Bairnsdale Conservative: Tue 15th Jan Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Hang Nguyen andMagda Kowalska. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember birthdays are good for you. Those with the most live longest.
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January 15: Mattu Pongal (Tamils, 2013); Army Day in India; John Chilembwe Day in Malawi; Armed Forces Day in Nigeria

1759 – The British Museum in London, today containing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, opened to the public inMontagu House, Bloomsbury.
1910 – Construction on the Buffalo Bill Dam, then the tallest dam in the world, on the Shoshone River in the U.S. state of Wyoming was completed.
1943 – The highest-capacity office building in the world, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense known as the Pentagon(pictured), was dedicated.
1991 – Elizabeth II, as Queen of Australia, signed letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth realm to institute its own separate Victoria Cross award in its own honours system.
1993 – Salvatore "The Beast" Riina, one of the most powerful members of the Sicilian Mafia, was arrested after three decades as a fugitive.

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Events

69 – Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, but rules for only three months before committing suicide.
1493 – Christopher Columbus sets sail for Spain from Hispaniola, ending his first voyage to the New World.
1541 – King Francis I of France gives Jean-François Roberval a commission to settle the province of New France (Canada) and provide for the spread of the "Holy Catholic faith".
1559 – Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey, London, England.
1582 – Russia cedes Livonia and Estonia to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1759 – The British Museum opens.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: New Connecticut (present day Vermont) declares its independence.
1782 – Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimalcoinage.
1815 – War of 1812: American frigate USS President, commanded by Commodore Stephen Decatur, is captured by a squadron of four British frigates.
1822 – Greek War of Independence: Demetrios Ypsilantis is elected president of the legislative assembly.
1844 – University of Notre Dame receives its charter from the state of Indiana.
1865 – American Civil War: Fort Fisher in North Carolina falls to the Union, thus cutting off the last major seaport of the Confederacy.
1870 – A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly).
1889 – The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is originally incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia.
1892 – James Naismith publishes the rules of basketball.
1908 – The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority becomes the first Greek-letter organization founded and established by African American college women.
1910 – Construction ends on the Buffalo Bill Dam in Wyoming, United States, which was the highest dam in the world at the time, at 325 ft (99 m).
1919 – Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps at the end of the Spartacist uprising.
1919 – Boston Molasses Disaster: A large molasses tank in Boston, Massachusetts, bursts and a wave of molasses rushes through the streets, killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.
1933 – A twelve-year-old girl experiences the first Marian apparition of Our Lady of Banneux in Banneux, Belgium.
1936 – The first building to be completely covered in glass, built for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, is completed in Toledo, Ohio.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: Nationalists and Republican both withdraw after suffering heavy losses, ending the Second Battle of the Corunna Road.
1943 – World War II: The Soviet counter-offensive at Voronezh begins.
1943 – The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.
1947 – The brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short ("The Black Dahlia") is found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles.
1949 – Chinese Civil War: The Communist Party of China forces take over Tianjin from the Nationalist Government.
1951 – Ilse Koch, "The Witch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in West Germany.
1962 – The Derveni papyrus, Europe's oldest surviving manuscript dating to 340 BC, is found in northern Greece.
1966 – The Nigerian First Republic, led by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa is overthrown in a military coup d'état.
1967 – The first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles, California. The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10.
1969 – The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5.
1970 – Nigerian Civil War: After a 32-month fight for independence from Nigeria, Biafra surrenders.
1970 – Moammar Gadhafi is proclaimed premier of Libya.
1973 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.
1974 – Dennis Rader aka the BTK Killer kills his first victims by binding, torturing and murdering Joseph, Joseph II, Josephine and Julie Otero in their house.
1975 – The Alvor Agreement is signed, ending the Angolan War of Independence and giving Angola independence from Portugal.
1976 – Gerald Ford's would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison.
1991 – The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.
1991 – Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Queen of Australia, signs letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth Realm to institute its own separate Victoria Cross award in its own honours system.
1992 – The international community recognizes the independence of Slovenia and Croatia from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
1993 – Salvatore Riina, the Mafia boss known as "The Beast", is arrested in Sicily, Italy after three decades as a fugitive.
2001 – Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopedia, goes online.
2005 – ESA's SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovers elements such as calcium, aluminum, silicon, iron, and other surface elements on the moon.
2007 – Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging in Iraq.
2009 – US Airways Flight 1549 makes an emergency landing in the Hudson River shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York, New York. All passengers and crew members survive.

