Some open letters
An open letter to California's Attorney General Kamala Harris:
Dear Ms Harris,
Among the Democratic candidates and potential candidates to replace Senator Barbara Boxer in the 2016 election, you are clearly the best choice. I don't consider the Republican candidates who may run in this race because the only way a California Republican could be elected to the United States Senate would be to move to another state and run there.
You are about to make a decision that will probably be used against you in the upcoming campaign, no matter which of the two choices you take. You will decide if Prime Healthcare will be allowed to purchase six hospitals operated by the Daughters of Charity. The commercials supporting this sale continue to run on radio. I've already made my own thoughts on this issue clear (http://fourohfouram.blogspot.com/2015/01/how-are-you.html) and there is no need to revisit the reasons I am opposed to this sale.
What is important is that if you make the right choice and say no, one of your opponents will undoubtedly run negative ads talking about how you deprived a geographic area of hospital care. That may be accurate if those hospitals really are forced to close, but the alternative of Prime Healthcare operating them is no better. Daughters of Charity are first and foremost concerned with their patients and employees. Those two groups are 2nd and 3rd in line in Prime's priorities, as making money is their primary interest (pun intended).
If you approve the sale, many will criticize you for allowing the people of this area to be gouged and treated poorly by Prime's business model. It seems like a no-win situation. That is why when you do turn down the application, you should make it clear that in analyzing the situation; the people impacted by your decision are better served with no hospitals than they would be by Prime hospitals. Cicero said "the welfare of the people is the highest law" and that should be the determining factor in this decision. I hope you make that the centerpiece of your decision.
Good luck in 2016
* * *
An open letter to Michael Moore:
I don't want to be accused of criticizing statements you've made by taking them out of context. So here are your exact words:
"Lots of talk about snipers this weekend (the holiday weekend of a great man, killed by a sniper), so I thought I'd weigh in with what I was raised to believe about snipers. My dad was in the First Marine Division in the South Pacific in World War II. His brother, my uncle, Lawrence Moore, was an Army paratrooper and was killed by a Japanese sniper 70 years ago next month. My dad always said, "Snipers are cowards. They don't believe in a fair fight. Like someone coming up from behind you and coldcocking you. Just isn't right. It's cowardly to shoot a person in the back. Only a coward will shoot someone who can't shoot back."
So I sent out this tweet today:
https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/556914094406926336
And then I sent this:
https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/556988226486169600
But Deadline Hollwood and the Hollywood Reporter turned that into stories about how I don't like Clint Eastwood's new film, "American Sniper." I didn't say a word about "American Sniper" in my tweets.
But here's what Deadline Hollywood posted (note how they changed "snipers" to "shooters" in their headline):
http://deadline.com/…/michael-moore-american-sniper-oscars…/
Hollywood Reporter has since corrected their story:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/…/michael-moore-blasts-ame…
If they wanted to know my opinion of "American Sniper" (and I have one), why not ask me?
So here's what I think about "American Sniper":
Awesome performance from Bradley Cooper. One of the best of the year. Great editing. Costumes, hair, makeup superb!
Oh... and too bad Clint gets Vietnam and Iraq confused in his storytelling. And that he has his characters calling Iraqis "savages" throughout the film. But there is also anti-war sentiment expressed in the movie. And there's a touching ending as the main character is remembered after being gunned down by a fellow American vet with PTSD who was given a gun at a gun range back home in Texas -- and then used it to kill the man who called himself the 'America Sniper'.
Also, best movie trailer and TV ads of the year.
Most of us were taught the story of Jesse James and that the scoundrel wasn't James (who was a criminal who killed people) but rather the sniper who shot him in the back. I think most Americans don't think snipers are heroes.
Hopefully not on this weekend when we remember that man in Memphis, Tennessee, who was killed by a sniper's bullet."
Your basic premise is fatally flawed. War is not about fighting "fair." War is primarily about winning and you and your comrades in arms surviving until the war ends. There have been plenty of armed conflicts that weren't a "fair fight."
Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland wasn't a fair fight by any measure. The Germans had nearly twice as many personnel, more than three times as many tanks and twice the number of artillery pieces.
When the U. S. went into Grenada in 1983 to force the 700+ Cuban soldiers who had invaded, more than ten times that number of U. S. military personnel deployed. That doesn't seem to be very fair, does it?
