Daily Calendar for January 3rd, 2019

The Old Farmer's Almanac daily calendar gives you quick reference for the significant events on any day throughout the year.

1520s

• 1521: Martin Luther was formally excomunicated from the Roman Catholic church by Pope Leo X

1770s

• 1777: General George Washington defeated the British under Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton

1790s

• Born 1793: Lucretia Mott (social reformer)

1830s

• Born 1835: Larkin Goldsmith Mead (sculptor)

1860s

• 1863: First covered skating rink in Canada opened, in Halifax, Nova Scotia

1870s

• 1870: Construction began on the Brooklyn Bridge in N.Y.C.

• 1876: First free kindergarten opened, Florence, Massachusetts

1890s

• Born 1892: J.R.R. Tolkien (author)

• Born 1897: Marion Davies (actress)

1900s

• Born 1909: Victor Borge (pianist & comedian)

1920s

• 1920: Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000 and a $350,000 loan. The loan was to finance Frazee's Broadway production of the musical No, No, Nanette

• 1925: Benito Mussolini proclaimed a Fascist dictatorship in Italy

• Born 1926: Joan Walsh Anglund (illustrator)

1930s

• Born 1932: Dabney Coleman (actor)

1940s

• Born 1945: Stephen Stills (musician)

• Born 1946: John Paul Jones (musician)

• 1946: British broadcaster of propaganda from Nazi Germany during WW II, William Joyce (nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw), was hanged in Great Britain for treason

1950s

• 1952: Dragnet made its television debut

• Born 1956: Mel Gibson (actor)

• 1958: Members of the newly created U.S. Civil Rights Commision took office

• 1959: President Eisenhower signed proclamation making Alaska the 49th state

1960s

• 1960: Moscow State Symphony first Soviet orchestra to play in the United States (in N.Y.C.).

• 1961: The U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Cuba

• 1962: The Vatican excommunicated Cuban premier, Fidel Castro, from the Roman Catholic church

• Died 1967: Jack Ruby (convicted killer of Lee Harvey Oswald)

1970s

• Died 1979: Conrad Hilton (hotelier)

1980s

• Born 1981: Eli Manning (football player)

• 1983: Times Beach, Missouri, declared a federal disaster area after fall floods spread dangerous amounts of the toxic chemical dioxin

• 1985: Soprano Leontyne Price made her farewell appearance at New York's Metropolitan Opera

1990s

• 1992: Miss Canada pageant canceled due to costs and changing times

2000s

• Died 2002: Alfred Henry "Freddy" Heineken (Dutchman who helped make his namesake beer one of the world's most popular)

• 2004: Spirit rover landed on Mars