In competing versions of the story, what Elvis Presley really wanted
for his birthday was a rifle or a bicycle—both fairly typical choices
for a boy his age growing up on the outskirts of Tupelo, Mississippi.

Instead, Elvis’s highly protective mother, Gladys,”She never let me
out of her sight”, Elvis would say—took him to the Tupelo Hardware
Store and bought a gift that would change  the course of history: a
$6.95 guitar. It was January 8, 1946, and Elvis Aaron Presley was 11
years old.

The historical significance of putting a guitar into the hands of a
young man who would later help define rock and roll is obvious
and for Elvis himself, however, getting that guitar was just one
more step in a thorough yet totally unplanned program of
childhood musical development that prepared him perfectly to
ignite a revolution 10 years later.

Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977)
(Note: Elvis was 11 years old when this photo was taken)

Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black accompany Elvis (center)
in a little-seen photo from late 1954 or ’55.

On January 8, 1835, President Andrew Jackson achieves his goal of entirely paying off the United States’ national debt. It was the only
time in U.S. history that the national debt stood at zero, and it precipitated one of the worst financial crises in American history.

The elimination of the national debt was both a personal issue for Jackson and the culmination of a political project as old as the
nation itself. Since the time of the Revolution, American politicians
had argued over the wisdom of the nation carrying debt. After independence, the federal government agreed to take on individual states’ war debts as part of the unification of the former colonies. Federalists, those who favored a stronger central government, established a national bank and argued that debt could be a useful
way of fueling the new country’s economy. Their opponents, most notably Thomas Jefferson,  saw the debt as a source of national
shame.

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845)

Congress set January 7, 1789 as the date by which states are
required to choose electors for the country’s first presidential 
election. A month later, on February 4, George Washington was 
elected president by state electors and sworn into office (above) 
on April 30, 1789.

George Washington 1789 Election Poster.

Sidney L. Poitier ( February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022)

In 1964, Sidney Poitier won the Academy Award for Best Actor becoming
the first Black male and Bahamian actor to win the award.

He also received two further Academy Award nominations, ten
Golden Globes nominations, two Primetime Emmy Awards
nominations, six BAFTA nominations, eight Laurel nominations,
and one Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination. Poitier was
one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of
Hollywood cinema, and after the death of Kirk Douglas in 2020,
was the oldest living and earliest surviving male Academy Award
winner

The star’s death was confirmed to Fox News on Friday by the
Bahamian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Office.

Sidney Poitier was awarded the 1964 Academy Award for
Best Actor for his role in the movie Lilies of the Field.

On this day in 1838, Samuel Morse’s telegraph was demonstrated
for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New
Jersey. The telegraph, a device which used electric impulses to transmit
encoded messages over a wire, would eventually revolutionize
long-distance communication, reaching the height of its popularity
in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse
(April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872)