Despite these Orwell quotes, the first use of the term to describe and define the specific post-war geopolitical confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States came in Swope's speech delivered by Bernard Baruch. Herbert Bayard Swope died aged 76 of postoperative pneumonia after surgery on his intestines at Doctors Hospital at 170 East End Avenue, between 87th and 88th Streets opposite Gracie Mansion in the Yorkville neighborhood of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. His cremains are buried at Fresh Pond Crematory And Columbarium in Middle Village, New York. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/complete-information-please-quiz-show-old-time-radio-mp3-dv3.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1893: #BOTD: #HBD! Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian-American monk, yogi, guru and philosopher who introduced millions to the teachings of meditation and Kriya Yoga through his organization Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) / Yogoda Satsanga Society (YSS) of India, and who lived his last 32 years in America (d. March 7,1952) is #born Mukunda Lal Ghosh to a Hindu family of Bengali Kayastha, a Bengali Hindu who is a member of the Kayastha community. The historical caste occupation of Kayasthas throughout India has been that of scribes and administrators; the Kayasthas in Bengal also became the region's surrogate Kshatriya or warrior class and, along with Brahmins are regarded as the highest of Hindu castes that comprise the upper layer of Hindu society As a chief disciple of the Bengali yoga guru Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, Yogananda was sent by his lineage to spread the teachings of yoga to the West, to prove the unity between Eastern and Western religions and to preach a balance between Western material growth and Indian spirituality. His long-standing influence in the American yoga movement, and especially the yoga culture of Los Angeles, led him to be considered by yoga experts as the "Father of Yoga in the West". Yogananda was the first major Indian teacher to settle in America, and the first prominent Indian to be hosted in the White House (by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927); his early acclaim led to him being dubbed "the 20th century's first superstar guru," by the Los Angeles Times. Arriving in Boston in 1920, he embarked on a successful transcontinental speaking tour before settling in Los Angeles in 1925. For the next two and a half decades, he gained local fame as well as expanded his influence worldwide: he created a monastic order and trained disciples, went on teaching-tours, bought properties for his organization in various California locales, and initiated thousands into Kriya Yoga. By 1952, SRF had over 100 centers in both India and the US; today, they have groups in nearly every major American city. His "plain living and high thinking" principles attracted people from all backgrounds among his followers. He published his book Autobiography of a Yogi in 1946 to critical and commercial acclaim; since its first publishing, it has sold over four million copies, with HarperSan Francisco listing it as one of the "100 best spiritual books of the 20th Century". Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs had ordered 500 copies of the book for his own memorial, for each guest to be given a copy. The book has been regularly reprinted and is known as "the book that changed the lives of millions." Yogananda began hinting to his disciples that it was time for him to leave the world. According to Phil Goldberg, one example was what Yogananda said to Daya Mata just before the dinner, "Do you realize that it is just a matter of hours and I will be gone from this earth?" On March 7, 1952, he attended a dinner for the visiting Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Binay Ranjan Sen, and his wife at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. At the conclusion of the banquet, Yogananda spoke of India and America, their contributions to world peace and human progress, and their future co-operation, expressing his hope for a "United World" that would combine the best qualities of "efficient America" and "spiritual India". According to his direct disciple and eventual head of the SRF Daya Mata, who was present at the banquet, as Yogananda ended his speech, he read from his poem My India, concluding with the words "Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves, and men dream God-I am hallowed; my body touched that sod." Daya Mata stated that "as he uttered these words, he lifted his eyes to the Kutastha center, and his body slumped to the floor." His funeral service, with hundreds attending, was held at the SRF headquarters atop Mt. Washington in Los Angeles. Rajarsi Janakananda, who Yogananda chose to succeed him as the new president of the Self-Realization Fellowship, "performed a sacred ritual releasing the body to God." According to the book Divine Interventions: True Stories of Mysteries and Miracles That Change Lives, for three weeks after his death Yogananda's body "showed no signs of physical deterioration and 'his unchanged face shone with the divine luster of incorruptibility.'" A notarized letter from Harry T. Rowe, the mortuary director, added: "The absence of any visual signs of decay _ offers the most extraordinary case in our experience.... This state of perfect preservation of a body is, so far as we know from mortuary annals, an unparalleled one.... Yogananda's body was apparently in a phenomenal state of immutability.... No odor of decay emanated from his body at any time.... For these reasons we state again that the case of Paramahansa Yogananda is unique in our experience." Rowe wrote that Yogananda's body was embalmed approximately twenty-four hours after his death. On March 26 a barely noticeable desiccation on his nose was seen and on March 27 Rowe noted that Yogananda's body looked fresh and unravaged by decay as it did on the day of his death. Yogananda's remains are interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Great Mausoleum (normally closed off to visitors but Yogananda's tomb is accessible) in Glendale, California. A 2014 documentary, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, won multiple awards at film festivals around the world. His continued legacy around the world, remaining a leading figure in Western spirituality to the current day, led authors such as Philip Goldberg to consider him "the best known and most beloved of all Indian spiritual teachers who have come to the West....through the strength of his character and his skillful transmission of perennial wisdom, he showed the way for millions to transcend barriers to the liberation of the soul." 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Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1895: Discrimination: Jewish History: The History Of France: Fin De Siecle: Antisemitism: The Dreyfus Affair (French: Affaire Dreyfus): -- French Colonel Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. On December 22, 1894, The Dreyfus Affair began when French Colonel Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly convicted of treason. On October 15, he was arrested for spying. He was a French Jewish artillery officer whose trial and conviction in 1894 on false accusations of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French history with a wide echo in all Europe. The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. The affair is often seen as a modern and universal symbol of injustice, and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The major role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the lasting social conflict. The scandal began in December 1894 with the treason conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian and Jewish descent. Sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus was imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years. Evidence came to light in 1896-primarily through an investigation instigated by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage-identifying a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real culprit. After high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days. The Army then accused Dreyfus with additional charges based on falsified documents. Word of the military court's framing of Dreyfus and of an attempted cover-up began to spread, chiefly owing to J'accuse_!, a vehement open letter published in a Paris newspaper in January 1898 by writer Emile Zola. Activists put pressure on the government to reopen the case. In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called "Dreyfusards"), such as Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Henri Poincare and Georges Clemenceau, and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Edouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was given a pardon and set free. Eventually all the accusations against Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless. In 1906 Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army. He served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He died in 1935. The affair from 1894 to 1906 divided France deeply and lastingly into two opposing camps: the pro-Army, mostly Catholic "anti-Dreyfusards" and the anticlerical, pro-republican Dreyfusards. It embittered French politics and encouraged radicalization. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/the-longest-hatred-antisemitism-amp-jewish-persecution-dvd-mp3-us3.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1914: Organized Labor: The Labor Union Movement: The Labor History Of The United States: The Eight-Hour Day Movement (The 40-Hour Week Movement, The Short-Time Movement): -- The Ford Motor Company announces the radical steps of doubling pay to 5 USD a day in salary (adjusted for inflation: 129.55 USD as of 2020) plus bonuses, and cutting its worker's shifts from nine hours to eight, subject to restrictions and the imposition of "character standards" upon individual workers. These decisions were at first not popular with Ford's competitors, but after seeing the increase in Ford's productivity, and a significant increase in its profit margin (from 30M to 60M USD in two years), most of them soon followed suit. In the summer of 1915, two years after Ford's moves, increased labor demand for World War I sparked a series of strikes demanding the eight-hour day in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Those strikes were so successful that they spread throughout the Northeast. The United States Adamson Act in 1916 established an eight-hour day, with additional pay for overtime, for railroad workers. This was the first federal law that regulated the hours of workers in private companies. The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act in Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332 (1917); that same year, it was established for all professions in 1917 in the new Soviet Union. The eight-hour day might have been realized for many working people in the US in 1937, when what became the Fair Labor Standards Act (29 U.S. Code Chapter 8) was first proposed under the New Deal. As enacted, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented about twenty percent of the US labor force. In those industries, it set the maximum workweek at 40 hours, but provided that employees working beyond 40 hours a week would receive additional overtime bonus salaries. The Eight-Hour Day Movement (also known as The 40-Hour Week Movement or The Short-Time Movement) was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses. An eight-hour work day has its origins in the 16th century Spain, but the modern movement dates back to the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life. At that time, the working day could range from 10 to 16 hours, the work week was typically six days a week and the use of child labour was common. The first country that introduced the 8-hour work day by law for factory and fortification workers was Spain in 1593. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/henry-ford-tin-lizzie-tycoon-dvd-documentary.