On January 19, 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar
Allan Poe was  born in Boston, Massachusetts.

By the time he was three years old, both of Poe’s parents had
died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan, a
wealthy tobacco merchant. After attending school in England,
Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. After
fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was
forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served
two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West
Point. After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely
and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules
infractions.

Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none
of which had received much attention.

On January 17, 1953, a prototype Chevrolet Corvette sports car
made its debut at General Motors’ (GM) Motorama auto show at
the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The Corvette, named
for a fast type of naval warship, would eventually become an
iconic American muscle car and remains in production today.

Les Paul (1915-2009) and Mary Ford (1924-1977)  were a popular
1950s husband-and-wife musical duo who performed and recorded during 1945–1963. The couple were introduced to each other by
Gene Autry in 1945 and were married on December 31, 1949.

Paul and Ford are famous for creating a makeshift recording studio
in their garage. In that studio, they used multitrack recording to
record many of their big hits.

Ford and Paul were music superstars during the first half of the
1950s, putting out 28 hits for Capitol Records between 1950 and
1957, including "Tiger Rag", "Vaya con Dios" (11 weeks at No. 1), "Mockin’ Bird Hill" (top 10), "How High the Moon" (nine weeks at
No. 1), "Bye Bye Blues" and "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise".

Betty Marion White Ludden
(January 17, 1922 – December 31, 2021)