Today in History: New Year's Day

Every day is flush with history. January 1^st is certainly no exception.

440 - Rome enjoys the last Gladiator competition

990 - Russia adopts the Julian calendar

1430 - No longer are Jews in Sicily forced to attend conversion services.

1502 - Rio de Janeiro is discovered by Portuguese explorers

1583 - In Holland and Flanders, the 1^st of January is the first day of the Gregorian calendar.

1660 - Samuel Pepys makes his first diary entry

1622 - The Papal Chancery notes this day as the beginning of the year, instead of March 25^th.

1673 - Regular mail delivery begins between Boston and New York

1701 - Great Britain and Ireland unite to form the United Kingdom

1764 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played for the Royal Family in Versailles, France, and was allowed to stand behind the Queen at dinner. He was eight years old.

1788 - Slaves of Pennsylvania Quakers are freed

1797 - Albany takes the title of Capital of New York, replacing New York City

1808 - Congress forbids slaves being imported, and Sierra Leone becomes a British colony

1818 - The White House is officially reopened

1847 - Michigan is the first state to do away with capital punishment

1852 - The first public bath in the United States opens, in New York City

1853 - The United States' first practical fire engine begins service; it is horse drawn

1862 - The first income tax in the United States goes into effect. The rate is 3% of incomes greater than $600, and 5% of incomes greater than $10,000

1863 - Near Beatrice, Nebraska, the first homestead is claimed under the Homestead Act

1881 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes meets Dr. John H. Watson

1892 - Ellis Island opened for the purpose of registering new immigrants into the United States. Over 20 million immigrants would pass through what is now a museum.

1898 - The five boroughs of New York, including The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island merge to form New York City

1902 - The first Rose Bowl is played in Pasadena, California

1907 - President Theodore Roosevelt shakes 8,513 hands in one day, a record

1908 - For the first time, the ball that resembled the beginning of a new year was dropped in Times Square in New York

1925 - The Four Horsemen of the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame played together for the last time on this day

1934 - Alcatraz officially becomes a federal prison

1935 - First Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl

1953 - At the age of 29, Country music legend Hank Williams is found dead in the back of his limousine

1960 - Johnny Cash plays the first of several free concerts for prisoners

1966 - All cigarette packs are now required to be stamped with the following warning: "Caution Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health"

1967 - The great Criswell issued his annual column of predictions. He wrote that there would be a war that would last one week between Egypt and Russia with Israel. The Arab-Israeli war broke out in June and lasted six days. He also predicted that actress Jayne Mansfield would die, and she did.

1968 - Evel Knievel lost control over his motorcycle over Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and was badly injured. It was predicted that he wouldn't make it. Criswell made another accurate prediction, that a black civil rights leader would be assassinated before October. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in April.

1976 - The Liberty Bell is moved behind Independence Hall

1994 - Bill Gates loses his title of "Most Eligible Bachelor" when he married Melinda French

Sources:

http://www.brainyhistory.com/days/january_1.html

http://www.440.com/twtd/today.html