Daily Calendar for January 2nd, 2021

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

1640s

• Born 1647: Nathaniel Bacon (colonial leader)

1780s

• 1788: Georgia ratified the U.S. Constitution

1830s

• Born 1831: Justin Winsor (historian)

1880s

• Born 1881: Frederick Varley (Canadian artist)

1890s

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

• Born 1895: Count Folke Bernadotte (Red Cross official)

1900s

• 1905: Elara, a Moon of Jupiter, discovered

• 1906: Willis H. Carrier patented an air conditioner

1920s

• Born 1920: Isaac Asimov (author)

• Born 1922: Renata Tebaldi (opera singer)

1930s

• Born 1930: Julius LaRosa (singer)

• Born 1936: Roger Dean Miller (singer)

• Born 1939: Jim Bakker (evangelist)

1940s

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

1950s

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

• 1959: USSR's Luna I was launched, becoming the first spacecraft to leave Earth's gravity. Later, it became the first to reach the Moon's vicinity and the first to orbit the Sun.

1960s

• 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

• Born 1968: Cuba Gooding Jr. (actor)

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

1970s

• Born 1972: Taye Diggs (actor)

• 1975: Kenneth Brugger and Cathy Aguado discovered first winter refuge of monarch butterflies, in Mexico

1980s

• 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

2000s

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

2010s

• 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)