Moments in Time – December 28, 2022

#MiddleburyCT

• On Jan. 9, 1859, Carrie Lane (later Catt) entered the world in Ripon, Wisconsin. A staunch women’s suffragist and peace advocate, she founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 and was highly instrumental in the passing of the Constitution’s 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote that same year.
• On Jan. 15, 1870, a Harper’s Weekly cartoon criticizing former Secretary of War Edwin Stanton with the caption, “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion” helped popularize the use of a donkey to symbolize America’s Democratic Party.
• On Jan. 12, 1908, American inventor and electronics pioneer Lee de Forest, sometimes called the “Father of Radio,” transmitted a long-distance radio message from the top of the Eiffel Tower for the first time, heard by an audience of 50.
• On Jan. 10, 1942, Mickey Rooney married Ava Gardner. Since both were under contract to MGM, they had to get permission from its head, Louis B. Mayer. According to Gardner, the studio “owned both of us, and did not look kindly on any change in Andy Hardy’s status.” Though the marriage was short-lived, Rooney later called it “one of the most memorable moments of my life.”
• On Jan. 14, 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met at Casablanca in Morocco to begin work on World War II strategy. At its conclusion, they held a joint news conference at which Roosevelt announced that peace would come “by the total elimination of German and Japanese war power. That means the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan.”
• On Jan. 11, 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry issued the first governmental report stating that smoking could be injurious to one’s health. Its Saturday date was chosen to minimize the effect on the stock market and maximize coverage in the Sunday papers, and was, Terry said, “a lead story on every radio and television station in the United States and many abroad.”
• On Jan. 13, 1989, computers across Britain were hit by the Jerusalem (aka “Friday the 13th”) virus, created in Israel the previous year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Jewish state. Fortunately, since the advent of Windows, it is now obsolete.

© 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.