[edit]Births

1432 – King Afonso V of Portugal (d. 1481)
1481 – Ashikaga Yoshizumi, Japanese shogun (d. 1511)
1538 – Maeda Toshiie, Japanese general (d. 1599)
1622 – Molière, French playwright (d. 1673)
1671 – Abraham de la Pryme, English antiquarian (d. 1704)
1674 – Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, French writer (d. 1762)
1716 – Philip Livingston, American founding father (d. 1778)
1747 – John Aikin, English doctor and writer (d. 1822)
1754 – Richard Martin, Irish animal rights activist (d. 1834)
1760 – Jean-François Le Sueur, French composer (d. 1837)
1791 – Franz Grillparzer, Austrian writer (d. 1872)
1795 – Alexandr Griboyedov, Russian playwright (d. 1829)
1803 – Marjory Fleming, Scottish writer and poet (d. 1811)
1809 – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French anarchist (d. 1865)
1812 – Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Norwegian writer (d. 1885)
1815 – William Bickerton, Mormon prophet (d. 1905)
1816 – Marie LaFarge, French murderer (d. 1852)
1824 – Marie Duplessis, French courtesan (d. 1847)
1834 – Samuel Arza Davenport, American politician (d. 1911)
1841 – Frederick Arthur Stanley, Governor General of Canada (d. 1908)
1842 – Josef Breuer, Austrian psychiatrist (d. 1925)
1842 – Mary MacKillop, Australian Saint (d. 1909)
1850 – Leonard Darwin, son of Charles Darwin (d. 1943)
1850 – Mihai Eminescu, Romanian poet (d. 1889)
1850 – Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian mathematician (d. 1891)
1855 – Jacques Damala, Greek military officer and actor (d. 1889)
1859 – Archibald Peake, Premier of South Australia (d. 1920)
1863 – Wilhelm Marx, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1946)
1866 – Nathan Söderblom, Swedish archbishop, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1931)
1869 – Ruby Laffoon, 43rd Governor of Kentucky (d. 1941)
1869 – Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist (d. 1907)
1870 – Pierre S. du Pont, American businessman (d. 1954)
1872 – Arsen Kotsoyev, Russian writer (d. 1944)
1872 – Hugo Rüster, German rower (death date unknown)
1875 – Thomas Burke, American sprinter (d. 1929)
1877 – Lewis Terman, American psychologist (d. 1956)
1878 – Johanna Müller-Hermann, Austrian composer and pedagogue (d. 1941)
1879 – Mazo de la Roche, Canadian author (d. 1961)
1882 – Princess Margaret of Connaught (d. 1920)
1885 – Lorenz Böhler, Austrian physician (d. 1973)
1885 – Miles Burke, American flyweight boxer (d. 1928)
1885 – Grover Lowdermilk, American baseball player (d. 1968)
1885 – Huang Yuanyong, Chinese writer (d. 1915)
1890 – Tommy Fleming, American soccer player (d. 1965)
1891 – Ray Chapman, American baseball player (d. 1920)
1891 – Osip Mandelstam, Russian poet (d. 1938)
1892 – Rex Ingram, Irish director (d. 1950)
1893 – Ivor Novello, Welsh composer and actor (d. 1951)
1894 – Ecaterina Teodoroiu, Romanian World War I hero (d. 1917)
1895 – Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, Finnish chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 1973)
1897 – Xu Zhimo, Chinese poet (d. 1931)
1899 – Goodman Ace, American actor (d. 1982)
1900 – William Heinesen, Faroese writer, poet and artist (d. 1991)
1902 – King Saud of Saudi Arabia (d. 1969)
1903 – Paul A. Dever, 58th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1958)
1905 – Kamatari Fujiwara, Japanese actor (d. 1985)
1905 – Torin Thatcher, English actor (d. 1981)
1906 – Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate (d. 1975)
1908 – Edward Teller, Hungarian-born physicist (d. 2003)
1909 – Jean Bugatti, German-born automobile designer (d. 1939)
1909 – Gene Krupa, American drummer (d. 1973)
1912 – Michel Debré, French politician (d. 1996)
1913 – Eugène Brands, Dutch painter (d. 2002)
1913 – Lloyd Bridges, American actor (d. 1998)
1913 – Miriam Hyde, Australian composer (d. 2005)
1913 – Alexander Marinesko, captain of the S-13 submarine (d. 1963)
1914 – Hugh Trevor-Roper, English historian (d. 2003)
1918 – João Figueiredo, President of Brazil (d. 1999)
1918 – Édouard Gagnon, Canadian Roman Catholic cardinal (d. 2007)
1918 – Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt (d. 1970)
1919 – Maurice Herzog, French mountaineer, first to ascend an 8000m peak, Annapurna in 1950 (d. 2012)
1920 – John Joseph O'Connor, American Catholic cardinal (d. 2000)
1920 – Steve Gromek, American baseball player (d. 2002)
1921 – Babasaheb Bhosale, Indian politician (d. 2007)
1921 – Frank Thornton, English actor
1922 – Eric Willis, Australian politician (d. 1999)
1923 – Ivor Cutler, Scottish poet (d. 2006)
1923 – Lee Teng-hui, Taiwanese politician
1923 – Arthur Quinlan, Irish journalist (d. 2012)
1925 – Ruth Slenczynska, American pianist
1926 – Maria Schell, Austrian actress (d. 2005)
1927 – Phyllis Coates, American actress
1929 – Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil rights leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1968)
1929 – Queen Ida, Zydeco accordionist and singer
1929 – Earl Hooker, American Chicago blues guitarist (d. 1970)
1930 – Eddie Graham, American professional wrestler (d. 1985)
1931 – Lee Bontecou, American artist
1933 – Ernest J. Gaines, American author
1935 – Malcolm Frager, American pianist
1936 – Obo Addy, Ghanaian drummer and dancer (d. 2012)
1937 – Margaret O'Brien, American actress
1938 – Chuni Goswami, Indian footballer and cricketer
1939 – Tony Bullimore, English sailor and adventurer
