Calendar for January 2nd, 2013

2005: Handsel Monday

Born 1647: Nathaniel Bacon (colonial leader)

1788: Georgia ratified the U.S. Constitution

Born 1831: Justin Winsor (historian)

1890: Alice Sanger became the first female staffer for the White House

Born 1895: Count Folke Bernadotte (Red Cross official)

1905: Elara, a Moon of Jupiter, discovered

Born 1920: Isaac Asimov (author)

Born 1922: Renata Tebaldi (opera singer)

Born 1930: Julius LaRosa (singer)

Born 1936: Roger Dean Miller (singer)

Born 1939: Jim Bakker (evangelist)

1942: Japanese invaded and occupied Manila and the Philipines after a successful attack on Pearl Harbor

1959: Fidel Castro and his followers captured Santiago, Cuba; Fulgencio Batista went into exile

1959: Luna I, first Soviet Moon probe, was launched

1960: The U.S. Federal Trade Commision charged seven record companies and eight distribution firms with paying disc-jockeys to play certain songs (Payola Incident)

1963: General Lyman L. Lemnitzer became the supreme commander of NATO

1965: The NY Jets signed quarterback Joe Namath for $427,000. At the time he was the highest paid player in pro football

1968: Robert Clark was seated as the first African American legislator in Mississippi in 74 years

Born 1968: Cuba Gooding Jr. (actor)

Born 1972: Taye Diggs (actor)

Born 1983: Kate Bosworth (actress)

Died 1986: Bill Veeck (baseball player)

1988: President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed the final version of the U.S.-Canadian trade accord. The pact provided for the elimination of tariffs on most goods within 10 years and created a series of binational groups to regulate the agreement

2006: Explosion in a West Virginia coal mine that led to the death of 12 of 13 miners--Sago Mine disaster

2010: On this date a numerically rare event occurred: 01-02-2010 expressed backwards as a date is precisely 01-02-2010

Died 2011: Pete Postlethwaite (actor)