Edgar Allan Poe is born

Confederate General Robert Edward Lee is born in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia during most of the Civil War and his battlefield leadership earned him a reputation as a renowned military leader.  Lee was born at his family home of Stratford Hall in northeastern Virginia on January 19, 1807. A […]

During World War I, Britain suffers its first casualties from an air attack when two German zeppelins drop bombs on Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn on the eastern coast of England. The zeppelin, a motor-driven rigid airship, was developed by German inventor Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin in 1900. Although a French inventor had built a […]

On January 19, 1953, in one of the most widely publicized births in TV history, actress and comedienne Lucille Ball welcomes her second child at Los Angeles’ Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on the same night Lucy Ricardo, her character on the hit TV show “I Love Lucy,” also gives birth. The “Lucy Goes to the […]

On January 19,  1972, 36-year-old Sandy Koufax, the former Los Angeles Dodgers star, becomes the youngest player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. “This is the only thing that’s made having to retire early a little easier,” says Koufax, who retired at age 30. “This is the biggest honor I’ve ever been given, not just […]

On January 19, 1993, the band Fleetwood Mac reunites to perform at the recently elected U.S. President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural gala. Fleetwood Mac had faced much intra-band squabbling since their 1970s heyday, why they released one of the biggest albums of all time—Rumours—and a string of decade-defining hits like “Landslide,” “Rhiannon,” “Say You Love […]

On January 19, 1999, the first BlackBerry pager, BlackBerry 850, is released. BlackBerry devices go on to drive explosive growth for upstart Canadian producer Research in Motion (RIM), dominating the U.S. smartphone market for much of the 2000s. But they eventually lose their market share to Apple’s iPhone. RIM introduced the 850, its first BlackBerry […]

On January 19, 2007, Beijing, China, the capital city of the planet’s most populous nation, gets its first drive-through McDonald’s restaurant. The opening ceremony for the new two-story fast-food eatery, located next to a gas station, included traditional Chinese lion dancers and a Chinese Ronald McDonald.  Fast-food chains from foreign countries first came to China […]