Month: January 2024

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History & Celebrations Today – January 16

Celebrations Today – January 16

Holidays and observances

Celebrations Today – USA: January 16

National Fig Newton Day
National Nothing Day
National Religious Freedom Day
National Without a Scalpel Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Day – Third Monday in January
National Appreciate a Dragon Day
National Book Publishers Day
International Hot and Spicy Food Day
National Good Teen Day
National Prohibition Remembrance Day
National Psychiatric Technician’s Day
National Religious Freedom Day

Today in US History: January 16

Hello, Dolly!

Carol Channing
Carol Channing, en Chinoise,
January 5, 1956.
Creative Americans: Portraits by Van Vechten, 1932-1964

“She is glorious,” theater critic Walter Kerr raved about Carol Channing’s January 16, 1964, debut in Hello, Dolly!. Wearing a carrot-colored wig, her large eyes accentuated with false eyelashes, the actress and comedienne sparkled in the role of Dolly Gallagher Levi—a widow brazenly intent upon remarrying into money. Hello, Dolly!, a musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s play The Matchmaker, received ten Tony awards, including best musical comedy actress for Channing’s performance. It was also named best musical of the 1963-64 season by the New York Drama Critics Circle.

Carol Channing, shown here in a 1956 portrait, was born in Seattle, Washington, on January 31, 1921 and grew up in San Francisco. She first achieved stardom in 1949 for her portrayal of gold digger Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Several of the songs from that show, including Channing’s rendition of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” became popular-music classics. In addition to her legendary Broadway career, Channing starred in nightclub acts featuring her impersonations of other popular entertainers.

Playwright Thornton Wilder was among the most acclaimed American writers of his time. He won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and the 1938 and 1943 Pulitzer Prizes for drama for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, respectively. Wilder premiered The Matchmaker, a revision of his 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers, at the Edinburgh Festival in 1954.

Charles Dillingham and Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.
Charles Dillingham and Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.,
Present A Musical Entertainment Entitled
The Century Girl,
Century Theatre, New York,
November 6, 1916
American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920

Chicago Dunks Iowa!

Basketball player
Basketball Player,
Charlotte Hall Military Academy,
Charlotte Hall, Maryland,
Theodor Horydczak, photographer,
circa 1920-1950.
Washington as It Was: Photographs by Theodor Horydczak, 1923-1959

On January 16, 1896, Henry F. Kallenberg, an instructor of physical education at the University of Iowa, welcomed Amos Alonzo Stagg, athletic director at the recently founded University of Chicago, to Iowa City for an experimental game in a new sport. The contest, refereed by Kallenberg, was the first unofficial college basketball game played with five players on each side. The University of Chicago won by a score of 15 to 12.

Kallenberg had met Stagg at the Young Men’s Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.) training school in Springfield, Massachusetts, where the two of them were students in 1890. In December 1891, Canadian-born James Naismith, director of physical education at the school, invented the game of basketball.

Initially, players passed or batted (with open hands) a soccer ball up and down a court of unspecified dimensions. Points were earned by landing the ball in a peach basket. Iron hoops and a hammock-style basket were introduced in 1893. Another decade passed, however, before the innovation of open-ended nets put an end to the practice of manually retrieving the ball from the basket each time a goal was scored.

Boys on basketball field
Basketball, Indian Head Camp,
Bushkill, Pennsylvania,
Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc., photographer,
August 23, 1951.
Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America: Photographs by Samuel Gottscho and William Schleisner, 1935-1955

I’m a plump, Middle-Western, Middle-class, middle-aged woman, with white hair and simple tastes…I am mad about Kansas skies, Cedar Rapids by night, Iowa City any time, Miami Beach, San Francisco, and all American boys about fifteen years old playing basketball.”Rose Wilder Lane,”
October 10, 1940.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940

For many years the sport remained closely identified with the Y.M.C.A., even as its popularity as a college sport for men and women steadily increased. It acquired an even greater following with the introduction, in 1963, of nationally televised broadcasts of the National Collegiate Athletic Association championships. By the 1980s, basketball had gained an equal footing with baseball and football among American sports fans.

Girl's basketball team
Girl’s Basketball Team,
Milton High School,
Milton, North Dakota, 1909,
John McCarthy, presumed photographer.
The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920: Photographs from the Fred Hulstrand and F. A. Pazandak Photograph Collections

Women’s college basketball, introduced by Senda Berenson at Smith College in 1892, has become increasingly popular since the abolition in 1971 of rules limiting players’ mobility to half-court.

Today in History – January 16-External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia