What Happened On
Roe v. Wade
January 22, 1973
U.S. Supreme Court rules that a state may not prevent a woman from having an abortion during the first six months of pregnancy.
The ruling was based on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, contending that it provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. The ruling also tied state regulation of abortion to the three trimesters of pregnancy: during the first trimester, governments could not prohibit abortions at all; during the second trimester, governments could require reasonable health regulations; during the third trimester, abortions could be prohibited entirely so long as the laws contained exceptions for cases when they were necessary to save the life or health of the mother.
In June 2022, the Supreme Court overruled Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on the grounds that the substantive right to abortion was not "deeply rooted in this Nation's history or tradition", nor considered a right when the Due Process Clause was ratified in 1868, and was unknown in U.S. law until Roe.
George Foreman Wins Title
January 22, 1973
The boxing champ George Foreman wins his first heavyweight title match by stopping Joe Frazier with a second-round knockout. Frazier was knocked down three times in the first round, and three times in the second round before the fight was stopped. The fight commentary was highlighted by Howard Cosell's repeated exclamations of "DOWN GOES FRAZIER, DOWN GOES FRAZIER".
The Central Intelligence Group
January 22, 1946
The Central Intelligence Group (CIG) is established by U.S. President Harry S. Truman. This was later replaced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Two days later, Truman gave staff members black cloaks, black hats, and wooden daggers, calling them "Cloak and Dagger Group of Snoopers."
World War I - Peace Without Victory
January 22, 1917
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson gives his "Peace without Victory" speech.
"…it must be a peace without victory." "…Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last."
Nannygate
January 22, 1993
Zoë Baird, U.S. President Bill Clinton's choice for U.S. Attorney General (who is in charge of INS) withdraws her name for nomination. She had hired illegal aliens and not paid their social security taxes.
Jack in the Box Food Poisoning
January 22, 1993
A 2-year-old boy dies from food poisoning after eating an E. coli contaminated hamburger. Two other children died and more than 500 people were sickened by the outbreak.
AIDS
January 22, 1991
Kimberly Bergalis wins a $1,000,000 settlement against the insurer of her dentist, Dr. David Acer, who infected her with AIDS during a December 1987 tooth extraction. This was the first-known case of clinical transmission of AIDS. She died of complications from the disease later that year.
Birthdays
Lucenay's Peter
Born January 22, 1929 d. 1946
American dog actor. Was the second dog to portray Pete (Pete the Pup) in the Our Gang films (1930-32), famous for the circle around his eye. He was the offspring of the Pal the Wonder Dog, who the first to portray Pete. Lucenay's Peter took over the role after Pal the Wonder Dog was poisoned in 1930.
Lucenay's Peter had the circle over his left eye, while Pal the Wonder Dog had the circle over his right. The circle was only partial and was completed with makeup.
Weird Tales (May 1934), depicting Conan in Queen of the Black Coast, by Robert E. Howard
Weird Tales (May 1934), depicting Conan in Queen of the Black Coast, by Robert E. Howard
Creator of Conan the Barbarian
Robert E. Howard
Born January 22, 1906 d. 1936
American author. Creator of Conan the Barbarian. He is considered the father of the "sword and sorcery" genre. Most of his Conan stories appeared in the magazine Weird Tales, where he also published many other stories.
His story Red Shadows, featuring the vengeful Puritan swashbuckler Solomon Kane, appeared in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales, and is considered the first published example of sword and sorcery. He introduced his Conan character in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales.
Howard himself was a bodybuilder and amateur boxer in his late teens and many of his stories featured boxers.
He committed suicide at age 30. Having learned that his mother, who had been ill with tuberculosis his entire life, had entered a coma from which she was not expected to recover, he went out to his car and shot himself in the head. His mother died the following day.
Quote: "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split."
Writings: Conan the Cimmerian (1932).
Sir Walter Raleigh
Born January 22, 1552 d. 1618
English colonizer, poet. Popularized tobacco in England. According to legend, he gained favor with Queen Elizabeth I by spreading his coat across a puddle so she wouldn't get her shoes wet. He was executed by King James I for treason after his men attacked a Spanish outpost in violation of peace treaties with Spain.
Bud Bundy (Budrick Franklin Bundy)
Born January 22, 1976
character on the TV show Married… With Children played by David Faustino.
Diane Lane
Born January 22, 1965
American actress. Film: Rumble Fish (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), Chaplin (1992), and The Perfect Storm (2000).
Linda Blair as Regan in The Exorcist
Linda Blair as Regan in The Exorcist
Linda Blair
Born January 22, 1959
American actress. Linda Blair is known for her Oscar-nominated role as the possessed child in the 1973 movie The Exorcist. She then went on to establish herself as a sex symbol in the 1979 film Roller Boogie, and then performed in a series of exploitation and horror films in the 1980s, such as Hell Night (1981), Chained Heat (1983), and Savage Streets (1984).
TV: Scariest Places on Earth (2001-03).
John Hurt
Born January 22, 1940 d. 2017
British actor. Film: Midnight Express (1978, British Academy Award) and The Elephant Man (1980, title role).
Joseph Wambaugh
Born January 22, 1937
American police officer, author. He created the TV series Police Story (1973). Writings: The New Centurions (1971) and The Blue Knight (1972).
Bill Bixby
Born January 22, 1934 d. 1993
American actor. TV: My Favorite Martian (1963-66, reporter Tim O'Hara), The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969-72, Eddie's father), and The Incredible Hulk (1977-82, David Banner - You don't want to make him mad).