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1919: The European Civil War: World War I: The First European War (The European Theater Of World War I): The Aftermath Of World War I: 20th Century Revolutions: The Revolutions Of 1917-1923: The Spartacist Uprising (German: Spartakusaufstand) (The January Uprising [Januaraufstand], Bloody Week): -- The Spartacist Uprising begins, an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from January 5-12, 1919 that occurs in connection with the German revolution that broke out just before the end of World War I. The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the supporters of the provisional government led by Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which favored a social democracy, and those who backed the position of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by the Bolsheviks in Russia. The government's forces were victorious in the fighting. The uprising began with mass demonstrations and strikes called by the parties of the radical left to protest the dismissal of Berlin's chief of police. Taken by surprise at the size of the turnout and the protestors' spontaneous occupation of newspaper buildings and printing companies, the leaders of the left were unable to agree on how to proceed. As a result, the uprising remained largely without direction. The government responded with military force, including several paramilitary Freikorps units, retook the buildings that had been occupied and violently suppressed the uprising. The death toll was roughly 150-200, mostly among the insurgents. The most prominent deaths were those of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who were executed extrajudicially on January 15, almost certainly with the at least tacit approval of the MSPD-led government. The party's involvement hampered its position throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, although quashing the uprising allowed elections for the National Assembly to take place as scheduled on January 19, 1919. The Assembly went on to write the Weimar Constitution that created the first national German democracy. The uprising took its popular name from the Marxist Spartacus League (Spartakusbund), which Luxemburg and Liebknecht founded in 1914. When the KPD was established on January 1, 1919, the Spartacus League became part of it. Some historians, such as Heinrich August Winkler and Sebastian Haffner, consider the name to be misleading because the Spartacists (KPD) had not wanted, planned or led the revolt. The Spartacus League (German: Spartakusbund) was a Marxist revolutionary movement founded in August 1914 as the International Group by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and other members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who were dissatisfied with the party's official policies in support of the war. In 1916 it renamed itself the Spartacus Group and in 1917 joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which had split off from the SPD as its left wing faction. During the November Revolution of 1918 that broke out across Germany at the end of the war, the Spartacus Group re-established itself as a nationwide, non-party organization called the "Spartacus League" with the goal of instituting a council republic that would include all of Germany. It became part of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) when it was formed on January 1, 1919 and at that point ceased to exist as a separate entity. The League's name referred to Spartacus, the leader of a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic (73-71 BCE). For the Spartacists, his name symbolized the ongoing resistance of the oppressed against their exploiters and thus expressed the Marxist view of historical materialism, according to which history is driven by class struggles. In 1915, after the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) supported German involvement in World War I, Luxemburg and Liebknecht co-founded The Spartacus League, which eventually became the KPD, and the Communist Party of Germany whose sprung from it. On November 11, 1918, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht together with others founded the Spartacist League. Friedrich Ebert's majority Social Democratic government crushed the revolt and the Spartakusbund by sending in the Freikorps (government-sponsored paramilitary groups consisting mostly of World War I veterans). Freikorps troops captured and murdered Luxemburg and Liebknecht. After their deaths, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg became martyrs for Socialists. They were extensively idolized as communist martyrs by the East German communist regime. The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution notes that idolization of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebnecht is an important tradition of German far-left extremism. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/world-war-1-robert-ryan-4-dual-layer-dvds-26-episode-tv-se1426.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1919: The Aftermath Of World War I: The Interwar Period (The Aftermath Of World War I, The Interbellum, Between The Wars): The Weimar Republic (The German Reich, The German Republic): Occultism In German Nationalism: The Thule Society: Nazi Party Precursors: The German Workers' Party (DAP): -- On the same day that The Spartacist Revolution begins, The German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) is founded by the volkisch occult Thule Society member Anton Drexler in Munich as a covert organ of the society. Adolf Hitler, having been sent as a secret army agent to spy on the organization, found both his voice and his audience in it, and soon became member No. 7. He changed the party's name in April of 1920 to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) commonly shortened to Nazi or Nazi Party. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/the-occult-history-of-the-third-reich-4-part-tv-series-2-dv42.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1923: #BOTD: #HBD! Sam Phillips, American record producer who played a major role in the development of rock and roll during the 1950s, launching the careers of his recording artists Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Howlin' Wolf, founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee (d. July 30, 2003) is #born Samuel Cornelius Phillips on a 200-acre farm near Florence, Alabama, the youngest of the eight children of Madge Ella (nee Lovelace) and Charles Tucker Phillips. Phillips was the owner and operator of radio stations in Memphis; Florence, Alabama; and Lake Worth Beach, Florida. He was also an early investor in the Holiday Inn chain of hotels and an advocate for racial equality, helping to break down racial barriers in the music industry. Sam Phillips died of respiratory failure, aged 80, at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis,] only one day before the original Sun Studio was designated a National Historic Landmark, and just over a month before the death of former Sun Records recording star Johnny Cash, on September 12, 2003. Phillips is interred in the Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/rock-amp-roll-an-unruly-history-10-part-tv-series-mp4-video-download-104.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1931: #BOTD: #HBD! Alvin Ailey, African American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), one of the most successful dance companies in the world (d. December 1, 1989) is #born Alvin Ailey Jr. in Rogers, Texas. Alvin Ailey created AAADT and its affiliated Ailey School as havens for nurturing black artists and expressing the universality of the African American experience through dance. His work fused theatre, modern dance, ballet, and jazz with black vernacular, creating hope-fueled choreography that continues to spread global awareness of black life in America. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece Revelations is recognized as one of the most popular and most performed ballets in the world. On July 15, 2008, the United States Congress passed a resolution designating AAADT a "vital American Cultural Ambassador to the World." That same year, in recognition of AAADT's 50th anniversary, then Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared December 4 "Alvin Ailey Day" in New York City while then Governor David Paterson honoured the organization on behalf of New York State. He died from an AIDS related illness at the age of 58. He asked his doctor to announce that his death was caused by terminal blood dyscrasia in order to shield his mother from the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/going-home-alvin-ailey-remembered-afroamerican-dance-dvd-mp4-us4.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1945: The European Civil War: World War II: The Second European War (The European Theater Of World War II): The History Of Poland 1939-1945: The State National Council (Polish: Krajowa Rada Narodowa (KRN), "The Homeland National Council"): -- The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet Provisional Government Of The Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzad Tymczasowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej [RTRP]. On the night of December 31 1944, the RTRP was created by the State National Council (Polish: Krajowa Rada Narodowa [KRN]), also translated as the Homeland National Council, a parliament-like political body created during the later stages of World War II in German-occupied Warsaw, Poland. Likewise established on New Year's Eve 1943, the KRN was intended as a communist-controlled center of authority as a direct challenge to the legitimate and mainstream organs of the Polish Underground State. The existence of the KRN was later accepted by the Soviet Union and the council became to a large extent subjugated and controlled by the Soviets. On the first anniversary of the KRN's founding, they created the RTRP to take the place of the previous governmental body, the Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego or PKWN). Because of its location in Lublin, the PKWN was also known as the "Lublin Committee". The establishment of the RTRP was an important step in strengthening the control of the Polish Workers' Party and the Soviet Union in Poland. On January 1, 1945, the Polish Committee of National Liberation became the Provisional Government of Republic of Poland. In London, the Polish government-in-exile protested. They issued a declaration that the Soviet Union had "taken over the sovereign political rights of the Polish nation." The governments of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt also issued formal protest, but they took no further action. The Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland did not recognize the Polish government-in-exile and proclaimed itself to be the legitimate government of Poland. Initially, the RTRP was only officially recognized by the Soviet Union. But before the Yalta Conference, Joseph Stalin conveyed his intention to the Western Allies that Poland was under the control of the Soviet Union and that he intended for it to stay that way. The RTRP was given control of the Polish territories seized by the Red Army as it advanced westward. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/the-struggles-for-poland-dvd-set-all-9-shows-5-dis95.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1957: The Aftermath Of World War II: The Cold War: The Cold War In The Middle East: Anti-communism In The Middle East: Opposition To Arab Nationalism: The Presidency Of Dwight D. Eisenhower: The Eisenhower Doctrine: -- Within a "Special Message To The Congress On The Situation In The Middle East", The Eisenhower Doctrine is enunciated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression. Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his doctrine by authorizing the commitment of U.S. forces "to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism." The phrase "international communism" made the doctrine much broader than simply responding to Soviet military action. A danger that could be linked to communists of any nation could conceivably invoke the doctrine. Most Arabs regarded the doctrine as a transparent ploy to promote Western influence in the Middle East by restraining Nasser's brand of Arab nationalism that opposed Western domination, and some like the Syrians publicly denounced the initiative as an insidious example of U.S. imperialism. Following the 1958 crisis in Lebanon and accusations by U.S. senators of exaggerating the threat of communism to the region, Eisenhower privately admitted that the real goal was combating Arab nationalism. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/dangerous-years-president-eisenhower-and-the-cold-war-dvd.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1968: The Aftermath Of World War II: The Cold War: Counterculture Of The 1960s: The Protests Of 1968: The Prague Spring: -- Alexander Dubcek comes to power; "Prague Spring" begins in Czechoslovakia. The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubcek was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC), and continued until 21 August 1968 when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms. The Prague Spring reforms were a strong attempt by Dubcek to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. The freedoms granted included a loosening of restrictions on the media, speech and travel. After national discussion of dividing the country into a federation of three republics, Bohemia, Moravia-Silesia and Slovakia, Dubcek oversaw the decision to split into two, the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. The reforms, especially the decentralization of administrative authority, were not received well by the Soviets, who, after failed negotiations, sent half a million Warsaw Pact troops and tanks to occupy the country. New York Times cites reports of 650,000 men equipped with the most modern and sophisticated weapons in the Soviet military catalogue. A large wave of emigration swept the nation. A spirited non-violent resistance was mounted throughout the country, involving attempted fraternization, painting over and turning street signs (on one occasion an entire invasion force from Poland was routed back out of the country after a day's wandering), defiance of various curfews, etc. While the Soviet military had predicted that it would take four days to subdue the country the resistance held out for eight months. There were sporadic acts of violence and several suicides by self-immolation (such as that of Jan Palach), but there was no military resistance. Czechoslovakia remained Soviet-controlled until 1989, when the Velvet Revolution ended pro-Soviet rule peacefully, undoubtedly drawing upon the successes of the non-violent resistance twenty years earlier. The resistance also became an iconic example of civilian-based defense, which, along with unarmed civilian peacekeeping constitute the two ways that nonviolence can be and occasionally has been applied directly to military or paramilitary threats. After the invasion, Czechoslovakia entered a period known as "normalization": Subsequent leaders attempted to restore the political and economic values that had prevailed before Dubcek gained control of the KSC. Gustav Husak, who replaced Dubcek and also became president, reversed almost all of Dubcek's reforms. The Prague Spring inspired music and literature such as the work of Vaclav Havel, Karel Husa, Karel Kryl, and Milan Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/czechoslovakia-the-long-wait-for-spring-dvd-1988-cold1988.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1972: The History Of Spaceflight: The Aftermath Of World War II: The Cold War: The Space Age: The Space Age: Space Programs Of The United States: Human Spaceflight Programs: The Space Shuttle Program (The Space Transportation System (STS)): -- President Richard M. Nixon announces that the United States would proceed at once with the development of an entirely new type of space transportation system, designed to help transform the space frontier into familiar territory, the system ultimately known as The Space Shuttle. Later that day, he and NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher publicly discussed the proposed new system in San Clemente, California while exhibiting a model of the new system. The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development. The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982. Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Operational missions launched numerous satellites, interplanetary probes, and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), conducted science experiments in orbit, participated in the Shuttle-Mir program with Russia, and participated in construction and servicing of the International Space Station (ISS). The Space Shuttle fleet's total mission time was 1,322 days, 19 hours, 21 minutes and 23 seconds. Space Shuttle components include the Orbiter Vehicle (OV) with three clustered Rocketdyne RS-25 main engines, a pair of recoverable solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and the expendable external tank (ET) containing liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The Space Shuttle was launched vertically, like a conventional rocket, with the two SRBs operating in parallel with the orbiter's three main engines, which were fueled from the ET. The SRBs were jettisoned before the vehicle reached orbit, and the ET was jettisoned just before orbit insertion, which used the orbiter's two Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines. At the conclusion of the mission, the orbiter fired its OMS to deorbit and reenter the atmosphere. The orbiter was protected during reentry by its thermal protection system tiles, and it glided as a spaceplane to a runway landing, usually to the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC, Florida, or to Rogers Dry Lake in Edwards Air Force Base, California. If the landing occurred at Edwards, the orbiter was flown back to the KSC on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a specially modified Boeing 747. The first orbiter, Enterprise, was built in 1976 and used in Approach and Landing Tests, but had no orbital capability. Four fully operational orbiters were initially built: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. Of these, two were lost in mission accidents: Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, with a total of 14 astronauts killed. A fifth operational (and sixth in total) orbiter, Endeavour, was built in 1991 to replace Challenger. The Space Shuttle was retired from service upon the conclusion of Atlantis's final flight on July 21, 2011. The U.S. relied on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to transport astronauts to the ISS from the last Shuttle flight until the launch of the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission in May 2020 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of the Commercial Crew Program. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/outer-space-films-10-space-planes-shuttle-x15-x2010152024.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1976: The Aftermath Of World War II: The Cold War: The Cold War In Asia: Cambodia: The History Of Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge (The Khmer Rouge Party, The Communist Party Of Kampuchea): Democratic Kampuchea (Kampuchea, DK): -- The Khmer Rouge, who had abolished the Royal Government Of National Union of Kampuchea but did not replace it with any sort of government, forms the state of Democratic Kampuchea with its proclamation of The Constitution Of Democratic Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge continued to use King Norodom Sihanouk as a figurehead for the government until April 2, 1976, when Sihanouk resigned as head of state. Sihanouk remained under insecure house arrest in Phnom Penh, until late in the war with Vietnam when he departed for the United States where he made Democratic Kampuchea's case before the Security Council. He eventually relocated to China. The "rights and duties of the individual" were briefly defined in Article 12. They included none of what are commonly regarded as guarantees of political human rights except the statement that "men and women are equal in every respect." The document declared, however, that "all workers" and "all peasants" were "masters" of their factories and fields. An assertion that "there is absolutely no unemployment in Democratic Kampuchea" rings true in light of the regime's massive use of force. The Constitution defined Democratic Kampuchea's foreign policy principles in Article 21, the document's longest, in terms of "independence, peace, neutrality, and nonalignment." It pledged the country's support to anti-imperialist struggles in the Third World. In light of the regime's aggressive attacks against Vietnamese, Thai, and Lao territory during 1977 and 1978, the promise to "maintain close and friendly relations with all countries sharing a common border" bore little resemblance to reality. Governmental institutions were outlined very briefly in the Constitution. The legislature, the Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly (KPRA), contained 250 members "representing workers, peasants, and other working people and the Kampuchean Revolutionary army." One hundred and fifty KPRA seats were allocated for peasant representatives; fifty, for the armed forces; and fifty, for worker and other representatives. The legislature was to be popularly elected for a five-year term. Its first and only election was held on March 20, 1976. "New People" apparently were not allowed to participate. The executive branch of government also was chosen by the KPRA. It consisted of a state presidium "responsible for representing the state of Democratic Kampuchea inside and outside the country." It served for a five-year term, and its president was head of state. Khieu Samphan was the only person to serve in this office, which he assumed after Sihanouk's resignation. The judicial system was composed of "people's courts", the judges for which were appointed by the KPRA, as was the executive branch. The Constitution did not mention regional or local government institutions. After assuming power, the Khmer Rouge abolished the old provinces (khet) and replaced them with seven zones; the Northern Zone, Northeastern Zone, Northwestern Zone, Central Zone, Eastern Zone, Western Zone, and Southwestern Zone. There were also two other regional-level units: the Kracheh Special Region Number 505 and, until 1977, the Siemreab Special Region Number 106. The zones were divided into damban (regions) that were given numbers. Number One, appropriately, encompassed the Samlot region of the Northwestern Zone (including Battambang Province), where the insurrection against Sihanouk had erupted in early 1967. With this exception, the damban appear to have been numbered arbitrarily. The damban were divided into srok (districts), khum (subdistricts), and phum (villages), the latter usually containing several hundred people. This pattern was roughly similar to that which existed under Sihanouk and the Khmer Republic, but inhabitants of the villages were organized into krom (groups) composed of ten to fifteen families. On each level, administration was directed by a three-person committee (kanak, or kena). CPK members occupied committee posts at the higher levels. Subdistrict and village committees were often staffed by local poor peasants, and, very rarely, by "new people." Cooperatives (sahakor), similar in jurisdictional area to the khum, assumed local government responsibilities in some areas. Democratic Kampuchea was a one-party totalitarian state which encompassed modern-day Cambodia, and existed from 1975 to 1979. It was controlled by the Khmer Rouge (KR), the name popularly given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and was founded when KR forces defeated the Khmer Republic of Lon Nol in 1975. Between 1975 and 1979, the state and its ruling Khmer Rouge regime were responsible for the deaths of millions of Cambodians through forced labour and genocide. The KR lost control of most Cambodian territory to the Vietnamese occupation. From 1979 to 1982, Democratic Kampuchea survived as a rump state. In June 1982, the Khmer Rouge formed the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK) with two non-communist guerrilla factions, which retained international recognition. The state was renamed as Cambodia in 1990 in the run-up to the UN-sponsored 1991 Paris Peace Conference. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/cambodia-the-khmer-rouge-and-the-cambodian-genocide-dvd-mp4-usb-driv4.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1977: Premieres: Television Premieres: British Television Premieres: -- The BBC One TV documentary series "The Secret War" first airs, a six-part television series that documented secret technical developments during the Second World War and broke the news to the British public and to the world that the Allies had broken the communications cyphers of both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during the war, and that they had been using intelligence gleaned from these communications to change the course of the war in favor of the Allies. The autobiography of British physicist and scientific military intelligence expert R. V. Jones, "Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945", formed the basis of the series. It was produced by the BBC in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum (IWM). Presented by William Woollard, the series drew upon the first-hand recollections of participants from both sides, with the principal interviewee being R. V. Jones. The series created an international furor, as its revelations made the former Axis countries aware for the first time that not only had their communications been decrypted and read, but that these decrypts were largely, and perhaps even chiefly, responsible for their losing the war. The opening music was an excerpt from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The closing music was by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. On Sale @ 15% Off Discount Till Midnight PT! https://store.earthstation1.com/the-secret-war-wwii-weaponry-tv-series-all-7-episodes-2-dv72.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5: National Whipped Cream Day: -- #BOTD: Add a little of this extra something special to desserts for this annual celebration - and Use #WhippedCreamDay to post about it on social media! Not only does it add creaminess and a bit of pizzaz, but it also makes the difference between the ho-hum or a celebration kind of beverage or dessert. This holiday falls on Reddi-Wip founder Aaron "Bunny" Lapin's birthday (January 5, 1914 - July 10, 1999). Lapin invented Reddi-Wip in 1948, and the holiday celebrates whipped cream's contributions to the dessert world. While most often sweetened and flavored with vanilla, whipped cream dresses up desserts with other flavors, too. With a hint of coffee or chocolate or the zing of orange or mint, whipped cream adds a delightfulness to pies, cakes, and beverages. Of course, we call it by other names, too, such as Chantilly cream or creme Chantilly, milk snow, or snow cream. Recipes from the 16th century included whipped cream sweetened and aromatized. In these recipes, naturally separated cream is whipped, typically with willow or rush branches, then the resulting foam on the surface would from time to time be skimmed off and drained, which was a process taking an hour or more. The English name whipped cream found its beginning in 1673. The name snow cream continued to be used throughout the 17th century. The country has observed this national day since at least 1984 according to an article published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on December 30th of that year written by Susan Dundon. https://store.earthstation1.com/tv-commercials-the-classics-vol-2-dv2.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5: National Bird Day: -- Nature lovers, bird lovers, and bird watchers across the country annually recognize this, one of several designated holidays celebrating birds. Born Free USA emphasizes the importance of National Bird Day and lists it as a day to shine a spotlight on issues critical to the protection and survival of birds, both captive and wild. According to Born Free USA, nearly 12 percent of the world's almost 10,000 bird species are in danger of extinction. A particularly important National Bird Day activity is bird adoption. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper article, many bird enthusiasts celebrate by adopting birds on this day. They also educate future bird owners about the special issues involved with taking care of birds, including the "proper care, cleanup, noise and biting, feeding, diet and their need for daily interaction." There are approximately 10,000 species of birds. Join over half a million avian admirers celebrating National Bird Day! There are several ways to celebrate this day: Pick up a bird identification book. It will help you learn about species in your area and identify those frequenting your bird feeders. Enhance the attraction of your backyard. Add feeders, shelter, and more. Learn what birds in your area like to eat and watch them flock to your sanctuary. Donate to a bird sanctuary or aviary dedicated to improving the survival of endangered birds. While you're learning about all the fantastic species, visit an aviary. Also, a botanical garden, zoo, or conservation area may offer close-up viewing of some of the more exotic species you've never seen before. Whichever way you choose, be sure to invite someone to join you so you can share the experience. Also, as always, use #NationalBirdDay to post on social media! In 2002, Born Free USA, in coordination with the Avian Welfare Coalition, launched the first annual National Bird Day to promote avian awareness. https://store.earthstation1.com/super-sense--animal-perception-tv-series-dvd-mp4-download-usb-driv4.