1941 – Captain Beefheart, American musician and visual artist (d. 2010)
1942 – Barbara Tarbuck, American actress
1943 – Ashraf Aman, first Pakistani to reach the summit of K2
1943 – Stuart E. Eizenstat, adviser to American Presidents Carter and Clinton
1943 – Mike Marshall, American baseball player
1944 – Jenny Nimmo, British author
1945 – Vincent Foster Jr., American lawyer (d. 1993)
1945 – William R. Higgins, USMC colonel (d. 1990)
1945 – Princess Michael of Kent, British royal
1947 – Andrea Martin, Canadian actress
1948 – Ronnie Van Zant, American singer (Lynyrd Skynyrd) (d. 1977)
1949 – Luis Alvarado, Puerto Rican baseball player (d. 2001)
1949 – Alasdair Liddell, English businessman (d. 2012)
1949 – Panos Mihalopoulos, Greek actor
1950 – Marius Trésor, French footballer
1952 – Andrzej Fischer, Polish footballer
1953 – Kent Hovind, American evangelist
1953 – Ta-Tanisha, American actress
1953 – Randy White, American football player
1954 – Jose Dalisay, Jr., Filipino writer
1954 – Nikos Sarganis, Greek footballer
1955 – Nigel Benson, English author
1956 – Mayawati, Indian politician
1956 – Miki Fujimura, Japanese singer (Candies)
1956 – Vitaly Kaloyev, Russian architect and murderer
1956 – Marc Trestman, CFL head coach
1957 – Patrick Dixon, English entrepreneur
1957 – Marty Lyons, American football player
1957 – Mario Van Peebles, American actor
1958 – Boris Tadić, President of Serbia
1959 – Sister Carol, Jamaican reggae singer
1959 – Pavle Kozjek, Slovenian climber (d. 2008)
1959 – Pete Trewavas, English musician (Kino and Marillion)
1960 – Kelly Asbury, American director and actor
1960 – Jeremy Beck, American composer
1960 – Aaron Jay Kernis, American composer
1961 – Yves P. Pelletier, Canadian comedian and film director
1963 – Conrad Lant, English musician (Venom)
1963 – Bruce Schneier, American cryptographer, security expert, and writer
1964 – Osmo Tapio Räihälä, Finnish composer
1965 – Maurizio Fondriest, Italian cyclist
1965 – Bernard Hopkins, American boxer
1965 – Adam Jones, American musician (Tool)
1965 – James Nesbitt, Northern Irish actor
1966 – Lisa Lisa, American R&B singer
1968 – Chad Lowe, American actor
1968 – Iñaki Urdangarín, Spanish royalty
1969 – Meret Becker, German actress and singer
1969 – Delino DeShields, American baseball player
1969 – Huck Seed, American professional poker player
1970 – Shane McMahon, American professional wrestler
1971 – Regina King, American actress
1972 – Christos Kostis, Greek footballer
1972 – Ernie Reyes, Jr. American actor and martial artist
1972 – Kobe Tai, American porn star
1972 – Claudia Winkleman, English television presenter
1973 – Essam El-Hadary, Egyptian footballer
1974 – Edith Bowman, Scottish television and radio presenter
1974 – Ray King, American baseball player
1974 – Tim Shaw, British radio DJ and television presenter
1975 – Marc Cartwright, American Photographer
1975 – Mary Pierce, French tennis player
1975 – 9th Wonder (born Patrick Douthit), American producer
1976 – Corey Chavous, American football player
1976 – Doug Gottlieb, American basketball analyst
1976 – Florentin Petre, Romanian footballer
1976 – Scott Murray, Scotland rugby player
1978 – Eddie Cahill, American actor
1978 – Franco Pellizotti, Italian cyclist
1978 – Ryan Sidebottom, English Cricketer
1979 – Drew Brees, American football player
1979 – Ken Chu, Taiwanese singer-actor and taichi champ (F4)
1979 – Young Dro, American rapper
1979 – Michalis Morfis, Cypriot footballer
1979 – Martin Petrov, Bulgarian footballer
1980 – Matt Holliday, American baseball player
1981 – Howie Day, American singer
1981 – El Hadji Diouf, Senegalese footballer
1981 – Vanessa Henke, German tennis player
1981 – Sean Lamont, Scottish rugby union footballer
1981 – Pitbull, American rapper
1982 – Benjamin Agosto, American skater
1982 – Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia
1982 – Armando Galarraga, Venezuelan baseball player
1982 – Brett Lebda, American hockey player
1982 – Neil Nitin Mukesh, Indian actor
1982 – Prince Philip of Yugoslavia
1982 – Ari Pulkkinen, Finnish composer
1982 – Francis Zé, Cameroonian footballer
1983 – Matic Kralj, Slovenian ice hockey player
1983 – Jermaine Pennant, English footballer
1983 – Hugo Viana, Portuguese footballer
1984 – Megan Jendrick, American swimmer
1984 – Victor Rasuk, American actor
1985 – René Adler, German footballer
1985 – Enrico Patrizio, Italian rugby player
1985 – Kenneth Emil Petersen, Danish footballer
1986 – Fred Davis, American football player
1986 – Jessy Schram, American actress
1986 – Isaia Toeava, New Zealand rugby player
1987 – Greg Inglis, Australian rugby player
1987 – Aria C Jalali, American musician (Railcars)
1987 – Kelly Kelly, American WWE Diva
1987 – David Knight, English footballer
1987 – Michael Seater, Canadian actor
1988 – Daniel Caligiuri, German footballer
1988 – Jun. K, South Korean singer (2PM)
1988 – Skrillex (born Sonny Moore), American producer
1989 – Alexei Cherepanov, Russian hockey player (d. 2008)
1989 – Keiffer Hubbell, American ice dancer
1990 – Paul Blake, English paralympic athlete
1990 – Fernando Forestieri, Italian footballer
1990 – Konstantinos Sloukas, Greek basketball player
1990 – Sophie Sumner, English model
1990 – Catherine Thomas, English model
1990 – Robert Trznadel, Polish footballer
1991 – Marc Bartra, Spanish footballer
1991 – Nicolai Jørgensen, Danish footballer
1992 – Joshua King, Norwegian footballer
1994 – Jordy Croux, Belgian footballer