Sniper school is one of the most difficult of the various special operations military training schools. The failure rate can exceed 60%. In some armed conflicts the mission of the sniper to get into position to take a shot may be more dangerous than taking the shot itself. The art of stalking the target is an extremely difficult skill to acquire. Legendary U. S. Marine Corps sniper Carlos Hathcock went out to stalk a female North Vietnamese sniper known by the Marines as "Apache." She would torture Marines and ARVN personnel, sometimes slicing off their eyelids so they couldn't close their eyes. He was being hunted by the Viet Cong and NVA snipers with a bounty of $30,000 on his head. There is no way on Earth his actions or any of his service can be described as "cowardly."
Your "review" of the film itself, which you shared after the initial tweets came out is accurate.
One last question. The United States used snipers during WWII. Your father and uncle may have served with them. Did they call them cowards?
* * *
The regularity and quantity of my blog posts has fallen off in recent months and that is to blame for the current situation of low page-view numbers. That's my fault. So I'm going to commit to try to write some kind of entry daily from now on. It may just be one or two items like those above, or it may be a full-on entry with ponderings and this day in history. But I'd rather put out shorter entries more often and try to boost the readership instead of writing something and taking to long to complete the whole thing. Feedback would be appreciated.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
I don't get it, did Kanye West steal the printers or not? How would being racially profiled have anything to do with whether or not he committed a crime? And how does this bear on whether or not he assaulted a photographer more than a decade later?
The appropriate punishment for the day care worker in Florida who was caught on video kicking a toddler would be to suffer from 100 kicks. From every parent who had a child in that day care facility on that day. 20 parents = 2,000 kicks.
Draco Malfoy in Gryffindor? Heresy!
I get it that Lena Dunham has no filter, but maybe she should think about creating one after her uncalled-for comments about sex and the late Chris Farley.
Lindsay Lohan may be ill from her trip to Bora Bora but that's no excuse for not having completed her community service. I hope she winds up in jail this time. Long past due.
So basically, what "DeflateGate" is telling us is that Tom Brady likes it when his balls are softer.
Now that they have both had the experience of being cuffed and stuffed while their husbands were busted for DUI, maybe Hope Solo and Reese Witherspoon will become BFFs.
The fact a 19 year old woman from Colorado is going to spend four years in a federal prison for wanting to become an "ISIS bride" tells me I wasn't wrong about how 18 isn't an automatic barometer for determining adulthood.
Speaker of the House John Boehner has no business conducting his own foreign diplomacy. Israel's Prime Minister should have turned down Speaker Boehner's invite to speak before Congress.
Do they call it "rush hour" because everyone rushes to get on the freeway and then not move?
Could someone tell the Kirksville, MO school superintendent who tried to dismiss outrage over a note from a meddling teacher as having been sent with "...the best of intentions" that the road to Hell is paved with the best of intentions?
* * *
January 23rd in History:
393 – Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his eight-year old son Honorius co-emperor.
971 – In China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han are soundly defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song dynasty troops.
1368 – In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
1546 – Having published nothing for eleven years, François Rabelais publishes the Tiers Livre, his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel.
1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000.
1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, is assassinated by firearm, the first recorded instance of such.
1571 – The Royal Exchange opens in London.
1579 – The Union of Utrecht forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands.
1656 – Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales.
1719 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
1789 – Georgetown College, the first Catholic university in the United States, is founded in Georgetown, Maryland (now a part of Washington, D.C.)
1793 – Second Partition of Poland.
1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female doctor.
1855 – The 1855 Wairarapa earthquake and tsunami leaves nine dead in New Zealand.
1855 – The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, a crossing made today by the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.
1870 – In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in what becomes known as the Marias Massacre.
1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: the Battle of Rorke's Drift ends.
1897 – Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.
1899 – The Malolos Constitution is inaugurated, establishing the First Philippine Republic.
1899 – Emilio Aguinaldo is sworn in as President of the First Philippine Republic.
1900 – Second Boer War: The Battle of Spion Kop between the forces of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State and British forces ends in a British defeat.
1904 – Ålesund Fire: the Norwegian coastal town Ålesund is devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead. Kaiser Wilhelm II funds the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style.
1909 – RMS Republic, a passenger ship of the White Star Line, becomes the first ship to use the CQD distress signal after colliding with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that kills six people. The Republic sinks the next day.
1912 – The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.
1920 – The Netherlands refuses to surrender the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.
1937 – In Moscow, 17 leading Communists go on trial accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders.
1941 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of Rabaul begins, the first fighting of the New Guinea campaign.