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5: National Day Of Dialogue: -- An annual event held to promote open dialogue. There's so much misinformation, political divides are widening, and social and economic inequality continues to grow. Supported by both local and international organizations, the event welcomes all who are seeking to heal a world that's in turmoil and find common ground through the power of dialogue. It's a day of peacebuilding, dialogue, empathy, and so much more. Social and economic divides are bigger than ever. National Day of Dialogue, which takes place on January 5 each year, is more than just an event, it's a powerful movement. It's an opportunity to connect with and be inspired by a community who are dedicated to finding common ground and creating a more empathetic society. It's a day dedicated to standing up to division and polarization. In 2020, National Day of Dialogue was inspired by 13 individuals who came together during a troublesome time and tested the power of dialogue over the course of a month. They discovered that when dialogue was central, it promoted healing and compassion. The documentary film "Dialogue Lab: America," which Ideos Institute executively procuced, was released at the 2022 National Day of Dialogue and is an experiment to find common ground to achieve a better future. According to the makers of the documentary, 12 students were filmed "across the ideological spectrum to come together in a dialogue experiment on political polarization. It includes behind-the-scenes footage and a guide to "developing empathetic intelligence." Christy Vines, Ideos Institute's president, originally established the day but, today, it's become a coalition of non-profit organizations, higher learning institutions, and leaders at every level. The day aims to stitch together the fabric of society, one dialogue at a time. https://store.earthstation1.com/songs-of-protest-and-conscience-played-in-the-usa-dvd-mp4-us4.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1779: #BOTD: #HBD! Stephen Decatur, American naval officer and commodore (d. March 22, 1820) is #born Stephen Decatur Jr. on the eastern shore of Maryland in Worcester County. His father, Stephen Decatur Sr., was a commodore in the United States Navy who served during the American Revolution; he brought the younger Stephen into the world of ships and sailing early on. Shortly after attending college, Decatur followed in his father's footsteps and joined the U.S. Navy at the age of nineteen as a midshipman. Decatur supervised the construction of several U.S. naval vessels, one of which he later commanded. Promoted at age 25, he is the youngest man to reach the rank of captain in the history of the United States Navy. He served under three presidents, and played a major role in the early development of the U.S. Navy. In almost every theater of operation, Decatur's service was characterized by acts of heroism and exceptional performance. His service in the U.S. Navy took him through both Barbary Wars in North Africa, the Quasi-War with France, and the War of 1812 with Britain. He was renowned for his natural ability to lead and for his genuine concern for the seamen under his command. His numerous naval victories against Britain, France and the Barbary states established the United States Navy as a rising power. During this period he served aboard and commanded many naval vessels and ultimately became a member of the Board of Navy Commissioners. He built a large home in Washington, known as Decatur House, on Lafayette Square, and was the center of Washington society in the early 19th century. He became an affluent member of Washington society and counted James Monroe and other Washington dignitaries among his personal friends. Decatur emerged as a national hero in his own lifetime, becoming the first post-Revolutionary War hero. His name and legacy, like that of John Paul Jones, became identified with the United States Navy. Stephen Decatur died at his home at Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. aged 41 from a pistol shot wound recieved in a duel at a distance of only eight paces at Bladensburg Dueling Grounds, near Washington, with Commodore James Barron, who challenged Decatur to a duel because he refused to retract comments he had made about Barron's conduct in the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, when Barron as commander of the frigate USS Chesapeake surrendered his vessel to the British vessel HMS Leopard after firing one cannon shot. Barron was almost killed too, and both men cried out blessings to one another the instant after the duel. Decatur, an expert pistol shot, planned only to wound Barron in the hip, but the seconds of both Barron and Decatur's seconds despised him, and set up the rules of the duel so as to ensure severe wounding or death; Decatur's wife Susan spent much of her remaining life pursuing justice for what she termed "the assassins" involved. At his wife's request, Decatur's body was interred in the Barlow family vault at Kalorama. It was later moved to Philadelphia, where he was buried at St. Peter's Churchyard in 1846, alongside his mother and father. https://store.earthstation1.com/the-gallant-breed-dvd-set-3-part-us-marine-history-2-dis32.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1933: #DOTD: #RIP: Calvin Coolidge, 30th U.S. President (b. July 4, 1872) #dies suddenly at 12:45 p.m. from coronary thrombosis at "The Beeches", his spacious home in Northampton to which he retired in 1929 in Northampton, Massachusetts, aged 60. Although Coolidge was known to be a skilled and effective public speaker, in private he was a man of few words and was commonly referred to as "Silent Cal"; Dorothy Parker, upon learning that Coolidge had died, reportedly remarked, "How can they tell?"; a possibly apocryphal story has it that a matron, seated next to him at a dinner, said to him, "I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you." He replied, "You lose.". Shortly before his death, Coolidge confided to an old friend: "I feel I no longer fit in with these times." Coolidge is buried in Plymouth Notch Cemetery, Plymouth Notch, Vermont. The nearby family home is maintained as one of the original buildings on the Calvin Coolidge Homestead District site. The State of Vermont dedicated a new visitors' center nearby to mark Coolidge's 100th birthday on July 4, 1972. Calvin Coolidge (d. January 5, 1933) is #born John Calvin Coolidge Jr. in Plymouth, Vermont. He became President on August 3, 1923, after the death of Warren G. Harding. In 1924, Coolidge was elected President but did not run for re-election in 1928. A Republican lawyer from New England, born in Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. Soon after, he was elected Vice President of the United States in 1920, and succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small government conservative and also as a man who said very little, although having a rather dry sense of humor. Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predecessor's administration, and left office with considerable popularity. As a Coolidge biographer wrote: "He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength". From 1948-2018, scholars have ranked Coolidge as a below-average president. He is praised by advocates of smaller government and laissez-faire, while supporters of an active central government generally view him less favorably, though most praise his stalwart support of racial equality. Coolidge often seemed uncomfortable among fashionable Washington society; when asked why he continued to attend so many of their dinner parties, he replied, "Got to eat somewhere.". Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and a leading Republican wit, underscored Coolidge's silence and his dour personality: "When he wished he were elsewhere, he pursed his lips, folded his arms, and said nothing. He looked then precisely as though he had been weaned on a pickle.". https://store.earthstation1.com/the-roaring-twenties-dvd-1920s-history-documentary-dvd-mp4-usb-19204.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1949: Progressivism: Progressivism In The United States: Liberalism: Liberalism In The United States: The Presidency Of Harry S. Truman: United States Economic Policy: The Fair Deal: -- President Harry S. Truman unveils his Fair Deal program during his State Of The Union Address. The Fair Deal began as a set of proposals put forward by Truman to congress in 1945, just after he began president following the death of President Franklin Roosevelt, and in his January 1949 State Of The Union Address, his first such address as an elected president. More generally, the term characterizes the entire domestic agenda of the Truman administration, from 1945 to 1953. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal liberalism, but with a conservative coalition controlling Congress, only a few of its major initiatives became law, and then only if they had considerable GOP support. The most important proposals were aid to education, national health insurance, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act. They were all debated at length, then mostly voted down.; nevertheless, enough smaller and less controversial items passed congress that the liberals could claim some success. https://store.earthstation1.com/harry-s-truman-days-of-decision-dvd.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1969: Rocket Launches: The History Of Spaceflight: The Aftermath Of World War II: The Cold War: The Space Age: The Space Race: Space Probes: Interplanetary Space Probes: The Soviet Space Program: The Venera Program: Venera 5 (Russian: Venus 5): -- The Venera 5 space probe is launched towards the planet Venus atop a Molniya-M 8K78M launch vehicle derived from the R-7 Semyorka Intercontinental ballistic missile at 06:28:08 UTC from the Baikonur Cosmodrome's Launch Site 1/5 (now known as Gagarin's Start Launch Site) by the Soviet Union. On May 16, 1969, Venera 5 successfully landed on Venus and fulfilled its mission of obtaining atmospheric data from the planet. The spacecraft was very similar to Venera 4 although it was of a stronger design. The launch was conducted using a Molniya-M rocket, flying from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. When the atmosphere of Venus was approached, a capsule weighing 405 kg (893 lb) and containing scientific instruments was jettisoned from the main spacecraft. During satellite descent towards the surface of Venus, a parachute opened to slow the rate of descent. For 53 minutes on May 16, 1969, while the capsule was suspended from the parachute, data from the Venusian atmosphere were returned. The spacecraft also carried a medallion bearing the State Coat of Arms of the Soviet Union and a bas-relief of Lenin to the night side of Venus. Given the results from Venera 4, the Venera 5 and Venera 6 landers contained new chemical analysis experiments tuned to provide more precise measurements of the atmosphere's components. Knowing the atmosphere was extremely dense, the parachutes were also made smaller so the capsule would reach its full crush depth before running out of power (as Venera 4 had done). https://store.earthstation1.com/to-the-moon-the-story-in-sound-complete-6-album-set-mp3-63.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 2018: #DOTD: #RIP: John W. Young, American captain, aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut and cutup, ninth person to walk on the Moon as Commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972 (b. (September 24, 1930) #dies at his home in Houston, of complications from pneumonia, at the age of 87. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery on April 30, 2019. He was born John Watts Young at St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco, California. Young enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut, becoming the first person to make six space flights over the course of 42 years of active NASA service, and is the only person to have piloted, and been commander of, four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo Command/Service Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle. In 1965, Young flew on the first manned Gemini mission, and commanded another Gemini mission the next year. In 1969, he became the first person to orbit the Moon alone during Apollo 10. He drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the Moon's surface during Apollo 16, and is one of only three people to have flown to the Moon twice. He also commanded two Space Shuttle flights, including its first launch in 1981, and served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1974-1987. Young retired from NASA in 2004. Famous for mixing a severe demeanor with irreverent humor, he is the inspiration for the eccentric former astronaut character Garrett Breedlove portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1983 film "Terms Of Endearment". https://store.earthstation1.com/outer-space-films-7-the-space-shuttle-dv7.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1979: #DOTD: #RIP: Charles Mingus, African American jazz double bassist, pianist, composer and bandleader (b. April 22, 1922) #dies in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he had traveled for convalescence and treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease), at the age of 56. His ashes were scattered in the Ganges River. Born Charles Mingus Jr in Nogales, Arizona, he created compositions that retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop, drawing heavily from black gospel music and blues, while sometimes containing elements of Third Stream, free jazz, and classical music. He once cited Duke Ellington and church as his main influences. Mingus espoused collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, he looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities. Many musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. He recruited talented and sometimes little-known artists, whom he utilized to assemble unconventional instrumental configurations. As a performer, Mingus was a pioneer in double bass technique, widely recognized as one of the instrument's most proficient players. Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus's often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname "The Angry Man of Jazz". His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many onstage eruptions, exhortations to musicians, and dismissals. Because of his brilliant writing for midsize ensembles, and his catering to and emphasizing the strengths of the musicians in his groups, Mingus is often considered the heir of Duke Ellington, for whom he expressed great admiration and collaborated on the record Money Jungle. Indeed, Dizzy Gillespie had once claimed Mingus reminded him "of a young Duke", citing their shared "organizational genius.". Mingus' compositions continue to be played by contemporary musicians ranging from the repertory bands Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and Mingus Orchestra, to the high school students who play the charts and compete in the Charles Mingus High School Competition. Gunther Schuller has suggested that Mingus should be ranked among the most important American composers, jazz or otherwise. In 1988, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts made possible the cataloging of Mingus compositions, which were then donated to the Music Division of the New York Public Library for public use. In 1993, The Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers - including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos - in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history". https://store.earthstation1.com/complete-jean-shepherd-radio-and-lp-collection-mp3-dvds-2-dis32.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1929: #BOTD: #HBD! Wilbert Harrison, African American singer and guitarist (d. October 26, 1994) #born Wilbert Huntington Harrison in Charlotte, North Carolina. Harrison had a Billboard #1 record in 1959 with the song "Kansas City". The song was written in 1952 and was one of the first credited collaborations by the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Harrison recorded "Kansas City" for the Harlem-based entrepreneur Bobby Robinson, who released it on his Fury record label. At the height of the song's success, Robinson was sued by Savoy Records who informed them that the release of the record in March 1959 violated a contract Harrison had with that label that was to expire in August 1959. The litigation, which lasted until September 1959, abruptly prevented Robinson from issuing follow-ups to "Kansas City" while Harrison was a star. Meanwhile, Harrison continued to perform and record but it would be another ten years before he again cracked the Billboard Top 40 when he released the self-penned "Let's Work Together (Part 1)" that went to #32 in early 1970 on the Billboard Hot 100. The 1970 hit version was released as a single on Sue Records (Sue 11) and was backed with "Let's Work Together (Part 2)". The song also was released in a 5 minute 19 second version on the Sue Records album SSLP-8801 Let's Work Together. The song was originally released by Harrison in 1962 with different lyrics as "Let's Stick Together" on Fury 1059 and Fury 1063. "Let's Work Together" was later a hit for Canned Heat, and, again as "Let's Stick Together", for Bryan Ferry. It was also recorded by country rock band the Kentucky Headhunters for the soundtrack to the movie Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. In 1970, Harrison had some success with "My Heart Is Yours", and he toured for many years with a band known as 'Wilbert Harrison and the Roamers', and as a solo act. A follow-up album was released that year, Anything You Want. Reviewing it in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau wrote: "Let's Work Together was an anachronistic, even primitive R & B album based on the fluke hit of the same name, which makes this the follow-up. Side one consists entirely of roll and rock songs you'd swear you've heard before - 'Your Three Letters,' eh, and what's this 'Let's Stick Together,' and why not bring out 'Kansas City' again? Very unprepossessing, very charming. In fact, if the second side weren't all standards and uncharming filler - only 'Sentimental Journey' is even funny - I wouldn't be recommending this to r & b diehards only." In 2001, his recording of "Kansas City" was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, and has also been named as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Harrison was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009. Harrison died of a stroke in in a Spencer, North Carolina, nursing home at the age of 65. https://store.earthstation1.com/dj-radio-airchecks-mp3-dvd-1950s60s70s-dis319506070.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1911: Fraternities (Fraternal Organizations): African American Fraternities: Kappa Alpha Psi: -- The world's third oldest and largest black fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi, is founded at Indiana University Bloomington. Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. has never restricted membership on the basis of color, creed or national origin though membership traditionally is dominated by those of African heritage. The fraternity has many notable members recognized as leaders in the arts, athletics, business, Civil Rights, education, government, and science sectors at the local, national and international level (Kenneth Clark, Ralph Abernathy, John Conyers, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, Billy Taylor, Booker T. Jones of Booker T And The MGs, etc.). The fraternity has over 160,000 members with 721 undergraduate and alumni chapters in every state of the United States, and international chapters in the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, Japan, United States Virgin Islands, Nigeria, South Africa, and The Bahamas. The president of the national fraternity is known as the Grand Polemarch, who assigns a Province Polemarch for each of the twelve provinces (regions) of the nation. The Kappa Alpha Psi Journal has been the official magazine of the fraternity since 1914. The Journal is published four times a year in February, April, October and December. Frank M. Summers was the magazine's first editor and later became the Fourteenth Grand Polemarch. Kappa Alpha Psi sponsors programs providing community service, social welfare and academic scholarship through the Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation and is a supporter of the United Negro College Fund and Habitat for Humanity. Kappa Alpha Psi is a member of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) and the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC). The fraternity is the oldest predominantly African American Greek-letter society founded west of the Appalachian Mountains still in existence, and is known for its "cane stepping" in NPHC organized step shows. Kappa Alpha Psi celebrated its 100th anniversary on January 5, 2011; one of four African American intercollegiate fraternities to do so. https://store.earthstation1.com/the-golden-age-of-rock-39n39-roll-dvd-complete-tv-series-5-39395.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1933: San Francisco (San Francisco, California): Bridges And Tunnels In San Francisco: Suspension Bridges: The Golden Gate Bridge: -- Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay; it would be completed on April 19, 1937. The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide (1.6 km) strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, after which the bridge is named. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California, the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to Marin County, carrying both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. It also carries pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and is designated as part of U.S. Bicycle Route 95. Being declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco and California. It was initially designed by engineer Joseph Strauss in 1917. The Frommer's travel guide describes the Golden Gate Bridge as "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world." At the time of its opening in 1937, it was both the longest and the tallest suspension bridge in the world, with a main span of 4,200 feet (1,280 m) and a total height of 746 feet (227 m). https://store.earthstation1.com/world39s-fair-and-exposition-films-d39.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1910: #BOTD: #HBD! Hugh Brannum, actor, singer for the Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians big band, arranger and composer, best known as Mr. Green Jeans from the TV kid show Captain Kangaroo (d. April 19, 1987) is #born in Sandwich, Illinois. During World War II, he enlisted in the US Marine Corps and joined a Marine band led by Bob Crosby. After the war, he joined the Four Squires, later moving to Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians; Waring's group had a regular radio show, where Hugh met fellow Marine Bob Keeshan, an employee at the station who later hired Brannum for Captain Kangaroo. Before his time on Captain Kangaroo, he hosted a local children's TV series called Uncle Lumpy's Cabin, seen weekday mornings on WABC-TV in New York City during the 1951 season. Mr. Green Jeans earned his moniker from his distinctive apparel, a pair of farmer's overalls (later, jeans and a denim jacket) in his signature green (although, since the show was broadcast in black-and-white for much of its run, this was lost on viewers). He was a talented and inquisitive handyman who provided assistance at the Treasure House. He frequently visited the Captain with the latest addition to his menagerie of zoo animals. Brannum died of cancer in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, aged 77. His remains were cremated; the final disposition of his ashes are not publicly disclosed other than that they were given to family or friend(s). https://store.earthstation1.com/captain-kangaroo-tv-show-bob-keeshan-dvd.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1998: #DOTD: #RIP: Sonny Bono, American singer-songwriter, producer, actor, and politician, who came to fame in partnership with his second wife Cher as the popular singing duo Sonny & Cher (b. February 16, 1935) #dies of injuries incurred when he hit a tree while skiing at Heavenly Mountain Resort in South Lake Tahoe, California, aged 62. At his widow Mary Whitaker Bono's request, Cher gave a eulogy at Sonny's funeral. He was buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California. The epitaph on Bono's headstone reads "AND THE BEAT GOES ON". Mary Bono was elected to fill the remainder of her husband's congressional term as the Republican congressman for California's 44th district. She was elected in her own right seven subsequent times before being defeated in the election of 2012. Sonny Bono was #born Salvatore Phillip Bono in Detroit, Michigan. Following a career involved in all aspects of songwriting, musical production and performance, he became mayor of Palm Springs, California from 1988 to 1992, and the Republican congressman for California's 44th district from 1995 until his death. The United States Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, which extended the term of copyright by 20 years, was named in honor of Bono when it was passed by Congress nine months after his death. Mary Bono (Sonny's last wife) had been one of the original sponsors of the legislation, commonly known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. https://store.earthstation1.com/classic-tv-music-amp-dance-shows-10-best-of-shindig-shinrock-d10.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1931: #BOTD: #HBD! Robert Duvall, American actor, director and filmmaker whose career spans more than six decades, is #born Robert Selden Duvall in San Diego, California, the son of Mildred Virginia (nee Hart; 1901-1985), an amateur actress, and William Howard Duvall (1904-1984), a Virginia-born U.S. Navy rear admiral. He has English, and smaller amounts of Belgian, French Huguenot, German, Scottish, Swiss-German, and Welsh ancestry. His mother was a relative of U.S. Civil War General Robert E. Lee, and a member of the Lee Family of Virginia, while his father was a descendant of Mareen Duvall (1625-1694), a French Huguenot and an early settler of the Province of Maryland. He has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as country western singer Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies. He has also been nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards, winning four, and has won a BAFTA, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Emmy Award. He received the National Medal of Arts in 2005. Duvall began appearing in theater during the late 1950s, moving into television and film roles during the early 1960s, playing Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and appearing in Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), as Major Frank Burns in the blockbuster comedy MASH (1970) and the lead role in THX 1138 (1971), as well as Horton Foote's adaptation of William Faulkner's Tomorrow (1972), which was developed at The Actors Studio and is Duvall's personal favorite. This was followed by a series of critically lauded performances in commercially successful films. Duvall has starred in numerous films and television series, including The Twilight Zone (1963), The Outer Limits (1964), Bullitt (1968), True Grit (1969), Joe Kidd (1972), The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), The Conversation (1974), Network (1976), Apocalypse Now (1979), The Great Santini (1979), Ike: The War Years (1979), The Natural (1984), Lonesome Dove (1989), The Handmaid's Tale (1990), Days of Thunder (1990), Rambling Rose (1991), Falling Down (1993) and Secondhand Lions (2003). https://store.earthstation1.com/ike-the-war-years-complete-tv-miniseries-dual-layer-dvd.