Piper Laurie (Rosetta Jacobs)
Born January 22, 1932 d. 2023
American Emmy-winning actress. Film: The Hustler (1961), Carrie (1976), and Children of a Lesser God (1986). TV: Twin Peaks (1989-91, Catherine Martell).
Sam Cooke
Born January 22, 1931 d. 1964
American Hall of Fame soul singer. Music: You Send Me (1957 #1) and Chain Gang (1960 #2). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986). He was shot and killed by the motel manager in a Los Angeles motel.
Ann Sothern
Born January 22, 1909 d. 2001
American actress. Film: Heroine of the Maisie movies (1939-47). TV: My Mother the Car (voice of the car).
Wrong-Way Corrigan (Douglas Groce Corrigan)
Born January 22, 1907 d. 1995
American aviator. He made a nonstop transatlantic flight from N.Y. to Ireland without a permit (1938), claiming he had intended to fly to Los Angeles, but had followed the wrong end of his compass. He had repeatedly applied for a permit for a transatlantic flight, but was rejected because his airplane was deemed not airworthy.
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein
Born January 22, 1898 d. 1948
Russian film director. One of the greatest directors of his time, he developed the montage style of editing.
D.W. Griffith
Born January 22, 1875 d. 1948
American film producer, director, screenwriter, co-founder of United Artists (1919). Film: The Birth of a Nation (1915).
Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Born January 22, 1788 d. 1824
English poet. Writings: Don Juan (1818-24).
André Marie Ampère
Born January 22, 1775 d. 1836
French physicist, mathematician. The electrical measurement "ampere" is named for him. He developed the science of electro-magnetism.
John Donne
Born January 22, 1572 d. 1631
English poet. He is best remembered for the lines "No man is an island…" and "…for whom the bell tolls" from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624).
Francis Bacon
Born January 22, 1561 d. 1626
English philosopher and statesman, one of principal founders of systematic thought. Some believe he was the true author of Shakespeare's writings, but most modern scholars reject this theory. While stuffing a chicken with snow to test the feasibility of using snow to preserve meat, he contracted a fatal case of pneumonia.
Deaths
Hank Aaron (Henry Louis Aaron)
Died January 22, 2021 b. 1934
American Hall of Fame baseball player. Hank Aaron played MLB from 1954-76 and held the major league record of 755 home runs, until it was broken by Barry Bonds (2007).
Lyndon B. Johnson (Lyndon Baines Johnson)
Died January 22, 1973 b. 1908
American politician. 36th U.S. President (1963-69) and 37th U.S. Vice-President (1961-63). He was the first president to use the Washington-Moscow Hotline. Quote: "Making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg. It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else."
Queen Victoria - Diamond Jubilee (1897)
Queen Victoria - Diamond Jubilee (1897)
Victoria
Died January 22, 1901 b. 1819
Queen of England and Ireland (1837-1901).
Penzias and Wilson and the 15-meter Holmdel Horn Antenna that brought their most notable discovery
Penzias and Wilson and the 15-meter Holmdel Horn Antenna that brought their most notable discovery
Discovered Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
Arno Allan Penzias
Died January 22, 2024 b. 1933
German-American astrophysicist. He and Robert Woodrow Wilson shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (1964) which was predicted by the big-bang theory.
Penzias and Wilson were testing their most sensitive antenna/receiver system when they encountered radio noise they could not explain. After eliminating terrestrial sources, including bird and bat droppings, they contacted Robert H. Dicke, who suggested it might be the background radiation predicted by some cosmological theories.
Penzias and his brother were among the Jewish children that escaped the Nazis as part of the Kindertransport rescue operation. Their parents also fled, and the family eventually settled in New York.
Dick Tufeld
Died January 22, 2012 b. 1926
American actor. TV: Lost in Space (1965-68 and also the 1998 film, voice of the robot "Danger, Will Robinson!" - Bob May wore the costume) and voice of Mr. Bubble in the commercials.
Jean Simmons
Died January 22, 2010 b. 1929
English Emmy-winning actress. TV: The Thorn Birds (1983, Emmy).
Telly Savalas (Aristotle Savalas)
Died January 22, 1994 b. 1922
American Emmy-winning actor. He covered the song If in a mostly spoken version which became a UK #1 single.
Film: Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965, Pontius Pilate - for which he shaved his head), The Dirty Dozen (1967, Archer Maggott) and On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969, James Bond's foe Ernst Stavro Blofeld).
TV: Victim of Talky Tina on The Twilight Zone Episode: "Living Doll" (1963), and Kojak (1973-78, detective Theo Kojak, Emmy).
Albert Wallace Hull
Died January 22, 1966 b. 1880
American physicist. Inventor of a number of vacuum tubes, including the magnetron (1921) which was important for its use in RADAR.
Karl Nessler
Died January 22, 1951 b. 1872
German-born American beautician. Invented the permanent wave (1909) and false eyelashes (1902).
Benedict XV
Died January 22, 1922 b. 1854
Italian religious leader, 258th Pope (1914-22).
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Died January 22, 1840 b. 1752
German naturalist and physiologist. He originated the science of natural anthropology and proposed the division of humans into the five species: Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, American, and African/Ethiopian.
Molly Pitcher (Mary Hays McCauley)
Died January 22, 1832 b. 1744
American Revolutionary War heroine. She risked her life to carry water to the troops during the Battle of Monmouth (June 1778) and operated her husband's cannon after he was wounded. For her bravery, General George Washington made her a noncommissioned officer.
Caspar Wistar
Died January 22, 1818 b. 1761
American physician. The botanist Thomas Nuttall named the Wisteria in his honor.