On This Day In History, January 6, 2025 Edition
NOTE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, we were not able to publish yesterday. So we are publishing yesterday's history today.
Today’s Feature - Kamala Harris becomes first woman to certify her own US Presidential Election loss
2025 - In yet another first for women in the United States, Kamala Harris becomes the first woman to certify her own United States Presidential Election loss in history.
My guess is Hillary Rodham Rodham didn’t mind giving up this particular first to Harris.
The 2025 This Day in Science 365 Day Calendar
2010 - Revolutionary solar energy collector debuts
Researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory, run by the U.S. Department of Energy, developed a device that captures up to 80% of available energy from the Sun, a marked improvement over predecessors.
The invention, comprised of sheets of nanoantennae, gathers the abundance of energy within mid-infrared wave-lengths, a range that conventional solar cells struggle to utilize.
In addition to their efficiency, the nanoantennae are extremely cost efficient, potentially providing a much-needed low-cost, high-return form of solar harvesting on an industrial scale.
And yet, Solyndra went bankrupt the following year.
A decade and a half later, solar still isn’t a cost or space effective methodology of producing energy on a massive scale.
The 2025 History Channel This Day In Military History 365 Day Calendar
1942 - Franklin D. Roosevelt commits to the biggest arms buildup in U.S. history
On January 6, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced in his State of the Union address to Congress that he was authorizing the largest armaments production in the country's history. Having declared war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and with its Pacific Fleet decimated, the United States had to quickly and massively enhance its military preparedness. Urged by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Anglo-Canadian newspaper publisher Lord William Beaverbrook, who had become the British minister of aircraft production, Roosevelt agreed to an arms buildup. He announced to Congress that the first year of the supercharged production schedule would result in sixty thousand aircraft, forty-five thousand tanks, twenty thousand antiaircraft guns, and eight million tons in new ships. Lawmakers were stunned at the proposal, but Roosevelt was undeterred: "These figures and similar figures for a multitude of other implements of war will give the Japanese and Nazis a little idea of just what they accomplished."
Japan attacked the United States. Three days later, Hitler declared war on the United States. That’s enough motivation to swing a country from “isolationism” to “we’re going to kick your ass!” in a hurry.
The 2025 History Channel This Day in History 365 Day Calendar
1994 - Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked
On January 6, 1994, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked after a practice session at Cobo Arena in Detroit, one day before the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and one month before the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, for which Kerrigan was a gold medal favorite. As Kerrigan was leaving the ice, an unidentified man struck her on the right knee with a collapsible metal baton.
After her assailant made his escape, Kerrigan's father lifted and carried her, sobbing, to the locker room.
She was taken to the hospital for X-rays and released with a cut, bruises, and swelling.
A police investigation led to Jeff Gillooly, the former husband of Kerrigan's biggest rival, Tonya Harding.
Gillooly eventually took a plea bargain, and Harding pleaded guilty in March 1994 to conspiring to hinder prosecution of the case. Put on three years' probation, she was fined $160,000 and ordered to perform five hundred hours of community service.
She was later stripped of her 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championship title and barred for life from amateur skating competitions in the United States.
I was young when this happened.
I knew the name Tony Harding because of the film I, Tonya (which I haven’t seen), but I thought the events depicted happened in like 2004.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Featured Event
Celebrated annually this day, Epiphany is a major feast that commemorates, for Western Christians, the coming of the Magi and, for Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jesus' birth, baptism by John, and first miracle.
Other Events
1540 - Henry VIII of England married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.
1759 - George Washington, the future first president of the United States, married Martha Dandridge in Virginia.
1941 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined his Four Freedoms in his State of the Union message to Congress.
1950 - Great Britain announced its recognition of the People's Republic of China.
1974 - In an effort to conserve energy during an oil crisis, Daylight Saving Time began several months early in the United States and was slated to remain in place for more than a year; the move, however, proved hugely unpopular, and its duration was later amended.
Born On This Day
1367 - Richard II
1811 - Charles Sumner
1878 - Carl Sandburg
1920 - Sun Myung Moon
1955 - Rowan Atkinson
1982 - Eddie Redmayne
Died On This Day
1852 - Louis Braille
1884 - Gregor Mendel
1919 - Theodore Roosevelt
1944 - Ida Tarbell
1949 - Victor Fleming
1993 - Dizzy Gillespie
2022 - Sidney Poitier
Wikipedia
1066 - Following the death of Edward the Confessor on the previous day, the Witan meets to confirm Harold Godwinson as the new King of England; Harold is crowned the same day, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.
1838 - Alfred Vail and colleagues demonstrate a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
1839 - The Night of the Big Wind, the most damaging storm in 300 years, sweeps across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.
1847 - Samuel Colt obtains his first contract for the sale of revolver pistols to the United States government.
1893 - The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress. The charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.
1946 - The first general election ever in Vietnam is held.
1947 - Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to offer a round-the-world ticket.
2025 - Justin Trudeau announces his resignation as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Prime Minister of Canada after 9 years in office.
The Book of This Day in History
1832 - William Lloyd Garrison founds the New England Anti-Slavery Society in Boston.
It was the first abolitionist society in the United States that called for immediate and total eman-cipation. It would become the American Anti-Slavery Society the following year, and include Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass and Wendell Phillips among its members. The Society published a weekly newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard.
1893 - The Great Northern Railway connects Seattle, Washington, to Saint Paul, Minnesota, and by extension the East Coast.
The Railway's route was the northernmost transcontinental railroad in the United States.
1898 - Samuel Lake sends the first telephone message from a submerged submarine.
Lake then sailed the submarine, called the Argonaut, from Norfolk, Virginia, to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, a journey of more than 1,000 miles, to demonstrate its viability to the U.S. Navy.
1907 - Dr. Maria Montessori opens her first school.
The school, named the Casa dei Bambini (Children's House), was in Rome, Italy. Her experimental method of education, based on creating a nurturing environment that supports children's natural tendency toward curiosity, was radically different than most educational systems in practice at the time. In 1912 her methods spread to the United States and eventually spread to hundreds of schools across the country and around the world.
1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his "Four Freedoms" speech.
The State of the Union address outlined four basic freedoms that he argued should be enjoyed by people "everywhere in the world." They were:
freedom of speech
freedom of worship
freedom from want
freedom from fear
Roosevelt argued that the United States should help its allies in their war against Nazi Germany, breaking with the long-held tradition of nonintervention by the United States, Eleven months later, the country declared war on the Empire of Japan and its allies, formally entering World War II.
Norman Rockwell would go on to create paintings of each of these freedoms also known as The Four Freedoms.
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