House Minority Leader John Boehner, right, hands the gavel
to newly elected Speak of the House Nancy Pelosi in the
House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

On January 4, 2007, John Boehner handed the speaker of the
House gavel over to Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic Representative
from California. With the passing of the gavel, she became the
first woman to hold the Speaker of the House position, as well
as the only woman to get that close the presidency. After the
Vice President, she was now second in line via the presidential
order of succession. Pelosi became Speaker again in 2018.

Nancy Pelosi ripped up a copy of President Donald Trumps
State of the Union speech in 2020.

Ronnie Walter Cunningham (March 16, 1932 – January 3, 2023)

Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first
successful crewed space mission in NASA’s Apollo program,
died Tuesday in Houston. He was a lunar module pilot on the 
1968 Apollo 7 mission. NASA confirmed Cunningham’s death
on Twitter.

Apollo 7 crewmates Donn Eisele (at left), Wally Schirra
(center) and Walt Cunningham.  (NASA)

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
(3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973
    
    
    

English writer and philologist J.R.R. Tolkien was the author of
the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The great success of these two books led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused him to be popularly
identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more 
precisely, of high fantasy.   
    

President Franklin Roosevelt (left) and Basil O’Connor
count dimes at the White House desk in 1944, after the
President founded March of Dimes to fight polio.
(March of Dimes)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an adult victim of polio, founded the
National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which he later
renamed the March of Dimes Foundation, on January 3, 1938.

The biblical site of the Pool of Siloam will be fully open to the
public for the first time in 2,000 years following excavation,
according to a recent announcement from the Israel Antiquities
Authority (IAA), the Israel National Parks Authority (INPA) and
the City of David Foundation (CDF).

The Pool of Siloam is recorded in the Bible in 2 Kings 20:20 after
King Hezekiah made the pool to bring water to Jerusalem and
again in John 9:1-11 when Jesus healed a blind man with mud,
according to the Biblical passage. The IAA announced the
excavation on its Facebook page last week.

Jesus Heals the Blind Man at Pool of Siloam.