Moments in Time – January 8, 2025

#MiddleburyCT

• On Jan. 20, 1973, Jerry Lee Lewis, aka “The Killer,” made an appearance at the Grand Ole Opry, declaring, “I am a rock-and-rollin’, country-and-western, rhythm-and-blues singing [expletive deleted]!” before launching into his set, which notably included all the rock-and-roll classics he’d promised Opry officials not to play. Shunned by the pop music world following his controversial second marriage to his teenage cousin Myra Gale Brown, Lewis had staged a successful comeback with country music.
• On Jan. 21, 1959, Carl Switzer, aka the cowlick-sporting, warbly-voiced Alfalfa of the beloved “Our Gang” film series, was fatally shot by Moses Stiltz during an altercation over a debt Switzer believed he was owed by Stiltz.
• On Jan. 22, 1981, Annie Leibovitz’s final portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, hit newsstands, a month and a half after Lennon’s assassination by Mark David Chapman.
• On Jan. 23, 1984, Hulk Hogan defeated World Wrestling Federation champion Iron Sheik and earned his first WWF title at New York City’s Madison Square Garden when he also became the first wrestler to escape Sheik’s signature move, the “camel clutch.”
• On Jan. 24, 1956, Look magazine published the confessions of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, who were acquitted in the previous year’s abduction and murder of Emmett Till, a Black teen from Chicago. The men were reportedly paid $4,000 for their participation in the article.
• On Jan. 25, 1776, the Continental Congress approved the first national Revolutionary War memorial, honoring Brigadier General Richard Montgomery, who died during an assault in Quebec nearly a month earlier. The monument was crafted by King Louis XV’s personal sculptor, Jean-Jacques Caffieri, after he was hired for the job by Benjamin Franklin.
• On Jan. 26, 1961, about a week after his inauguration, President John F. Kennedy appointed orthopedist Janet Travell as his personal physician, making her the first woman in history to hold that post. Following Kennedy’s assassination, she retained her position and became President Lyndon B. Johnson’s personal doctor.

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