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1982: #DOTD: #RIP: Hans Conried, American actor, voice actor, radio actor, stage actor and comedian (b. April 15, 1917) #dies one day after suffering a major heart attack in Burbank, California, aged_64. His body was donated to medical science . Hans Conried, was born Hans Georg Conried, Jr. in Baltimore, Maryland to a Connecticut-born mother who was a descendant of Pilgrims, and a Jewish immigrant father from Vienna, Austria. He was very active in voice-over roles and known for providing the voices of Walt Disney's Mr. George Darling, Captain Hook in Peter Pan (1953), for playing the title role in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Dr. Miller on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Professor Kropotkin on the radio and film versions of My Friend Irma, his work as Uncle Tonoose on Danny Thomas' sitcom Make Room for Daddy, multiple roles on I Love Lucy, Dr. Seuss specials, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, voicing the character of Snidely Whiplash in the Dudley Do-Right shorts, and hosted Fractured Fairy Tales, another creation of Jay Ward and Bill Scott, as well as Wally Walrus on The Woody Woodpecker Show, Uncle Waldo P. Wigglesworth on Hoppity Hooper, and Dr. Dred on Drak Pack. He also performed as the "slave in the mirror" character, hosting several memorable episodes of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. https://store.earthstation1.com/of-moose-and-men-the-rocky-amp-bullwinkle-story-dvd.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1889: #BOTD: Joseph Force Crater, New York State Supreme Court Justice who vanished amid a major political scandal that ultimately resulted in the resignation of New York City Mayor Jimmie Walker (disappeared 1930) is #born in Easton, Pennsylvania, the eldest of four children of Frank Ellsworth Crater and the former Leila Virginia Montague. Crater was educated at Lafayette College (class of 1910) and Columbia University. He was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. On August 6, 1930, Judge Joseph Crater was last seen leaving Billy Haas' Chophouse at 332 West 45th Street in Manhattan, where he reportedly stepped into a taxi, then disappeared, never to be seen again, entering popular culture as one of the most mysterious missing persons cases of the twentieth century. Despite massive publicity, the case of Judge Crater's disapperance was never officially solved, and was closed forty years after he disappeared. Crater's disappearance fueled public disquiet about New York City corruption and was a factor in the downfall of the Tammany Hall political machine. In the summer of 1930, after the start of the first investigations of what would become one year later the Hofstadter Committee, Crater and his wife Stella Mance Wheeler were vacationing at their summer cabin in Belgrade, Maine. The Hofstadter Committee, also known as the Seabury Investigations, was a joint legislative committee formed by the New York State Legislature on behalf of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt to probe into corruption in New York City, especially the magistrate's courts and police department in 1931. It led to major changes in the method of arrest, bail and litigation of suspects in New York City. It also coincided with the decline in Tammany Hall's political influence in New York State politics. In late July, Crater received a telephone call. He offered no information to his wife about the content of the call, other than to say that he had to return to the city "to straighten those fellows out". The next day, he arrived at his 40 Fifth Avenue apartment, but instead of dealing with business, he proceeded onwards to Atlantic City, New Jersey, with his mistress, showgirl Sally Lou Ritzi (who used the stage name Ritz). Crater returned to Maine on August 1, and traveled back to New York on August 3. Before making this final trip, he promised his wife that he would return by her birthday on August 9. Crater's wife stated that he was in good spirits and behaving normally when he departed for New York City. On the morning of Wednesday, August 6, Crater spent two hours going through his files in his courthouse chambers, reportedly destroying several documents. He then had his law clerk Joseph Mara cash two checks for him that amounted to 5,150 USD (equivalent to about 78,820 USD in 2019). At noon, he and Mara carried two locked briefcases to his apartment and he let Mara take the rest of the day off. Crater had gone to a Broadway ticket agency, Supreme Tickets, and bought one seat from William Deutsch, the proprietor of Supreme, for a comedy called Dancing Partner at the Belasco Theatre. He then went to Billy Haas' Chophouse at 332 West 45th Street, where he ate dinner with his mistress Sally Lou Ritzi and William Klein, a lawyer friend. Klein later told investigators that Crater was in a good mood that evening and gave no indication that anything was bothering him. The dinner ended a little after 9 p.m., shortly after the curtain rose on the show for which Crater had bought a ticket, and the small group went outside. Crater's dinner companions gave differing accounts of Crater's departure from the restaurant. William Klein initially testified that "the judge got into a taxicab outside the restaurant about 9:30 p.m. and drove west on Forty-fifth Street," and this account was initially confirmed by Sally Lou Ritz: "At the sidewalk Judge Crater took a taxicab". Klein and Ritz later changed their story and said that they had entered a taxi outside the restaurant while Crater had walked down the street. There was no immediate reaction to Crater's disappearance. When he did not return to Maine after ten days, his wife began making calls to their friends in New York, asking if anyone had seen him. Only when he failed to appear for the opening of the courts on August 25 did his fellow justices become alarmed. They started a private search but failed to find any trace of him. The police were finally notified on September 3 and, after that, the missing judge was front-page news. Once an official investigation was launched, the case received widespread publicity. Detectives discovered that the judge's safe deposit box had been emptied and the two briefcases that Crater and Mara had taken to his apartment were missing. Crater enjoyed the city's nightlife and had been involved with several women. In the aftermath of the case, two of the women he had been involved with left town abruptly and a third was murdered. Ritzi, the showgirl who had dined with him the evening that he vanished, left New York in August or September 1930. She was found in late September 1930, living in Youngstown, Ohio, with her parents. She said that she had left New York suddenly because she had received word that her father was ill. Ritzi was still being subjected to interviews by police investigating the Crater case in 1937, by which time she was living in Beverly Hills, California. She cotinued to work as a ballroom dancer under the name Mrs. with her dance partner Dario and appeared in magazine ads such as a Maxwell Coffee ad in the April 17, 1937 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. Showgirl June Brice had been seen talking to Crater the day before he disappeared. A lawyer acting for Crater's wife believed that Brice had been at the center of a scheme to blackmail Crater (thus explaining why Crater had taken cash out of the bank) and that a gangster boyfriend of Brice had killed the judge. Brice disappeared the day that a grand jury was to convene on the Crater case. In 1948, she was discovered in a mental hospital. Vivian Gordon, a third woman, was involved in high-end prostitution and linked to madam Polly Adler. Gordon had liaisons with a large number of influential businesspeople, and was the owner, on paper at least, of a number of properties believed to be fronts for illegal activity. She was also seen around town with gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond, with whom Crater was rumored to socialize. Crater had known Diamond's former boss, organized crime figure Arnold Rothstein, and had been extremely upset at his murder. On February 20, 1931, Gordon was angry about a conviction that had resulted in her losing custody of her 16-year-old daughter. She met the head of an official inquiry into city government corruption (launched in the wake of Crater's disappearance) and offered to testify about police graft. She was murdered five days later. Detectives searching her apartment found a coat that had belonged to Crater. The publicity surrounding Gordon's killing led to the resignation of a policeman whom she had accused of framing her, and the suicide of her daughter. Tammany Hall's hold on the city was largely eliminated in the ensuing scandal, as it was already weakened by Rothstein and the conflict over his former empire. This also led to the resignation of New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker. In October, a grand jury began examining the Crater case, calling 95 witnesses and amassing 975 pages of testimony. Mrs. Crater refused to appear. The conclusion was that "the evidence is insufficient to warrant any expression of opinion as to whether Crater is alive or dead, or as to whether he has absented himself voluntarily, or is the sufferer from disease in the nature of amnesia, or is the victim of crime". At the time, some theorized that Crater had left town with another woman or fled to avoid revelations of corruption, but the case's extensive publicity would have made it virtually impossible for him to have begun a new life somewhere else. On January 20, 1931, six months after his disappearance, Crater's wife found envelopes containing checks, stocks, bonds, and a note from the judge in a dresser drawer which had been empty when searched earlier by police. The discovery led to a number of new but ultimately inconclusive leads, and no further trace of Crater was ever found. The case was officially closed in 1979. Judge Crater met his wife Stella Mance Wheeler in 1917 when he served as her divorce lawyer, and they married seven days after her divorce was finalized. Mrs. Crater remained at their vacation home in Maine during the search for her husband, until her discovery of the hidden envelopes. Without Crater's income, Mrs. Crater was unable to maintain the couple's Fifth Avenue apartment and was evicted. She petitioned to have the judge declared officially dead in July 1937; she was reportedly living on the 12 USD per week (approximately 213 USD in 2013) that she earned as a telephone operator in Maine. Mrs. Crater married Carl Kunz, a New York electrical contractor, in Elkton, Maryland, on April 23, 1938. Kunz's first wife had hanged herself only eight days before the wedding. Crater was finally declared legally dead in 1939 thanks to Mrs. Crater's lawyer, noted New York attorney Emil K. Ellis. She received 20,561 USD in life insurance (approximately 377,919 USD in 2013). She separated from Kunz in 1950 and died in 1969 at age 70. Mrs. Crater expressed her belief that the judge had been murdered in her own account of the case, The Empty Robe, which was written with freelance writer and journalist Oscar Fraley and published by Doubleday in 1961. On August 19, 2005, authorities revealed that, after her death at age 91, they had received notes that had been written by Queens resident Stella Ferrucci-Good, in which she claimed that her husband, NYPD detective Robert Good, had learned that Crater was killed by Charles Burns, an NYPD officer who also worked as a bodyguard of Murder, Inc. enforcer Abe Reles, and Burns' brother, Frank. According to the letter, Crater was buried near under Riegelmann Boardwalk, also known as the Coney Island Boardwalk, by West Eighth Street in Coney Island, Brooklyn, at the current site of the New York Aquarium. Police reported that no records had been found to indicate that skeletal remains had been discovered at that site when it was excavated in the 1950s. The phrase "to pull a Judge Crater" means to disappear. It is no longer widely used. For many years following Crater's disappearance, "Judge Crater, call your office" was a standard gag of nightclub comedians. In the TV series "M*A*S*H", in the episode "Bless You, Hawkeye" (Season 9, Episode 17), Colonel Potter says the keys to the lab have been "pulling a Judge Crater." Judge Crater was also mentioned in the comedy television series Green Acres. In the episode "Not Guilty" (Season 3, Episode 17, original air date January 3, 1968), Mr. Haney, speaking to his bloodhound, says "Come on, Clarence. Let's see if we can pick up on Judge Crater's trail again." Eb responds, "Who's Judge, uh-" followed by Oliver's, "Never mind." As a publicity stunt for their 1933 film Bureau of Missing Persons, First National Pictures promised in advertisements to pay Crater 10K USD (equivalent to 200K USD in 2019) if he claimed it in person at the box office. Crater's last letter, possibly written on the day of his disappearance, was sold at auction on June 22, 1981, for 700 USD. The letter was marked "confidential" and began: "The following money is due me from the persons named. Get in touch with them for they will surely pay their debts." It was incorrectly reported that this letter was Crater's will. Judge Crater was also mentioned in the dramatic series The Sopranos. When the doorbell rings, Uncle June jokes that it could be Judge Crater. Judge Crater is portrayed on the television series Night Gallery in the season 3 episode Rare Objects. Crater is among several other presumed dead people in a living zoo-like collection. https://store.earthstation1.com/perspective-on-greatness-hizzoner-the-mayor-laguardia-walker-nyc-dvd.