Texan Colonel William Travis (below) sends a desperate plea for help for the besieged defenders of the Alamo, ending the message with the famous last
words, “Victory or Death.”
The Alamo today still stands in San Antonio, Texas.
Established in 1718 as Mission San Antonio de Valero, for over 300 years the
former mission now known as the Alamo has been a crossroads of history.
BRIAN THOMAS
During World War II on this day in 1945, about 30,000 United States
Marines landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima
from the Imperial Japanese Army.
William "Smokey" Robinson Jr. is 79-years-old today.
Singer, songwriter, record producer, and former record executive
Smokey Robinson was the founder and front man of the Motown
vocal group the Miracles, for which he was also chief songwriter
and producer. Robinson led the group from its 1955 origins as
"The Five Chimes" until 1972 when he announced a retirement
from the group to focus on his role as Motown’s vice president,
but Robinson returned to the music industry as a solo artist the
following year. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 1987.
BRIAN THOMAS
In Milwaukee on this day in 1992, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison. He was later sentenced to a 16th term
of life imprisonment for an additional homicide committed in Ohio
in 1978. On November 28 of 1994, he was beaten to death in prison
by Christopher Scarver (below), a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution.
Christopher J. Scarver will be 50 in July.
Michael Jeffrey Jordan is 56 years old today.
Former high-flying Chicago Bulls shooting guard is considered by many to
be the greatest basketball player of all-time. He was a 6-time NBA champion,
6-time NBA Finals MVP, and 5-time NBA MVP. He didn’t make the varsity
squad as a sophomore at Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina because he was only 5’11". MJ is currently the principal owner and chairman of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets.
Here’s “Air Jordan” in Portland, Oregon.
TIM MAGUIRE
The Beatles arrived at JFK airport in New York City to begin their
first U.S. tour on this day in 1964. The arrival of the Fab Four from
England was dubbed…“Beatlemania”. A new era of Rock ‘n’ Roll
began.
Troyal Garth Brooks is 57 years old today.
Pop country singer and musician Garth Brooks was named the Best-Selling
Solo Artist of the Century in the United States by the RIAA in 2007. His first
album, an EP, hit #2 on the Country Billboard in 1989. Brooks released six
albums that went diamond by the time he returned from retirement in 2009.
Then & now: Cracker Jack and its signature sailor mascot have
evolved over the years.
One of the oldest American forms of junk food, the Cracker Jack was invented
and trademarked in 1896 when the brothers who formed F.W. Rueckheim &
Bro., mixed molasses-flavored, caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts together.
Fredrich William Rueckheim
Louis Rueckheim
Today,January 19, celebrates all of the different ways the corn-based treat
popcorn can be enjoyed savory or sweet, caramelized, buttered or plain.
The Popcorn Board, a non-profit started in 1998, says Americans consume
13 billion quarts of popcorn a year, more than any other country in the
world.
