On January 26, 1905, during a routine inspection of the
Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, a superintendent
made a  glittering discovery: a 3,106-carat diamond.

Weighing 1.33 pounds, and christened the “Cullinan,”
it was the largest diamond ever found.

Superintendent Frederick Wells was 18 feet below the
earth’s surface when he spotted a flash of starlight
embedded in the wall just above him. His discovery
was presented that same afternoon to Sir Thomas
Cullinan, who owned the mine.

Cullinan then sold the diamond to the Transvaal
provincial government, which presented the stone
to Britain’s King Edward VII as a birthday gift.

Sir Thomas Cullinan
(1862 – 1936)

On January 26, 1979, “The Dukes of Hazzard,” a television
comedy about two cousins in the rural South and their
souped-up 1969 Dodge Charger known as the General Lee,
debuted on CBS.

The show, which originally aired for seven seasons, centered
around cousins Bo Duke (John Schneider) and Luke Duke
(Tom Wopat) and their ongoing efforts to elude their nemeses,
the crooked county commissioner “Boss” Jefferson Davis Hogg
(Sorrell Booke) and the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
(James Best).

“The Dukes of Hazzard” was known for its car chases, stunts
and the General Lee.

The General Lee in action.

The first Emmy Awards ceremony was held on January 25, 1949
at the Hollywood Athletic Club.

The awards recognize excellence in television (which in the
1940s was a novel medium).

Hollywood’s first television academy had been founded three
years earlier by Sydney Cassyd, a former film editor for Frank
Capra who later worked as a grip at Paramount Studios and
an entertainment journalist.

Sydney Cassyd (1908 – 2000) 

       

  
MIKE GRACIA

Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004)    
    
    
    
   

Charles Curtis of Kansas became the first Native American to
be elected to the United States Senate on January 23, 1907.

His tenure later as Herbert Hoover’s vice president (below) 
made him the highest-ranking Native American ever to serve
in the federal government.