On This Day In History, January 8, 2025 Edition
Today’s Feature - The U.S. national debt reaches zero for the only time.
1835 - This was the one and only time in U.S. history that the national debt was whittled down to zero. This unprecedented personal goal was achieved by President Andrew Jackson.
The 2025 This Day in Science 365 Day Calendar
2015 - Star vanishes as it warps space-time
An international team of astrophysicists led by Dr. Ingrid Stairs of the University of British Columbia successfully calculated both the mass and space-time warping effect of a pair of stars in a distant galaxy. The two, one neutron and one binary, are each heavier than our sun, yet they are more than one hundred times closer to each other than the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Scientists say that because of the extreme gravity created by this close proximity, the pair and others like it provide rare and invaluable data about the nature of space-time.
The 2025 History Channel This Day In Military History 365 Day Calendar
2005 - USS San Francisco runs into an undersea mountain
On January 8, 2005, the USS San Francisco, a nuclear attack submarine, ran aground off the southeast coast of Guam when it collided with an undersea mountain sprouting from the ocean floor.
The ship's navigational technology failed to warn the crew of the mass ahead of them. Most of the crew sustained injuries, and one member subsequently died as a result of the collision.
Despite the powerful collision, the vessel was still able to operate under its own power without malfunction and navigate back to Guam.
Experts claim the vessel's capability to continue operation after such a major collision is due to changes the U.S. Navy made to underwater vessels in the early 1960s after the USS Thresher sank unexpectedly.
Navy officials created the SUBSAFE program in response, which ensured the hulls of underwater vessels could maintain their structural integrity under the pressure of such collisions.
The U.S. Navy launched a formal investigation into the San Francisco incident, and they officially closed it on May 9, 2005, citing a failure of the vessel's crew to review relevant charts indicating the underwater mass's presence.
The 2025 History Channel This Day in History 365 Day Calendar
2011 - Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is injured in shooting rampage
On January 8, 2011, Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot and critically injured while meeting with constituents outside a Tucson-area supermarket.
Six people died in the attack, and another thirteen, including Giffords, were wounded. The gunman, twenty-two-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was taken into custody at the scene and later charged.
Giffords, an Arizona native and Democrat, arrived at the Congress on Your Corner event at 10 a.m. MST. She was speaking with constituents when Loughner approached and shot her at point-blank range with a handgun. He then opened fire on the people standing in line.
Among the dead were a young girl, a federal judge, and a member of Giffords's staff.
After the attack, Giffords needed to relearn how to walk and talk. In November 2011, Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, released a memoir, Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope. In January 2012, Giffords resigned from Congress in order to concentrate on her recovery. Loughner was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Featured Event
1997 - Anniversary of Grimaldi rule in Monaco
On this day in 1997, the principality of Monaco began a yearlong celebration in honour of the 700th anniversary of the rule of the Grimaldi family, who seized power in 1297 and gained firm possession of Monaco in 1419.
Other Events
1790 - U.S. President George Washington delivered the first State of the Union, the annual address to Congress.
1815 - U.S. General Andrew Jackson defeated Great Britain in the Battle of New Orleans, the final engagement in the War of 1812.
1918 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points, an outline for peace following World War I.
1959 - Charles de Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France's Fifth Republic.
1998 - Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, convicted of plotting the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, was sentenced to life in prison.
2016 - Mexican criminal Joaquín Guzmán (“El Chapo”), head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was captured in Los Mochis after escaping prison some six months earlier; he was later extradited to the United States, where he was convicted of various crimes.
Born On This Day
1821 - James Longstreet
1935 - Elvis Presley
1942 - Stephen Hawking
1947 - David Bowie
1967 - R. Kelly
1984 - Kim Jong-Un
Died On This Day
1324 - Marco Polo
1642 - Galileo Galilei
1825 - Eli Whitney
1896 - Paul Verlaine
1950 - Joseph Schumpeter
1976 - Zhou Enlai
1996 - François Mitterrand
Wikipedia
1828 - The Democratic Party of the United States is organized.
1900 - President William McKinley places Alaska under military rule.
1904 - Blackstone Library, the first branch of the Chicago Public Library system, was dedicated.
1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
1973 - Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
1982 - Breakup of the Bell System: In the United States, AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
2002 - President of the United States George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.
The Book of This Day in History
1867 - African American men are granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.
Congress overrode President Johnson's veto of a bill that extended voting rights to all men in the District of Columbia age 21 or over. Welfare recipients, convicted felons, and men who voluntarily aided the Confederacy during the Civil War were excluded. Three years later the 15th Amendment to the Constitution gave the vote to all men in the country.
1901 - The first National Bowling Championship is held in Chicago, Illinois.
The American Bowling Congress held the event, which included team and individual competitions. Frank Brill won the individual bowling championship with a score of 648.
1978 - Harvey Milk is the first openly gay person elected to public office.
Milk had run unsuccessfully three times before being elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
While in office, he was instrumental in passing a city ordinance that expanded gay rights. (Editor’s Note: Whoda thunk?)
Milk was assassinated in November of 1978 by former City Supervisor Dan White. Tens of thousands of people attended a candlelight vigil for Milk, with performances by Joan Baez and the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.
Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2009.
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