1943 – World War II: Troops of Montgomery's Eighth Army capture Tripoli in Libya from the German–Italian Panzer Army.
1943 – World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeat the Japanese army in Papua.
1943 – Duke Ellington plays at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
1943 – World War II: The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal Campaign ends.
1945 – World War II: German admiral Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal.
1950 – The Knesset passes a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
1957 – American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the "Frisbee".
1958 – After a general uprising and rioting in the streets, President Marcos Pérez Jiménez leaves Venezuela.
1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean.
1961 – The Portuguese luxury cruise ship Santa Maria is hijacked by opponents of the Estado Novo regime with the intention of waging war until dictator António de Oliveira Salazar is overthrown.
1963 – The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence officially begins when PAIGC guerrilla fighters attack the Portuguese army stationed in Tite.
1964 – The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.
1967 – Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Côte d'Ivoire are established.
1967 – Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty one villages.
1968 – North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship had violated its territorial waters while spying.
1973 – United States President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
1973 – A volcanic eruption devastates Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar chain of islands off the south coast of Iceland.
1986 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.
1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.
1997 – Greek serial killer Antonis Daglis is sentenced to thirteen consecutive life sentences, plus 25 years for the serial slayings of three women and the attempted murder of six others.
2001 – Five people attempt to set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act that many people later claim is staged by the Communist Party of China to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution.
2002 – "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh returns to the United States in FBI custody.
2002 – Reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered.
2003 – Final communication between Earth and Pioneer 10.
Famous Folk Born on January 23rd:
John Hancock
Saigo Takamori (the real-life inspiration for the character of Katsumoto in the film "The Last Samurai")
Edouard Manet
John Browning
George McManus
Sergei Eisenstein
Randolph Scott
Wally Parks
Ernie Kovacs
Frank Lautenberg
Jack Quinlan
George Allen
Chita Rivera
Jerry Kramer
Sonny Chiba
Arlene Golonka
Gil Gerard
Rutger Hauer
Anita Pointer
Bill Cunningham
Danny Federici
David Patrick Kelly
Chesley Sullenberger
Antonio Villaraigosa
Robin Zander
Richard Finch
Leilani Kai
Gail O'Grady
Mariska Hargitay
Tiffani Thiessen
Julia Jones
Dear Ms Harris,
Among the Democratic candidates and potential candidates to replace Senator Barbara Boxer in the 2016 election, you are clearly the best choice. I don't consider the Republican candidates who may run in this race because the only way a California Republican could be elected to the United States Senate would be to move to another state and run there.
You are about to make a decision that will probably be used against you in the upcoming campaign, no matter which of the two choices you take. You will decide if Prime Healthcare will be allowed to purchase six hospitals operated by the Daughters of Charity. The commercials supporting this sale continue to run on radio. I've already made my own thoughts on this issue clear (http://fourohfouram.blogspot.com/2015/01/how-are-you.html) and there is no need to revisit the reasons I am opposed to this sale.
What is important is that if you make the right choice and say no, one of your opponents will undoubtedly run negative ads talking about how you deprived a geographic area of hospital care. That may be accurate if those hospitals really are forced to close, but the alternative of Prime Healthcare operating them is no better. Daughters of Charity are first and foremost concerned with their patients and employees. Those two groups are 2nd and 3rd in line in Prime's priorities, as making money is their primary interest (pun intended).
If you approve the sale, many will criticize you for allowing the people of this area to be gouged and treated poorly by Prime's business model. It seems like a no-win situation. That is why when you do turn down the application, you should make it clear that in analyzing the situation; the people impacted by your decision are better served with no hospitals than they would be by Prime hospitals. Cicero said "the welfare of the people is the highest law" and that should be the determining factor in this decision. I hope you make that the centerpiece of your decision.
Good luck in 2016
* * *
An open letter to Michael Moore:
I don't want to be accused of criticizing statements you've made by taking them out of context. So here are your exact words:
"Lots of talk about snipers this weekend (the holiday weekend of a great man, killed by a sniper), so I thought I'd weigh in with what I was raised to believe about snipers. My dad was in the First Marine Division in the South Pacific in World War II. His brother, my uncle, Lawrence Moore, was an Army paratrooper and was killed by a Japanese sniper 70 years ago next month. My dad always said, "Snipers are cowards. They don't believe in a fair fight. Like someone coming up from behind you and coldcocking you. Just isn't right. It's cowardly to shoot a person in the back. Only a coward will shoot someone who can't shoot back."
