This day in history

[February 04, 2010]  (AP) Today is Wednesday, Jan. 13, the 13th day of 2010. There are 352 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On Jan. 13, 1794, President George Washington approved a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the union. (The number of stripes was later reduced to the original 13.)

On this date:

In 1733, James Oglethorpe and some 120 English colonists arrived at Charleston, S.C., while en route to settle in present-day Georgia.

In 1864, composer Stephen Foster died in New York at age 37.

In 1898, Emile Zola's famous defense of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, "J'accuse," was published in Paris.

In 1910, opera was experimentally broadcast on radio for the first time as Lee De Forest transmitted a performance of "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "Pagliacci" from the stage of New York's Metropolitan Opera.

In 1945, during World War II, Soviet forces began a huge, successful offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe.

In 1962, comedian Ernie Kovacs died in a car crash in west Los Angeles 10 days before his 43rd birthday.

In 1966, Robert C. Weaver was named Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Lyndon B. Johnson; Weaver became the first black Cabinet member.

In 1978, former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey died in Waverly, Minn., at age 66.

In 1982, an Air Florida 737 crashed into Washington, D.C.'s 14th Street Bridge after takeoff during a snowstorm and fell into the Potomac River, killing 78 people.

In 1990, L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the nation's first elected black governor as he took the oath of office in Richmond.

Ten years ago: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stepped aside as chief executive and promoted company president Steve Ballmer to the position.

Five years ago: Major League Baseball adopted a tougher steroid-testing program that suspended first-time offenders for 10 days and randomly tested players year-round.

One year ago: President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, vowed during her Senate confirmation hearing to revitalize the mission of diplomacy in U.S. foreign policy. Obama's choice to run the Treasury Department, Timothy Geithner, disclosed that he had failed to pay $34,000 in taxes from 2001 to 2004. U.S. Marshals apprehended Marcus Schrenker, 38, in North Florida days after the businessman and amateur daredevil pilot apparently tried to fake his own death in a plane crash. (Schrenker faces a March trial on charges of bilking investors of more than $1 million.) Actor-director Patrick McGoohan died in Los Angeles at 80. Author Hortense Calisher died in New York at 97.

Today's birthdays: Country singer Liz Anderson is 80. Actress Frances Sternhagen is 80. TV personality Nick Clooney is 76. Comedian Rip Taylor is 76. Actor Billy Gray is 72. Actor Richard Moll is 67. Rock musician Trevor Rabin is 56. R&B musician Fred White is 55. Rock musician James Lomenzo (Megadeth) is 51. Actor Kevin Anderson is 50. Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus is 49. Rock singer Graham "Suggs" McPherson (Madness) is 49. Country singer Trace Adkins is 48. Actress Penelope Ann Miller is 46. Actor Patrick Dempsey is 44. Actress Traci Bingham is 42. Actor Keith Coogan is 40. Actress Nicole Eggert is 38. Actor Orlando Bloom is 33.

Thought for today: "The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well." -- Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, English author (1717-1797)

[Associated Press]

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