[edit]Deaths

69 – Galba, Roman Emperor (b. 3 BC)
570 – Saint Ita, Irish nun (b. 475)
936 – King Rudolph of France
1345 – Martin Zaccaria, Italo-Greek ruler
1568 – Nicolaus Olahus, Archbishop of Esztergom, Primate of Hungary, and a distinguished Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1493)
1595 – Murat III, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1546)
1623 – Fra Paolo Sarpi, Italian patriot, scholar, scientist and church reformer (b. 1552)
1672 – John Cosin, English clergyman (b. 1594)
1683 – Philip Warwick, English writer and politician (b. 1609)
1775 – Giovanni Battista Sammartini, Italian composer
1781 – Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain, queen regent of Portugal (b. 1718)
1790 – John Landen, English mathematician (b. 1719)
1804 – Dru Drury, English entomologist (b. 1725)
1813 – Anton Bernolák, Slovak linguist (b. 1762)
1815 – Emma, Lady Hamilton, English mistress of Lord Nelson (b. 1761)
1855 – Henri Braconnot, French chemist and pharmacist (b. 1780)
1864 – Isaac Nathan, UK-Australian composer (b. 1792)
1876 – Eliza Johnson, U.S. First Lady (b. 1810)
1885 – Leopold Damrosch, German-American orchestral conductor (b. 1832)
1893 – Fanny Kemble, British actress and author (b. 1809)
1896 – Mathew Brady, U.S. photographer (b. 1822)
1909 – Arnold Janssen, German missionary (b. 1837)
1916 – Modest Tchaikovsky, Russian writer (b. 1850)
1919 – Karl Liebknecht, German politician (b. 1871)
1919 – Rosa Luxemburg, German politician (b. 1871)
1926 – August Sedláček, Czech historian (b. 1843)
1926 – Enrico Toselli, Italian composer (b. 1883)
1936 – Henry Forster, 1st Baron Forster, Governor-General of Australia (b. 1866)
1937 – Anton Holban, Romanian novelist (b. 1902)
1944 – Robert J. Kirby, Warden of New York's Sing Sing Prison (b. 1890)
1945 – Wilhelm Wirtinger, Austrian mathematician (b. 1865)
1947 – Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia (b. 1924)
1948 – Josephus Daniels, American publisher and United States Secretary of the Navy (b. 1862)
1950 – General Henry "Hap" Arnold, U.S. General of the Air Force (b. 1886)
1952 – Ned Hanlon, Premier of Queensland (b. 1887)
1955 – Yves Tanguy, French painter (b. 1900)
1964 – Jack Teagarden, American musician (b. 1905)
1967 – David Burliuk, Ukrainian artist (b. 1882)
1968 – Bill Masterton, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1938)
1970 – William T. Piper, American aircraft designer (b. 1881)
1972 – Daisy Ashford, English child writer (The Young Visiters) (b. 1881)
1973 – Coleman Francis, American film director (b. 1919)
1973 – Ivan Petrovsky, Russian mathematician (b. 1901)
1983 – Meyer Lansky, Russian-born gangster (b. 1902)
1983 – Shepperd Strudwick, American actor (b. 1907)
1987 – Ray Bolger, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1904)
1988 – Seán MacBride, Irish statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1904)
1990 – Dame Peggy van Praagh, British ballet dancer, choreographer, director (b. 1910)
1992 – Dee Murray, English bassist (b. 1946)
1993 – Sammy Cahn, American songwriter (b. 1913)
1994 – Georges Cziffra, Hungarian-French pianist (b. 1921)
1994 – Harry Nilsson, American musician (b. 1941)
1994 – Harilal Upadhyay, Gujarati-Indian author, poet, astrologist (b. 1916)
1995 – Vera Maxwell, American fashion designer (b. 1901)
1996 – Les Baxter, American musician and composer (b. 1922)
1996 – Paramount Chief Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho (b. 1938)
1996 – Minnesota Fats, American billiards player (b. 1913)
1998 – Gulzarilal Nanda, Indian Plitician,Acting Prime Minister(b.1898)
1998 – Junior Wells, American musician (b. 1934)
1999 – Betty Box, British film producer (b. 1915)
2000 – Georges-Henri Lévesque, Canadian Dominican priest and sociologist (b. 1903)
2000 – Željko Ražnatović, aka Arkan, Serbian paramilitary leader (b. 1952)
2000 – Fran Ryan, American actress (b. 1916)
2001 – Ted Mann, American screenwriter (b. 1916)
2001 – Leo Marks, English cryptographer, screenwriter and playwright (b. 1920)
2002 – Michael Anthony Bilandic, Mayor of Chicago (b. 1923)
2002 – Eugène Brands, Dutch painter (b. 1913)
2002 – Steve Gromek, American baseball player (b. 1920)
2003 – Doris Fisher, American singer and songwriter (b. 1915)
2004 – Olivia Goldsmith, American author (b. 1949)
2005 – Walter Ernsting, German author (b. 1920)
2005 – Elizabeth Janeway, American author (b. 1913)
2005 – Dan Lee, Canadian animator (b. 1969)
2005 – Victoria de los Angeles, Catalan soprano (b. 1923)
2005 – Ruth Warrick, American actress (b. 1915)
2006 – Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait (b. 1926)
2007 – Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Iraqi Revolutionary Court (b. 1945) (executed)
2007 – James Hillier, Canadian inventor of electron microscope (b. 1915)
2007 – Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein (b. 1951) (executed)
2007 – David Vanole, American soccer player (b. 1963)
2007 – Pura Santillan-Castrence, Filipino writer and diplomat (b. 1905)
2007 – Bo Yibo, Chinese politician (b. 1908)
2008 – Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, English game designer (b. 1964)
2008 – Brad Renfro, American actor (b. 1982)
2009 – Lincoln Verduga Loor, Ecuadorian journalist and politician (b. 1917)
2011 – Nat Lofthouse, English footballer (b. 1925)
2012 – Carlo Fruttero, Italian writer (b. 1926)
2012 – Manuel Fraga Iribarne, Spanish politician (b. 1922)

