This Week in History: January 24th – 30th
Welcome to this week’s edition of the staff blog’s ‘This Week in History!’ You will find historical facts, happenings, and associated books; #1 box office movies; and #1 NY Times best sellers from years gone by, all with book recommendations included based on each topic. This will be a weekly feature, so make sure to check out each week’s posting! NOTE: Click on any of the below book/movie titles to be taken to them in our online Café catalog!
NY Times Fiction Bestsellers
- 1946 (75 years ago): The Black Rose by Thomas B. Costain
- 1971 (50 years ago): Love Story by Erich Segal
- 1986 (35 years ago): The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel
- 1996 (25 years ago): Intensity by Dean Koontz
- 2011(10 years ago): The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer
- 2016 (5 years ago): The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
#1 Box Office Movies
- 1971 (50 years ago): Love Story
- 1986 (35 years ago): The Color Purple
- 1996 (25 years ago): Mr. Holland’s Opus
- 2001 (20 years ago): The Wedding Planner
- 2011 (10 years ago): The Rite
- 2016 (5 years ago): The Revenant
This Week in History
- January 24th
- 1935- The first canned beer goes on sale. (United States)
- 1956- Look magazine publishes the confessions of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, two white men from Mississippi who were acquitted in the 1955 kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till.
- 1989- Serial killer Ted Bundy is executed at age 42 in Florida. (United States)
- 2006- Disney announces $7.4 billion purchase of Pixar. (United States/World)
- January 25th
- 1924- The world’s first Winter Olympics begins in Chamonix, France. (World)
- 1971- Charles Manson and three of his followers are convicted of a series of notorious murders, later detailed in the true crime book Helter Skelter. (United States)
- 1995- Russia activates its nuclear command systems for the first time due to Norway scientific missile launch. (World)
- January 26th
- 1788- British settlement/colonization begins in Australia.
- 1935- Bob Uecker is born. (Wisconsin)
- 2020- NBA legend Kobe Bryant dies in a helicopter crash outside of Los Angeles. (United States)
- January 27th
- 1945- Auschwitz is liberated by Soviet troops. (World)
- 1967- During a simulation of a launch, astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee perish in a fire aboard Apollo I at Cape Kennedy, Florida. (United States)
- 1973- The Paris peace accord ending the Vietnam War (or, at least America’s explicit involvement in it) is signed.
- January 28th
- 1932- Governor Philip F. La Follette signs into law a groundbreaking unemployment insurance bill. Wisconsin is the first state to approve unemployment compensation, and the action becomes a model for other states developing similar legislation. (Wisconsin)
- 1959- Vince Lombardi is named the Green Bay Packers head coach. (Wisconsin)
- 1986- The space shuttle Challenger explodes after liftoff over Florida. (United States/World)
- January 29th
- 1845- Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem ‘The Raven’ is published for the first time in the New York Evening Mirror. (United States)
- 1936- The Baseball Hall of Fame opens for the first time and elects players in Cooperstown, New York. (United States)
- 2002- US President George W. Bush gives his ‘Axis of Evil’ speech during his State of the Union. (United States)
- January 30th
- 1933- Adolf Hitler is named chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. (World)
- 1948- Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated in New Delhi, India. (World)
- 1972- ‘Bloody Sunday’ occurs in Northern Ireland, when 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators are shot dead by British Army paratroopers. The rise of IRA followed short. (World)
Recommended Reading Related to Movies/Historical Happenings:
- The United States of Beer: A Freewheeling History of the All-American Drink by Dane Huckelbridge
- The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson
- The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy by Elizabeth Kendall
- To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History by Lawrence Levy
- The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics by David Wallechinsky and Jamie Loucky
- Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi
- The Bomb: A Life by Gerard J. DeGroot
- A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia by Thomas Keneally
- Catcher in the Wry by Bob Uecker
- Kobe: Forever, 1978-2020 by The Los Angeles Times
- Auschwitz: A History by Sybille Steinbacher
- The Man Who Ran the Moon: James E. Webb and the Secret History of Project Apollo by Piers Bizony
- Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-1975 by George J. Veith
- Fighting Son: A Biography of Philip F. La Follette by Jonathan Kasparek
- When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by David Maraniss
- The Time it Takes to Fall by Margaret Lazarus Dean (Fictional novel based around the Challenger disaster)
- The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
- Inside the Baseball Hall of Fame by The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
- The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran by David Crist
- Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 by Volker Ullrich
- Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India by Joseph Lelyveld
- Bloody Sunday: Massacre in Northern Ireland, the Eyewitness Accounts by Don Mullan and John Scally