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1942: #BOTD: Charlie Rose, American television journalist and talk show host, host and executive producer of the talk show Charlie Rose on PBS and Bloomberg LP from 1991 to 2017, is #born Charles Peete Rose Jr. in Henderson, North Carolina. Rose also co-anchored CBS This Morning from 2012 to 2017 alongside Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell. Rose formerly substituted for the anchor of the CBS Evening News. Rose, along with Lara Logan, hosted the revived CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted from 1953 to 1961 by Edward R. Murrow. In November 2017, Rose was fired from CBS and PBS after The Washington Post published multiple in-house allegations of sexual harassment from the late 1990s to 2011. His employment at CBS was also terminated, and his eponymous show, Charlie Rose, which used to air on PBS and Bloomberg, was cancelled. Rose has interviewed many celebrities, institutional leaders, and political figures, including Donald Trump (1992); Bill Gates (1996); Steve Jobs (1996); Sean Penn (2008 & 2016); Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (2013), for which he won a second Peabody Award; U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle (2012); U.S. business magnate Warren Buffett; David Rockefeller; MIT Linguistics professor Noam Chomsky (2003); soprano Jessye Norman (1992); actor/producer Leonardo DiCaprio (2004); comedians Louis C.K. and George Carlin; actor Christoph Waltz; director Quentin Tarantino; actor Bradley Cooper; Larry Ellison, the co-founder and then CEO of Oracle Corporation; former Iranian empress Farah Pahlavi; Vladimir Putin (2015); and tennis champion Maria Sharapova. Rose's firing as a co-anchor on CBS This Morning was covered by CBS, the day after the report was published. His former co-hosts Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell confronted the matter live on air. King stated that she was still "reeling" and while "... I've enjoyed a friendship and a partnership with Charlie for the past five years. I've held him in such high regard and I'm really struggling ...". O'Donnell stated "there is no excuse for this alleged behavior" and both agreed he "does not get a pass here" for his behavior. In 2019, Gayle King stated that she keeps in contact and is still friends with him: "I don't know what his second act is, but Charlie is a very smart guy. There must be room for redemption." https://store.earthstation1.com/jessye-norman-the-1992-interview-dvd-mp4-usb-19924.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1967: Maoism (Mao Zedong Thought): The Cultural Revolution (CR, The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution): The Seizure Of Power Movement (The Power-Seizure Movement): The January Storm (The January Revolution): The Shanghai People's Commune: -- Following the seizure of power from local Shanghai officials by a dozen groups of allied revolutionaries, The Shanghai Workers Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters is established. They immediately publish "A Message To All The People Of Shanghai" in the city's main newspaper, which called for unity in the workers' movement. It condemned the Scarlet Guards, a more militant form of the Red Guards that was formed by the Shanghai loyalist communist party with the sole purpose of repudiating the existence of the Workers General Headquarters as enemies of the working class, and it called on all workers to resume production. The Shanghai People's Commune (Chinese: {Pinyin}: Shanghai Renmin Gongshe) was established by the Shanghai Workers Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters, and was itself a splinter group of the Chinese Communist Party that, using Mao's own idelogical tactics and precepts, opposed other Maoist and Red Guard factions in a struggle for control over Shanghai, China's most industrialized city, in the confusing melee that was the Cultural Revolution at that time. The Commune was modelled on the Paris Commune, and it lasted less than a month before it was replaced by the government. In a mass meeting led by the Workers General Headquarters on January 6, Shanghai Party Committee leaders and functionaries were humiliated and dismissed from their posts. Rebel party cadres also played a major role in the collapse of the Shanghai Party Committee. Three days after the mass meeting, Mao described the events in Shanghai as a "great revolution" and stated that the "upsurge of revolutionary power in Shanghai has brought hope to the whole country." Now leaders of the Central Group for the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan came to Shanghai. The pair proceeded to strike a deal with Wang Hongwen to guarantee the support of the Worker's Headquarters and attempted to restore the city to order. Zhang, Yao, and Wen announced the Shanghai Commune, a model based on the Paris Commune. On February 5, 1967, the Shanghai Commune was formally proclaimed with Zhang Chunqiao as the head of the new organisation, but the movement was to be short-lived and marred with difficulty. Radical groups like the Workers' Second Regiment criticized this new alliance as one imposed from Beijing rather than self-determined by the workers. Violence again broke out in between workers groups in the city and lasted through February. The Shanghai People's Commune manifesto began, "We proletarian revolutionaries of Shanghai proclaim to the whole country and the whole world that in the great January Revolutionary Storm the old Municipal Committee of Shanghai has collapsed, and the Shanghai People's Commune was born." Its theme overwhelmingly focused on the critical Cultural Revolution concept, the seizure of power. Among its 63 references to seizure of power (in the course of only a few pages), the Manifesto states, "The central task of all our tasks is to take power. We must seize power, seize it completely, seize it one hundred percent." It repeated some statements by Mao, which included a frequent theme of revolutionary culture articulated by Mao in a 1933 speech: "All revolutionary struggles in the world are made to take political power and strengthen it." Although the Manifesto described the commune as only "a first step," it did not address future goals other than general statements on issues like workers making revolution, stimulating production, self-reforming, and preventing revisionists authorities from seizing power back. Meanwhile, in Beijing, the concept of 'revolutionary committees' (triple alliances between the PLA, cadres, and workers) had attracted Mao as the best organ of local government to replace the old apparatus with. As a result, in an audience with Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan in mid-February, Mao suggested the transformation of the Shanghai Commune into a revolutionary committee. In this meeting, Mao commented on what he described as the "name" problem, stating that the "name" should not be confused with the "real" and the name of the Commune should not be exaggerated because "names come and go." Mao said that if taken only as a synonym for seizing power, the name "Commune" obscured the more pressing strategic task of re-examining the history of revolutionary culture. While Mao endorsed the overall approach, he stated that the movement should be deepened with study. On February 24, in a televised speech to the people of Shanghai, Zhang announced the now non-existence of the Shanghai Commune, and in the subsequent weeks the 'Revolutionary Committee of the Municipality of Shanghai' was established in the city. In the months following the January Storm, the nationwide political climate changed rapidly. Most independent organizations weakened and collapsed from the constant factional conflict. In almost every city and danwei, the multiplicity of organizations was replaced by pairs of rival organizations, for example the "Sky" and "Earth" factions among Beijing students. As time went on, the head-on clashes between these pairs of rival organizations generally became increasingly formalist and lacking in political content. Between 1968 and 1976, one million skilled workers from Shanghai were sent to rural underdeveloped inner China, officially to share their "revolutionary experiences" and to help develop the country. Some radical leaders who had opposed the Red Guards that dethroned the Shanghai Municipal Committee in 1967 were publicly executed in April 1968. https://store.earthstation1.com/mao-tse-tung-dvd-portraits-of-power-cbs-biography-documentaries.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1928: #BOTD: #HBD! Walter Mondale, American soldier, lawyer, diplomat and politician, United States Senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976, 42nd Vice President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 (d. April 19, 2021) is #born Walter Frederick Mondalein Ceylon, Minnesota. Known as Fritz Mondale, he was the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in the United States presidential election of 1984, but lost to Ronald Reagan in a landslide. Reagan won 49 states while Mondale carried his home state of Minnesota and Washington, D.C.. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War before earning a law degree in 1956. He was appointed to the position of attorney general of Minnesota in 1960 by Governor Orville Freeman and was elected to a full term as attorney general in 1962 with 60 percent of votes cast. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Karl Rolvaag upon the resignation of Senator Hubert Humphrey following Humphrey's election as vice president in 1964. Mondale was subsequently elected to a full Senate term in 1966 and again in 1972, resigning that post in 1976 as he prepared to succeed to the vice presidency in 1977. While in the Senate, he supported consumer protection, fair housing, tax reform, and the desegregation of schools. Importantly, he served as a member of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities ("Church Committee"). In 1976, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic presidential nominee, chose Mondale as his vice presidential running mate. The Carter/Mondale ticket defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford and his vice presidential running mate, Bob Dole. Carter and Mondale's time in office was marred by a worsening economy and, although both were renominated by the Democratic Party, they lost the 1980 election to Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In 1984, Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination and campaigned for a nuclear freeze, the Equal Rights Amendment, an increase in taxes, and a reduction of U.S. public debt. After his defeat by Reagan, Mondale joined the Minnesota-based law firm of Dorsey and Whitney and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (1986-93). President Bill Clinton appointed Mondale United States Ambassador to Japan in 1993; he retired in 1996. In 2002, Mondale ran for his old Senate seat, agreeing to be the last-minute replacement for Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone, who had been killed in a plane crash during the final two weeks of his re-election campaign. However, Mondale narrowly lost that race. He then returned to working at Dorsey and Whitney and remained active in the Democratic Party. Mondale later took up a part-time teaching position at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Mondale died of natural causes in his sleep at his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 19, 2021, at the age of 93. On the day before his death, he had several phone conversations with Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Mondale also emailed a final message to his staff, as he and his family had come to the conclusion that "his death was imminent". At the time of his death, Mondale was the oldest living former U.S. vice president. Carter said in a statement: "Today I mourn the passing of my dear friend Walter Mondale, who I consider the best vice president in our country's history [...] Rosalynn and I join all Americans in giving thanks for his exemplary life, and we extend our deepest condolences to his family." Carter had last seen Mondale in person at the Carter Center in June 2019. President Biden paid tribute to Mondale in a public statement, calling him a "dear friend and mentor" who had "defined the vice presidency as a full partnership, and helped provide a model for my service". On April 20, 2021, Biden ordered all flags at government properties, office buildings and public grounds to be flown at half-staff until that Tuesday evening in honor of Mondale. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, funeral services for Mondale were delayed. Two public services were initially planned for September 2021, one in his home state of Minnesota and the other in Washington D.C.; both were later postponed. A memorial service was later held on May 1, 2022, at Northrop Auditorium on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota. Attendees included family, friends, state and national leaders, including President Joe Biden. https://store.earthstation1.com/presidential-campaign-tv-ads-19521984-dvds-2-dual-la195219842.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1875: Grand Openings: Theatre Grand Openings (Theater Grand Openings): Opera House Openings: -- The Palais Garnier, one of the most famous opera houses in the world, is inaugurated in Paris. The Palais Garnier (French: Garnier Palace; literally Garnish Palace) or Opera Garnier (French: Garnier Opera), is a 1,979-seat opera house at the Place de l'Opera in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera from 1861 to 1875 at the behest of Emperor Napoleon III. Initially referred to as "le nouvel Opera de Paris" (the new Paris Opera), it soon became known as the Palais Garnier, "in acknowledgment of its extraordinary opulence" and the architect Charles Garnier's plans and designs, which are representative of the Napoleon III style. It was the primary theatre of the Paris Opera and its associated Paris Opera Ballet until 1989, when a new opera house, the Opera Bastille, opened at the Place de la Bastille. The company now uses the Palais Garnier mainly for ballet. The theatre has been a monument historique of France since 1923. The Palais Garnier has been called "probably the most famous opera house in the world, a symbol of Paris like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, or the Sacre Coeur Basilica." This is at least partly due to its use as the setting for Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and, especially, the novel's subsequent adaptations in films and the popular 1986 musical. Another contributing factor is that among the buildings constructed in Paris during the Second Empire, besides being the most expensive, it has been described as the only one that is "unquestionably a masterpiece of the first rank." This opinion is far from unanimous however: the 20th-century French architect Le Corbusier once described it as "a lying art" and contended that the "Garnier movement is a decor of the grave". The Palais Garnier also houses the Bibliotheque-Musee de l'Opera de Paris (Paris Opera Library-Museum), which is managed by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France and is included in unaccompanied tours of the Palais Garnier. https://store.earthstation1.com/the-ballet-russe-a-la-the-paris-opera-ballet-dvd-serge-diaghilev.