[edit]Holidays and observances

Armed Forces Day (Nigeria)
Army Day (India)
Christian Feast Day:
Earliest day on which International Fetish Day can fall, while January 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Friday in January.
Earliest day on which Martin Luther King, Jr. Day can fall, while January 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Monday in January. (United States)
John Chilembwe Day (Malawi)
Korean Alphabet Day (North Korea)
One of the two Carmentalia, in honor of Carmenta. (Roman Empire)
The second day of the sidereal winter solstice festivals in India (see January 14):
- Maatu Pongal, celebrated by performing Jallikattu (Tamil)
Tree Planting Day (Egypt)

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Heatwave - it was hotter in 1790

Piers Akerman – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (12:03am)

Card-carrying members of the global warming brigade have paid for a fear-mongering advertisement warning about the dangers of coal exports on global temperatures.

I can only thank them for ensuring a positive cash flow for some in the media.

Their ad is self-serving load of cods wallop for all that.

None of these alarmists can explain the nexus between carbon dioxide and the inevitability of climate change nor can they account for the lack of global warming, or why their dire predictions are counter to those of the British Met Office which downgraded its predictions under cover of the Christmas holiday.

But they have been busily trying to convince Australians that the Tasmanian bushfires and others on the mainland are all linked to man-made causes.

Therefore it was instructional to receive a far more balanced view from Liberal MP Craig Kelly (Hughes), who follows the debate with a keen and astute eye.

This is what he sent: “It’s been a scorcher. With the mercury soaring to 42.3 C in Sydney last week and the city in meltdown, the papers screamed, ‘This is climate change. It is here. It is real. Even the taxpayer funded Climate Commission could not hide their excitement declaring, ‘it was hotter than before’ and that ‘climate change’ was responsible for the ‘unprecedented’ extreme heat Sydneysiders were experiencing.

And with the satellites unable to detect any global warming for the last 16 years, and the IPCC computer modelled predictions failing to come to fruition, Labor Government ministers were quick to exploit the situation to claim the ‘extreme heat’ was evidence of why the Carbon Tax was needed to ‘do the right thing by our children’. Yet they failed to detail how, when, or by how much (even to the nearest 0.0001 °C) that the Carbon Tax would change the temperature.

But I wonder if any of these people actually knew that Sydney’s so-called ‘record hot day’ on Tuesday 8th Jan this year, that had them screaming ‘Global Warming’, was actually COOLER than the weather experienced by the convicts of the First Fleet in Sydney way back in the summer of 1790/91?

For while the mercury peaked at 42.3 C last Tuesday at Observatory Hill in Sydney – more than 222 years ago at 1.00pm on the 27th Dec 1790 (measured at a location just stones-throw from Observatory Hill) the mercury hit 108.5 F (42.5 C) before peaking at 109 F (42.8 C) at 2.20pm.

The extreme heat of Sydney’s summer of 1790/91 is detailed by Watkins Tench (1758 –1833) in his book ‘A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson’ published in 1793. (Available to download from the internet for free).

Watkins Tench was British marine officer whom accompanied 88 male and 20 female convicts on the First Fleet ship the Charlotte which arrived in Botany Bay 20th January 1788. Watkins then stayed in Sydney until December 1791 when we sailed home to Britain and later went on to fight in the Napoleonic Wars where after a naval battle he was taken prisoner by the French and imprisoned on a ship in Brest Harbor.

Of Sydney’s weather of 27th December 1790, when the mercury hit 42.8 C (109 F), half a degree Celsius higher than last Tuesday, Tench wrote: ‘it felt like the blast of a heated oven’. But the extreme heat wasn’t restricted to the 27th Dec 1790. The following day the temperature again surpassed the old 100 Fahrenheit mark, hitting 40.3C (104.5 F) at 12.30pm. And later that same summer, in February 1791, the temperature in Sydney was recorded at 42.2 C (108 F). Tench commented;

‘But even this heat (of 27th Dec 1790) was judged to be far exceeded in the latter end of the following February, when the north-west wind again set in, and blew with great violence for three days. At Sydney, it [the temperature] fell short by one degree of what I have just recorded [109F]: but at Rose Hill, [modern day Parramatta] it was allowed, by every person, to surpass all that they had before felt, either there, or in any other part of the world. Unluckily they had no thermometer to ascertain its precise height.’

Tench also speculated on the cause of the extreme heat of the summer of 1790/91, and he didn’t blame global warming, coal mining, or failure to pay homage to a pagan god. Tench deduced: ‘Were I asked the cause of this intolerable heat, I should not hesitate to pronounce, that it was occasioned by the wind blowing over immense deserts, which, I doubt not, exist in a north-west direction from Port Jackson, and not from fires kindled by the natives.’

Now global warming devotees may be sceptical of Tench’s records. After all, scepticism is a healthy thing. They may even seek to deny Tench’s measurements and have them purged from our history, sent down a memory hole - as the global warming texts & prophesies deem it heresy for it to have been warmer in Sydney way back in summer of 1790/91 than it is in the ‘unprecedented’ extreme heat of Sydney’s ‘globally warmed’ summer of 2012/13.

