Saturday, 14 January 2017

Today in history

Today In History



Check out few events that happened today in history....................................................



Automotive

1936

Ford Foundation is born

     On January 15, 1936, Edsel Ford, the son of auto industry pioneer Henry Ford, forms a philanthropic organization called the Ford Foundation with a donation of $25,000. The foundation, which was established in part as a legal way for the Ford family to avoid the hefty inheritance taxes that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration imposed on large estates, grew into a multi-billion dollar institution that today supports programs in the U.S. and over 50 other countries around the globe for the purpose of the “advancement of human welfare.”
Henry Ford (1863-1947) founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and went on to launch the first affordable, mass-produced car–the Model T–in 1908. Ford was also credited with pioneering the moving assembly line and introducing, in 1914, the $5-per- day minimum wage and the eight-hour workday, which made it possible for ordinary factory workers to buy the cars they built and helped to create the American middle class.
Henry Ford’s only child, Edsel (1893-1943), succeeded his father as the president of the Ford Motor Company after his father resigned the position in December 1918 following a disagreement with stockholders. However, father and son soon managed to purchase the stock of these minority investors and regain control of the company. As president of Ford, one of Edsel Ford’s key contributions was to the styling of cars, which he believed could be stylish as well as functional. His push for style upgrades to the Model T eventually helped to convince his father to drop his rule that customers could have any color Model T, as long as it was black. In 1922, the Ford company bought failing luxury automaker Lincoln Motor Company and Edsel Ford was involved with developing such elegant, prestigious models as the Lincoln Continental and Lincoln Zephyr.
Edsel Ford, who in addition to establishing the Ford Foundation was a major patron of the arts, died of cancer at the age of 49 in 1943. Edsel’s oldest son, Henry Ford II (1917-1987), became president of the Ford Motor Company in 1945. He also served as the Ford Foundation’s second president, from 1943 to 1950, and remained active with the organization as board chairman then a trustee until 1976. Under his leadership, the foundation grew into the planet’s wealthiest philanthropy. Today, the Ford Foundation– headquartered in New York City and completely separate from the Ford Motor Company–supports a range of causes, from the arts and public broadcasting to civil rights, education, health care and fighting poverty. It continues to rank among the world’s wealthiest charitable organizations.

General Interest

1929

Martin Luther King Jr. born


Martin Luther King Jnr

     On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a Baptist minister. King received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 helped organized the first major protest of the African-American civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to segregation in the South. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted, and the movement gained momentum.
Martin Luther King Jnr

   A powerful orator, King appealed to Christian and American ideals and won growing support from the federal government and Northern whites. In 1963, Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph led the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; the event’s grand finale was King’s famous “I Have a Dream” address. Two hundred and fifty thousand people gathered outside the Lincoln Memorial to hear the stirring speech. In 1964, the civil rights movement achieved two of its greatest successes: the ratification of the 24th Amendment, which abolished the poll tax, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public facilities. Later that year, King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In the late 1960s, King openly criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam and turned his efforts to winning economic rights for poor Americans. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

General Interest

1970

Biafra surrenders to Nigeria


Biafran-Nigerian Civil War July 6, 1967 � January 15, 1970

    The Republic of Biafra, a breakaway state of eastern Nigeria, surrenders to Nigeria after three years of costly fighting.
In 1960, Nigeria gained independence from Britain. Six years later, the Muslim Hausas in northern Nigeria began massacring the Christian Igbos in the region, prompting tens of thousands of Igbos to flee to the east, where their people were the dominant ethnic group. The Igbos doubted that Nigeria’s oppressive military government would allow them to develop, or even survive, so on May 30, 1967, Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu and other non-Igbo representatives of the area established the Republic of Biafra, comprising several states of Nigeria.
Ojukwu

After diplomatic efforts by Nigeria failed to reunite the country, war between Nigeria and Biafra broke out in July 1967. Ojukwu’s forces made some initial advances, but Nigeria’s superior military might gradually reduced Biafran territory. The state lost its oil fields–its main source of revenue–and without the funds to import food, an estimated one million of its civilians died as a result of severe malnutrition. On January 11, Nigerian forces captured the provincial capital of Owerri, one of the last Biafran strongholds, and Ojukwu was forced to flee to the Ivory Coast. Four days later, Biafra surrendered to Nigeria.

Hollywood

1993

Last episode of soap opera Santa Barbara airs


    “The worst program on television–maybe ever…” one reviewer dubbed NBC’s daytime soap opera Santa Barbaraupon its debut in July 1984. Critics soon changed their tune about the show, however, and it would run for more than eight years, garnering numerous Daytime Emmy Awards, including the statuette for Best Drama Series in 1988, 1989 and 1990. The show’s ratings never reached the level of its critical buzz, however, and NBC finally pulled the plug, airing its final episode on January 15, 1993.

Created by the husband-and-wife team Bridget and Jerome Dobson, former head writers at Guiding Light and As the World TurnsSanta Barbara centered on four California families: the wealthy Capwells and Lockridges, the middle-class Perkinses and the poorer Andrades. Channing Capwell Jr. was killed five years before the action of the series began, and much of the show’s drama revolved around unraveling the mystery surrounding his murder. After Santa Barbara’s unimpressive debut–which could partially be blamed on its coincidence with the 1984 Summer Olympic Games–the show’s writers took a radical approach to boost ratings, killing off a number of characters with earthquake and serial killer storylines. By the 1987 season, Santa Barbara was earning more Daytime Emmy nominations than any other show, and had also earned a following of devoted fans.
Among daytime soaps, Santa Barbara was notable for its generous $30 million budget and its unique blend of romance, melodrama and black comedy (one popular character was killed when a giant neon letter “C” fell from the Capwell Hotel sign, crushing her). It was also the first soap with prominent Hispanic characters–notably Cruz Castillo (A. Martinez), who with Eden Capwell (Marcy Walker) formed one of the show’s resident “power couples”–and even featured a member of the British nobility, Dame Judith Anderson, as the grand dame Minx Lockridge.

Despite the enthusiasm of such famous fans as President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, Santa Barbara never finished above 10th place in the ratings, and its popularity began to wane after the 1988 season. This trend continued over the next few years, even as the show won its string of Emmy Awards and became a smash hit in such far-flung locales as Eastern Europe and post-Soviet Russia. After fiddling with airtimes in an effort to bolster ratings, NBC made the decision to cancel Santa Barbara. In the supremely unsubtle final shot of the finale, Paul Rauch, the show’s executive producer, walked in front of the camera, smashed a cigar under his shoe and walked away.
Among soap opera fans around the world, Santa Barbara remains a cult favorite. Alumni of the series include Robin Wright Penn, star of such films as The Princess BrideForrest Gump and Message in a Bottle; soap opera mainstay Jack Wagner (Melrose Place) and executive producer Mary Ellis-Bunim, the late co-creator of MTV’s The Real World.

[todayinhistory]








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