So I sent out this tweet today:
https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/556914094406926336
And then I sent this:
https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/556988226486169600
But Deadline Hollwood and the Hollywood Reporter turned that into stories about how I don't like Clint Eastwood's new film, "American Sniper." I didn't say a word about "American Sniper" in my tweets.
But here's what Deadline Hollywood posted (note how they changed "snipers" to "shooters" in their headline):
http://deadline.com/…/michael-moore-american-sniper-oscars…/
Hollywood Reporter has since corrected their story:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/…/michael-moore-blasts-ame…
If they wanted to know my opinion of "American Sniper" (and I have one), why not ask me?
So here's what I think about "American Sniper":
Awesome performance from Bradley Cooper. One of the best of the year. Great editing. Costumes, hair, makeup superb!
Oh... and too bad Clint gets Vietnam and Iraq confused in his storytelling. And that he has his characters calling Iraqis "savages" throughout the film. But there is also anti-war sentiment expressed in the movie. And there's a touching ending as the main character is remembered after being gunned down by a fellow American vet with PTSD who was given a gun at a gun range back home in Texas -- and then used it to kill the man who called himself the 'America Sniper'.
Also, best movie trailer and TV ads of the year.
Most of us were taught the story of Jesse James and that the scoundrel wasn't James (who was a criminal who killed people) but rather the sniper who shot him in the back. I think most Americans don't think snipers are heroes.
Hopefully not on this weekend when we remember that man in Memphis, Tennessee, who was killed by a sniper's bullet."
Your basic premise is fatally flawed. War is not about fighting "fair." War is primarily about winning and you and your comrades in arms surviving until the war ends. There have been plenty of armed conflicts that weren't a "fair fight."
Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland wasn't a fair fight by any measure. The Germans had nearly twice as many personnel, more than three times as many tanks and twice the number of artillery pieces.
When the U. S. went into Grenada in 1983 to force the 700+ Cuban soldiers who had invaded, more than ten times that number of U. S. military personnel deployed. That doesn't seem to be very fair, does it?
Sniper school is one of the most difficult of the various special operations military training schools. The failure rate can exceed 60%. In some armed conflicts the mission of the sniper to get into position to take a shot may be more dangerous than taking the shot itself. The art of stalking the target is an extremely difficult skill to acquire. Legendary U. S. Marine Corps sniper Carlos Hathcock went out to stalk a female North Vietnamese sniper known by the Marines as "Apache." She would torture Marines and ARVN personnel, sometimes slicing off their eyelids so they couldn't close their eyes. He was being hunted by the Viet Cong and NVA snipers with a bounty of $30,000 on his head. There is no way on Earth his actions or any of his service can be described as "cowardly."
Your "review" of the film itself, which you shared after the initial tweets came out is accurate.
One last question. The United States used snipers during WWII. Your father and uncle may have served with them. Did they call them cowards?
* * *
The regularity and quantity of my blog posts has fallen off in recent months and that is to blame for the current situation of low page-view numbers. That's my fault. So I'm going to commit to try to write some kind of entry daily from now on. It may just be one or two items like those above, or it may be a full-on entry with ponderings and this day in history. But I'd rather put out shorter entries more often and try to boost the readership instead of writing something and taking to long to complete the whole thing. Feedback would be appreciated.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
I don't get it, did Kanye West steal the printers or not? How would being racially profiled have anything to do with whether or not he committed a crime? And how does this bear on whether or not he assaulted a photographer more than a decade later?
The appropriate punishment for the day care worker in Florida who was caught on video kicking a toddler would be to suffer from 100 kicks. From every parent who had a child in that day care facility on that day. 20 parents = 2,000 kicks.
Draco Malfoy in Gryffindor? Heresy!
I get it that Lena Dunham has no filter, but maybe she should think about creating one after her uncalled-for comments about sex and the late Chris Farley.
Lindsay Lohan may be ill from her trip to Bora Bora but that's no excuse for not having completed her community service. I hope she winds up in jail this time. Long past due.
So basically, what "DeflateGate" is telling us is that Tom Brady likes it when his balls are softer.
Now that they have both had the experience of being cuffed and stuffed while their husbands were busted for DUI, maybe Hope Solo and Reese Witherspoon will become BFFs.
The fact a 19 year old woman from Colorado is going to spend four years in a federal prison for wanting to become an "ISIS bride" tells me I wasn't wrong about how 18 isn't an automatic barometer for determining adulthood.