However, Tench’s meteorological recordings were undertaken following strict scientific procedure using a ‘large thermometer’ made by Ramsden, England’s leading scientific instrument maker of the day. Tench also left a message for those that might seek to question the accuracy of the records: ‘This remark I feel necessary, as there were methods used by some persons in the colony, both for estimating the degree of heat, and for ascertaining the cause of its production, which I deem equally unfair and unphilosophical. The thermometer, whence my observations were constantly made, was hung in the open air, in a southern aspect, never reached by the rays of the sun, at the distance of several feet above the ground.’

It also worth noting that in 1790, Sydney (population 1,715) was still surrounded by mostly natural bushland, where modern day Observatory Hill in Sydney (population 4,627,000) is now surrounded by the concrete, steel and glass of a modern city, not to mention the tens of thousands of air-conditioners pumping out hot air into the surrounding streets, nor the 160,000 cars & trucks that cross the Sydney Harbor Bridge daily and pass within 100 meters of Observatory Hill.

Further, the contemporaneous notes of the day concur with the empirical measurements. Lieutenant-Governor David Collins (1756-1810), in his book ‘An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales’ published in 1798 also commented on the incredible effect of the extreme heat of 1790/91 summer on the local wildlife:

‘Fresh water was indeed everywhere very scarce, most of the streams or runs about the cove being dried up. At Rose Hill (Parramatta), the heat on the tenth and eleventh of the month, on which days at Sydney the thermometer stood in the shade at 105°F (40.6°C), was so excessive (being much increased by the fires in the adjoining woods), that immense numbers of the large fox bat were seen hanging at the boughs of trees, and dropping into the water… during the excessive heat many dropped dead while on the wing… In several parts of the harbour the ground was covered with different sorts of small birds, some dead, and others gasping for water.’

Tench also recorded the effects of the extreme heat of Feb 1791: ‘An immense flight of bats, driven before the wind, covered all the trees around the settlement, whence they every moment dropped dead, or in a dying state, unable longer to endure the burning state of the atmosphere. Nor did the perroquettes, (parrots) though tropical birds, bear it better; the ground was strewed with them in the same condition as the bats.’

And even Governor Arthur Philip noted the effects of the extreme heat of the summer of 1790/91: ‘from the numbers (of dead bats) that fell into the brook at Rose Hill (Parramatta), the water was tainted for several days, and it was supposed that more than twenty thousand of them were seen within the space of one mile.’

Yet 222 years later, reports of the mass death of birds and bats are more like to come from those sliced & diced by industrial steel wind turbines, than the heat.

Finally, Watkins Tench concluded on ‘climate change’ in Sydney back in 1790’s;

“My other remarks on the climate (of Sydney) will be short; it is changeable beyond any other I ever heard of.”

“Fortunately for the convicts and settlers of the new colony, Governor Arthur Philip and later Governors didn’t believe they could change that with a new tax.”

The clear message from Kelly and Tench is don’t be conned by those who claim to know what the weather is doing, let alone what the planet is doing!

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Almost too cold to type this message to a warmist

Andrew BoltJANUARY152013(7:14pm)

The US-based Daily Kos gloats over some hot weather over in Australia - and suggests an embarrassed silence:

Australia is currently “sweltering” through a heatwave that has been ongoing since the beginning of the year. It’s been the longest run of above 39 degree Celsius days since 1973. Monday was the hottest average national temperature across the country since records began 100 years ago. Hundreds of fires are burning throughout Australia right now…

Andrew Bolt, one of the more prolific and vicious Australian denialists, hasn’t posted on his blog since 3 January...for some reason.

Well, the reason I haven’t blogged is, as a quick check of the blog would suggest, I am on holidays - and my children yell at me if I sneak away to blog.

As it happens, I am in Los Angeles, freezing my backside off in an unusually cold spell:

Temperatures in downtown Los Angeles fell to 34 degrees, breaking the previous record of 36 degrees set on Jan. 14, 2007.

A week or two ago I was caught outside in Boston in the coldest weather of my life:

While locally, lows ranged from the low 20s to near 30 (F.), there was some bone-chilling cold to our north. Parts of Vermont and upstate New York dropped from -10 to -20 , colder than anything experienced all of last winter. Boston even dropped to 7, just one degree warmer than its low in 2012.

I wouldn’t be so stupid or dishonest as to claim that weather in one part of the world says anything about the climate everywhere. In other words, I do not write for the Daily Kos. Or work for the Greens.

Fact: to measure what we call “global warming” we need global records, not anecdotes about temperatures in Australia or California. And what those global records tell us is that the rise in temperature paused 16 years ago. Now the Met even predicts basically no further global warming for at least four more years - giving us a total of 20 years of no additional warming..

The world is not warming as was predicted. And gloating over some bushfires in Australia does not changed that central truth. Indeed, it strikes me as dishonest.

But as the Greens made clear last week with their defence of climate activist Jonathan Moylan, who hoaxed Whitehaven shareholders, even lying brazenly to advance the warming cause is not just permissible but admirable. Makes me wonder what other lies have been excused as being for our own good.

UPDATE

Of all the many absurd evidences of global warming now advanced by warmists, none can possibly top this comic effort from Ian Lowe, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation:

In South Australia for a summer break, I saw an advertised opportunity for a game of golf at the famous Royal Adelaide Golf Club. So I put my name down to play on Monday, January 7.

