Daily Calendar for Saturday, January 24, 2026

Born

  • Edith Wharton (author)
  • Vicki Baum (novelist)
  • Leon Kirchner (composer)
  • Neil Diamond (singer)
  • John Belushi (actor)
  • Nastassja Kinski (actress)
  • Mary Lou Retton (gymnast)
  • Matthew Lillard (actor)
  • Mischa Barton (actress)

Died

  • Sir Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister)
  • George Cukor (film director)
  • Vincente Minnelli (film director)
  • Thurgood Marshall (first African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court)
  • Jay Monahan (legal analyst for NBC News)
  • Bob Russell (creator of the Miss America Pageant and Name That Tune)
  • Chris Penn (actor)

Events

  • Gold nuggets discovered at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, triggered the California Gold Rush
  • “Typewriter copy ribbon” patented by Jacob L. Wortman
  • Patent 1,404,539 granted for the Eskimo Pie (now Edy’s Pie)
  • Moving picture of a solar eclipse taken from dirigible over Long Island, NY
  • Percy Spencer granted patent for microwave oven
  • Soviet satellite Cosmos 954 crashed in Canada’s Northwest Territories, leaking radioactive waste
  • An otter entertained crowds all winter at the mouth of the Ompompanoosuc River in Norwich, Vermont
  • Apple Computer, Inc. introduced the Macintosh personal computer
  • The Voyager 2 spacecraft sent back photographs from the planet Uranus
  • Rover Opportunity landed on Mars
  • A blizzard that took over New England with blinding snow and blustering wind kept the Cape Cod Times from publishing a print edition for the first time

Weather

  • The temperature in Browning, Montana, plunged 100 degrees in 24 hours, from 44F to -56F, establishing a U.S. record for a 24-hour temperature drop.
  • Fifteen degrees below zero F in Nashville, Tennessee
  • 4 inches of snow fell near Lake Jocassee in South Carolina
  • North Myrtle Beach experienced a low temperature of 16 degrees F
  • Thirty-eight inches of snow on Cape Cod after a 2-day winter blizzard

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