Moments in Time – Jan. 16, 2019

#Middlebury

• On Feb. 1, 1887, Harvey Wilcox officially registers “Hollywood” with the Los Angeles County recorder’s office. Wilcox and his wife bought 160 acres of land in the foothills west of Los Angeles. They envisioned it as the perfect site for a utopian-like community for devout Christians, where they could live a highly moral life free of vices such as alcohol.
• On Jan. 29, 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame elects its first members in Cooperstown, N.Y.: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson.
• On Jan. 31, 1950, President Harry Truman announces his decision to support development of the hydrogen bomb. On Nov. 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated “Mike,” the world’s first hydrogen bomb, on the Elugelab Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands.
• On Feb. 3, 1966, the Soviet Union makes the first controlled landing on the moon, when its unmanned spacecraft Lunik 9 touches down on the Ocean of Storms. After a soft landing, it began transmitting images back to Earth.
• On Feb. 2, 1970, antiwar protestors file suit against the Dow Chemical Company in a Washington, D.C., court in an attempt to prove that it is still making napalm, a jelly-like gasoline used in bombs during the Vietnam War. Dow had lost its government contract to produce napalm in June 1969.
• On Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with seven crew members aboard. Seventy-three seconds later, the shuttle broke up in a forking plume of smoke and fire. There were no survivors.
• On Jan. 30, 1994, American speed skater Dan Jansen sets a new world record of 35.76 at the World Sprint Championships in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Jansen would win Olympic gold three weeks later in final race of his career, the 1,000-meter event in Lillehammer, Norway.

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