In hindsight, it was probably not a smart move; the temperature in the shade reached 41 degrees as I finished my round in the blazing Adelaide sun. Wary of the risks of dehydration, I had consumed four litres of water and sports drinks on the course. I was still able to empty two of the largest glasses the clubhouse bar could provide as I recovered from the experience.

Of course, it has always been hot in Adelaide in summer. There have been days over 40 degrees every year since we abandoned the old Fahrenheit scale that gave us more impressive readings of over 100 degrees.... However, we should recognise that the overall pattern of more frequent and more severe extreme events is exactly what climate scientists have been warning about for 25 years.

Yes, never mind the records showing no further global warming for 16 years now. Panic instead at the number of glasses of water a warmest chooses to drink after a game of golf on one of Adelaide’s routinely hot summer days.

I’m not sure if I should be depressed to be retuning to a country gripped by such unreason, or impatient to get back to exposing more such insults to our intelligence.

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It takes more than one person to create a brawl

Andrew BoltJANUARY152013(6:45pm)

Police do their best to make the Logan racial brawl seem nothing much:

Logan District Superintendent Noel Powers said tensions remained raw in the community, and Monday’s unrest was sparked by one aggressor.

Just one person sparked off the mayhem between rival groups of Aborigines and Tongans?

Hmm. On second thoughts, police accept maybe it took at least two to tangle:

“It just takes one or two hot heads, a bit of alcohol and a bit of violence and it disrupts all the work we’ve been aiming towards,” Supt Powers said.

Maths isn’t my greatest strength, but I count a lot more than two people in this video who are looking for a brawl:

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Aussies have weathered nature’s extremes before

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (7:44pm)

CLIMATE alarmists have waited a while for a good heatwave to press their case that human activities are causing unprecedented catastrophic global warming. This summer the weather delivered.

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Freedom to offend the Right, not the Left

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (1:51pm)

A left wing lobby group is offended by a politically incorrect column Julie Burchill writes in the supposedly liberal UK Observer.

A UK government minister calls for her to be sacked. Within 48 hours the Observer removes the controversial column about transexuals from its website and apologises for the “hurt and offence”.

And this is before the Leveson inquiry proposals are implemented.

Her friend Toby Young has the whole story here:

It cannot be said often enough that freedom of speech, if it means anything, must include the freedom to say things that some people find offensive.

I imagine the Observer’s decision to oppose Anthony Eden’s invasion of Suez in 1956 caused a great deal of “offence”, yet David Astor, the editor at the time, would never have dreamed of censoring any of his journalists for that reason. Or is it okay to offend the Right but not the Left? The Guardian, the Observer’s sister paper, has published plenty of things that I’ve found deeply offensive in the past 12 months – such as this piece on paedophilia or this anti-Semitic Steve Bell cartoon – yet I wouldn’t dream of petitioning its editor to remove them from its website…

This isn’t merely a black day for the Observer. It’s a bad day for journalism.

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Pants on fire

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (9:53am)

THE Greens love to rewrite history. They must think we have amnesia.

Here is Tasmanian Greens leader and cabinet minister Nick McKim claiming last weekend:

“The Greens, in all the history of our political party, have never opposed a fuel-reduction burn, ever.”

Here is his party in a post on their website this week: “The Greens have supported, and continue to support, fuel reduction burns as a vital tool in protecting lives and property in all land tenures including National Parks.”

And here is the Tasmanian Greens press release of June 15, 2012:

The Tasmanian Greens today said that residents in and around Maydena deserved better than the intense smoke pollution from commercial forestry burn-offs that they were subjected to this week.

This practice has simply got to stop. It puts people’s health at risk and every time the state is swathed in commercial forestry smoke, our valuable ‘clean, green,’ brand is diluted just a little bit more.

“Greens strongly believe Tasmania must free itself from this smoke taint and end commercial forestry burn-offs . . . attempting to burn forest waste at this time of year is highly likely to have this unacceptable result.

“We’re all better off when this Neanderthal practice stops and disposing of forest by-products is done far more responsibly.

“The future’s bright without forestry’s smoke pollution,” said Greens Treasury spokesperson, Tim Morris MP.

And what about this, from the Tasmanian Greens’ health spokesperson, Paul ‘Basil’ O’Halloran MP on March 15, 2011: “FORESTRY BURN-OFFS CONTINUE TO THREATEN HEALTH AND WELL-BEING: COMMUNITIES, ANIMALS AND PLANT LIFE BEING THREATENED BY FORESTRY BURN-OFFS.”

It is a matter of public record that green groups have long opposed systematic prescribed burning, as is evident in their submissions to bushfire inquiries from as far back as 1992.

They complain of a threat to biodiversity, including to fungi, from “frequent burning” regimes and urge resources be spent on water bombers and early detection, as well as on stopping climate change - good luck with that.

The WA Forest Alliance, for instance, lodged a submission to the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the 2001-02 bushfires, claiming: “Frequent fires have a disastrous effect on many species of flora and fauna and their habitat structure.”

WWF Australia’s submission claimed: “Inappropriate fire hazard regimes can damage biodiversity leading to the loss of native species, communities and ecosystems.”

The NSW Greens stated on their website in 2002 as part of their bushfire risk management policy: “There is an urgent need to correct the common misconception that responsible fire management always involves burning or clearing to reduce moderate and high fuel loads…”

As I wrote in a previous column, in 2003, lightning strikes in fuel-rich national parks in NSW and the ACT sparked bushfires which swept into Canberra, killing four people.

Days later, the NSW Nature Conservation Council’s then chairman, Rob Pallin, described calls for increased prescribed burning as “futile” and a “knee-jerk reaction”.