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1589: #DOTD: #RIP: Catherine de' Medici, Italian (Florentine) noblewoman born into the Medici family considered the most important woman in Europe in the 16th century, Queen Of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King Henry II, mother of French kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III, whose collective years of reign have been called "The Age Of Catherine de' Medici" since she had extensive, albeit at times varying, influence on the political life of France, niece of Pope Clement VII, guardian of Mary Stewart before she became Mary, Queen Of Scots, patroness of the arts (b. April 13, 1519) #dies at the age of sixty-nine, probably from pleurisy, at The Royal Chateau Of Blois in the city center of Blois, Loir-et-Cher, in the Loire Valley, Kingdom Of France. The french diarist and chronicler, royal secretary Pierre de L'Estoile, wrote: "those close to her believed that her life had been shortened by displeasure over her son's deed" of having the Duke of Guise killed along with eight members of the Guise family. He added that she had no sooner died than she was treated with as much consideration as a dead goat. Because Paris was held by enemies of the crown, Catherine had to be buried provisionally at Blois. Eight months later, assassin Jacques Clement stabbed Henry III to death while Henry was besieging Paris with the Henry III Of Navarre, who would succeed Henry III as Henry IV of France, ending nearly three centuries of Valois rule and founding The Bourbon Dynasty. Henry IV was later reported to have said of Catherine:"I ask you, what could a woman do, left by the death of her husband with five little children on her arms, and two families of France who were thinking of grasping the crown -- our own [the Bourbons] and the Guises? Was she not compelled to play strange parts to deceive first one and then the other, in order to guard, as she did, her sons, who successively reigned through the wise conduct of that shrewd woman? I am surprised that she never did worse." Years later, Diane, daughter of Henry II and Philippa Duci, had Catherine's remains reinterred in the Saint-Denis Basilica in Paris. In 1793, a revolutionary mob tossed her bones into a mass grave with those of the other kings and queens. Catherine de' Medici was born Caterina Maria Romula de' Medici in Florence, Republic of Florence, the only child of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and his wife, Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, the countess of Boulogne. In 1533, at the age of 14, Catherine married Henry, the second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude of France, who would become Dauphin of France (heir to the throne) upon the death of his elder brother Francis in 1536. Catherine's marriage was arranged by her uncle, the pope (born, Giulio de' Medici). Henry largely excluded Catherine from state affairs during his reign, instead showering favours on his chief mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who wielded significant influence in the court. Henry's sudden accidental death in 1559 thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail 15-year-old Francis II. When Francis II died the next year, she became regent on behalf of her 10-year-old son Charles IX and thus gained sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life but outlived her by just seven months. Catherine's three sons reigned in an age of almost constant civil and religious war in France. The Guise Faction, a prominent French noble family of The House Of Guise that was involved heavily in the French Wars Of Religion, tried to displace her sons in its attempt to establish its very own dynasty to rule over France. Catherine also tried to think of ways to weaken the Guise Faction, which treated her scornfully. The problems facing the monarchy were complex and daunting. However, Catherine kept the monarchy and state institutions functioning, if at a minimal level. At first, Catherine compromised and made concessions to the rebelling Calvinist Protestants known as Huguenots. However, she failed to fully grasp the theological issues that drove their movement. Later, she resorted in frustration and anger to hardline policies against them. In return, she was blamed for the persecutions carried out under her sons' rules, in particular the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, during which thousands of Huguenots were killed in France. Some historians have excused Catherine from blame for the worst decisions of the crown, but evidence for her ruthlessness can be found in her letters. In practice, her authority was limited by the effects of the civil wars, and she suffers in comparison to what might have been had her husband the king lived to take responsibility or stabilise the country. Therefore, her policies may be seen as desperate measures to keep the House of Valois on the throne at all costs and her patronage of the arts as an attempt to glorify a monarchy whose prestige was in steep decline. Without Catherine, it is unlikely that her sons would have remained in power. https://store.earthstation1.com/mary-queen-of-scots-vanessa-redgrave-glenda-jackson-mp4-download-dvd.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1917: #BOTD: #HBD! Jane Wyman, American actress, singer, dancer, and philanthropist (d. September 10, 2007) is #born Sarah Jane Mayfield in St. Joseph, Missouri. She received an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards and nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. Wyman's professional career began at age 16 in 1933, when she signed with Warner Bros. A popular contract player, she frequently played the leading lady, appearing in films such as Public Wedding (1937), Brother Rat (1938), its sequel Brother Rat and a Baby (1940), Bad Men of Missouri (1941), Stage Fright (1950) So Big (1953), Magnificent Obsession (1954), and All That Heaven Allows (1955). She received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress, winning for Johnny Belinda (1948). In her later years, she achieved continuing success on the soap opera Falcon Crest (1981-1990), portraying the role of villainous matriarch Angela Channing. Wyman was the first wife of actor and future President Ronald Reagan. Jane Wyman died in her sleep of natural causes at the age of 90 at her home in Rancho Mirage, California. https://store.earthstation1.com/burns-and-allen-radio-mp3-dvd-comedy-show3.html
Today, January 5, 2026
January 5, 1904: #BOTD: #HBD! Jeane Dixon, American astrologer and psychic, best known for her correct prediction of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and incorrect prediction of the plane crash death of The Beatles, syndicated newspaper astrologer, author of a best-selling biography (d. January 25, 1997) is #born Lydia Emma Pinckert in Medford, Wisconsin, one of then siblings born to Richard Franz Pinckert, a native of Grafenhainichen, Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt (formed in July 1945 after World War II, when the Soviet army administration in Allied-occupied Germany formed it from the former Prussian Province of Saxony and the Free State of Anhalt; following German reunification, Saxony-Anhalt became one of the new states of the Federal Republic of Germany), and his wife, Luise Johanne Emma (nee Graefe), both Roman Catholics. Her birth date was often reported as 1918, and Dixon would proffer this date to reporters, at one point even producing a passport to this effect, but she once testified in a deposition that she was born in 1910. An investigation by a reporter for the National Observer, who interviewed family members and examined official records, concluded she was born in 1904. Dixon claimed that while growing up in California, a "Gypsy" gave her a crystal ball and read her palm, predicting she would become a famous seer and advise powerful people. She was married to James Dixon, a divorce, from 1939 until his death. The couple had no children. James Dixon was a car dealer in California, who later ran a successful real estate company in Washington, D.C. Dixon worked with her husband in the business for many years and served as the company's president. Dixon was the sister of football player Erny Pinckert. Dixon reportedly predicted the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the May 13, 1956, issue of Parade Magazine she wrote that the 1960 presidential election would be "dominated by labor and won by a Democrat" who would then go on to "be assassinated or die in office though not necessarily in his first term". In 1960, as the election neared, she changed her mind and incorrectly predicted that Richard Nixon would win. She later admitted she "saw Richard Nixon as the winner" and made unequivocal predictions that he would win. She appeared in the film The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, considering the predictions of Nostradamus and discussing her prediction of Kennedy's assassination. Dixon wrote seven books, including her autobiography, a horoscope book for dogs, and an astrological cookbook. She gained public awareness through the biography A Gift of Prophecy: The Phenomenal Jeane Dixon, written by syndicated columnist Ruth Montgomery. Published in 1965, the book sold more than 3 million copies. She was a devout Roman Catholic and attributed her prophetic ability to God. Another million-seller, My Life and Prophecies, was credited "as told to Rene Noorbergen", but Dixon was sued by Adele Fletcher, who claimed that her rejected manuscript was rewritten and published as that book. Fletcher was awarded 5% of the royalties by a jury. In 1967, Dixon was called by Webb and Etoila Hunter in Decatur, Alabama, who were searching for their 34-year-old missing daughter, Mary Faye Hunter. Dixon told the family that Mary Faye was okay; however, Mary Faye was found dead several months after her disappearance. In 1969, she was asked to find Dennis Lloyd Martin, a six-year-old boy who had gone missing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. She failed to do so. Richard Nixon followed Dixon's writing through his secretary, Rose Mary Woods, and met with Dixon in the Oval Office in 1971. The following year, her prediction of terrorist attacks in the United States in the wake of the Munich massacre spurred Nixon to create a cabinet committee on counterterrorism. She was one of several astrologers who gave advice to Nancy Reagan. Dixon predicted that before the end of the 20th century, a pope would suffer bodily harm while another would be assassinated. These would purportedly correspond with the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, and allegations of assassination of Pope John Paul I. She also stated that dissatisfied cardinals would replace a serving pope, which may have referred to John Paul I. In her 1971 book, The Call to Glory, Dixon predicted that an apocalyptic "war of Armageddon" would occur about the year 2020. In her 1969 book My Life and Prophecies, she apparently predicted a war between China and Russia would occur between 2025 and 2037, initiated and won by China. John Allen Paulos, a mathematician at Temple University, explored the tendency of Dixon and her fans to promote her few correct predictions while ignoring the larger number of incorrect predictions, naming this habit "the Jeane Dixon effect." Many of Dixon's predictions proved erroneous, such as her claims that a dispute over the islands of Quemoy and Matsu would trigger the start of World War III in 1958, that American labor leader Walter Reuther would run for president of the United States in the 1964 presidential election, that the second child of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his wife Margaret would be a girl (they had a boy), and that the Soviets would be the first to put men on the Moon. In his book The Mask of Nostradamus, James Randi also notes that it is a common strategy of prophets to make many predictions, hope that some come true, and subsequently ignore all the incorrect predictions. Randi notes a series of incorrect predictions that Dixon made, also noting that these are only a few from a "very long" list. Among these include the predictions that US President Richard Nixon would survive the Watergate scandal and make a comeback, that Russia would be the first country to put a man on the moon, that China would start World War III in 1958, that the Vietnam War would end in 1966, and in the same year The Beatles would die in a plane crash. George Harrison stated that this prediction weighed on the minds of The Beatles during 1966, and that their album Revolver produced during this period reflected this concern as well as the mindset of the band at that time; the last song on the album is entitled "Tomorrow Never Knows", and the lyrics are taken from The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, the Tibetan Buddhist "Last Rites" of sorts. Dixon suffered cardiac arrest and died at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., aged 93. Her remains were cremated, and her ashes scattered over Mt. Rainer. Many of her possessions ended up with Leo M. Bernstein, an investor and banker in Washington, D.C., whose clients included Dixon. In 2002, he opened the Jeane Dixon Museum and Library in Strasburg, Virginia. Bernstein died in 2008. In July 2009, the possessions of the museum, 500 boxes in all, were scheduled to be auctioned. Before her death, she uttered the words "I knew this would happen." https://store.earthstation1.com/alternative-revolver-beatles-mp3-cd-audio-download-usb-flash-driv3.html