Speaker of the House John Boehner has no business conducting his own foreign diplomacy. Israel's Prime Minister should have turned down Speaker Boehner's invite to speak before Congress.
Do they call it "rush hour" because everyone rushes to get on the freeway and then not move?
Could someone tell the Kirksville, MO school superintendent who tried to dismiss outrage over a note from a meddling teacher as having been sent with "...the best of intentions" that the road to Hell is paved with the best of intentions?
* * *
January 23rd in History:
393 – Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his eight-year old son Honorius co-emperor.
971 – In China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han are soundly defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song dynasty troops.
1368 – In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
1546 – Having published nothing for eleven years, François Rabelais publishes the Tiers Livre, his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel.
1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000.
1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, is assassinated by firearm, the first recorded instance of such.
1571 – The Royal Exchange opens in London.
1579 – The Union of Utrecht forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands.
1656 – Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales.
1719 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
1789 – Georgetown College, the first Catholic university in the United States, is founded in Georgetown, Maryland (now a part of Washington, D.C.)
1793 – Second Partition of Poland.
1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female doctor.
1855 – The 1855 Wairarapa earthquake and tsunami leaves nine dead in New Zealand.
1855 – The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, a crossing made today by the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.
1870 – In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in what becomes known as the Marias Massacre.
1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: the Battle of Rorke's Drift ends.
1897 – Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.
1899 – The Malolos Constitution is inaugurated, establishing the First Philippine Republic.
1899 – Emilio Aguinaldo is sworn in as President of the First Philippine Republic.
1900 – Second Boer War: The Battle of Spion Kop between the forces of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State and British forces ends in a British defeat.
1904 – Ålesund Fire: the Norwegian coastal town Ålesund is devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead. Kaiser Wilhelm II funds the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style.
1909 – RMS Republic, a passenger ship of the White Star Line, becomes the first ship to use the CQD distress signal after colliding with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that kills six people. The Republic sinks the next day.
1912 – The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.
1920 – The Netherlands refuses to surrender the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.
1937 – In Moscow, 17 leading Communists go on trial accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders.
1941 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of Rabaul begins, the first fighting of the New Guinea campaign.
1943 – World War II: Troops of Montgomery's Eighth Army capture Tripoli in Libya from the German–Italian Panzer Army.
1943 – World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeat the Japanese army in Papua.
1943 – Duke Ellington plays at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
1943 – World War II: The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal Campaign ends.
1945 – World War II: German admiral Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal.
1950 – The Knesset passes a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
1957 – American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the "Frisbee".
1958 – After a general uprising and rioting in the streets, President Marcos Pérez Jiménez leaves Venezuela.
1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean.
1961 – The Portuguese luxury cruise ship Santa Maria is hijacked by opponents of the Estado Novo regime with the intention of waging war until dictator António de Oliveira Salazar is overthrown.
1963 – The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence officially begins when PAIGC guerrilla fighters attack the Portuguese army stationed in Tite.
1964 – The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.
1967 – Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Côte d'Ivoire are established.
1967 – Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty one villages.
1968 – North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship had violated its territorial waters while spying.
1973 – United States President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
1973 – A volcanic eruption devastates Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar chain of islands off the south coast of Iceland.
1986 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.
1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.
1997 – Greek serial killer Antonis Daglis is sentenced to thirteen consecutive life sentences, plus 25 years for the serial slayings of three women and the attempted murder of six others.
2001 – Five people attempt to set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act that many people later claim is staged by the Communist Party of China to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution.
2002 – "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh returns to the United States in FBI custody.
2002 – Reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered.
2003 – Final communication between Earth and Pioneer 10.
Famous Folk Born on January 23rd:
John Hancock
Saigo Takamori (the real-life inspiration for the character of Katsumoto in the film "The Last Samurai")
Edouard Manet
John Browning
George McManus
Sergei Eisenstein
Randolph Scott
Wally Parks
Ernie Kovacs
Frank Lautenberg
Jack Quinlan
George Allen
Chita Rivera
Jerry Kramer
Sonny Chiba
Arlene Golonka
Gil Gerard
Rutger Hauer
Anita Pointer
Bill Cunningham
Danny Federici
David Patrick Kelly
Chesley Sullenberger
Antonio Villaraigosa
Robin Zander
Richard Finch
Leilani Kai
Gail O'Grady
Mariska Hargitay
Tiffani Thiessen
Julia Jones
posted by me at 9:37 PM
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