“People who claim that hazard reduction burning is a cure-all for bushfire risk are either fooling themselves or deliberately trying to fool the public.”

It is another clever tactic of those who oppose broadscale prescribed burning to claim that it is not a “cure-all” for bushfire risk. No one has ever claimed it is.

The icing on the cake is that the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage has list controlled burning, or what it called “too frequent fire” as a “key threatening process to biodiversity” under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

UPDATE:

Six years before the deadly Black Saturday fires in Victoria in 2009, David Packham tried to warn Nillumbik Shire, where so many people were to die, about the “very dangerous fuel loads”.

Nillumbik Shire council was committed to reducing carbon emissions in its so-called “green wedge” area, where restrictions on removing vegetation around houses reportedly added to the dangers.

As I wrote in 2009:

In St Andrews, where more than 20 people are believed to have died, surviving residents have spoken angrily of “greenies” who prevented them from cutting back trees near their property, including in one case, a tea tree that went “whoomp”.

Dr Phil Cheney, the former head of the CSIRO’s bushfire research unit and one of the pioneers of prescribed burning, said yesterday if the fire-ravaged Victorian areas had been hazard-reduced, the flames would not have been as intense.

Kinglake and Maryville, now crime scenes, are built among tall forests of messmate stringy bark trees which pose a special fire hazard, with peeling bark creating firebrands that carry fire five kilometres out.

“The only way to reduce the flammability of the bark is by prescribed burning” every five to seven years, Cheney said. He estimates between 35 and 50 tonnes a hectare of dry fuel were waiting to be gobbled up by Saturday’s inferno.

Fuel loads above about eight tonnes a hectare are considered a fire hazard. A federal parliamentary inquiry into bushfires in 2003 heard that a fourfold increase in ground fuel leads to a 13-fold increase in the heat generated by a fire.

UPDATE:

Remember the Sheahans, fined $50,000 for clearing a firebreak around their house… which became one of the few in the area to survive Black Saturday’s inferno.

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HE KNOWS STUFF

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (12:20pm)

Insight from climate tax commissioner Tim Flannery:

Record-breaking heat is, by definition, weather not experienced for as long as records have been kept.

That’s why they pay him the big bucks.

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UNITED COLOURS

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (12:17pm)

The missus and I have a mild case of Benetton arms:

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THE SADDEST SMOKE

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (12:16pm)

Attention, Nicola Roxon. This would be a fine image for your next generation of government-designed cigarette packets. Available as a t-shirt, too.

(Via Lee A.)

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DUBIOUS SOURCE

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (11:09am)

The Age reports:

Within 24 hours of reports that Kylie Minogue, our original global pop princess, was to quit singing and focus on acting, the claim has been well and truly quashed. Twice …

The moral of the story? News breaks fast on Twitter, but like all media, take care with your sources.

Quite so. For example, don’t believe the Age:

UPDATE. In other Fairfax news, the Australian Financial Review last week fell for Jonathan Moylan’sWhitehaven coal hoax. Now it runs a full page ad railing against coal exports:

We, the undersigned, call on Australia to cease the expansion of coal exports from this country and join efforts to prevent global warming running out-of-control and destroying lives and livelihoods here and abroad …

Our choice is clear: cease expansion of coal exports or wilfully threaten the future of our children.

Go tell it to Indonesia, “the world’s largest exporter of coal by weight”.

(Via Lank)

UPDATE II. This 1962 ad, shown larger here, is far superior:

(Via lotocoti)

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THINK OF THE CHILDREN

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 (10:53am)

This is excellent:

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A human umpire has the advantage that any attacks on them can be classified as an assault .. -ed
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foot long 42 mm short .. Think of the calories you aren't having .. - ed===

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Hello, my name is DRUGS- I destroy homes, tear families apart, take your children, and that's just the start. I'm more costly than diamonds, more costly than gold, the sorrow I bring is a sight to behold. And if you need me, remember I'm easily found, I live all around you, in schools and in town. I live with the rich, I live with the poor, I live down the street, and maybe next door. My power is awesome; try me you'll see, but if you do, you may NEVER break free. Just try me once and I might let you go, but try me twice, and I'll own your soul. When I possess you, you'll steal and you'll lie, you do what you have to just to get high. The crimes you'll commit, for my narcotic charms will be worth the pleasure you'll feel in your arms. You'll lie to your mother, you'll steal from your dad, when you see their tears, you should feel sad. But you'll forget your morals and how you were raised, I'll be your conscience, I'll teach you my ways. I take kids from parents, and parents from kids, I turn people from god, and seperate friends. I'll take everything from you, your looks and your pride, I'll be with you always, right by your side. You'll give up everything... Your family, your home.... Your friends, your money, then you'll be alone. I'll take and take, till you have nothing more to give.... When I'm finished with you you'll be lucky to live. If you try me be warned this is no game, if given the chance, I'll drive you insane! I'll ravish your body, I'll control your mind, I'll own you completely, your soul will be mine. The nightmares I'll give you while lying in bed, the voices you'll hear from inside your head, the sweats, the shakes, the visions you'll see, I want you to know, these are all gifts from me. But when it's too late, and you'll know in your heart, that you are mine, and we shall not part. You'll regret that you tried me, they always do, but you came to me, not I to you. You knew this would happen, many times you were told, but you challenged my power, and chose to be bold. You could have said NO, and just walked away, if you could live that day over, now what would you say?. I'll be your master; and you'll be my slave, I'll even go with you, when you go to your grave. Now that you have met me, what will you do? Will you try me or not? It's all upto you. I can bring you more misery than words can tell... Come take my hand, I'll take you to hell.
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