"Why ? Why?"...
That wail came from Nancy Kerrigan when Jeff Gillooly goon Shane Stant made a pinata out of the skater's right knee. No candy or surprises came out, just sobs as the Olympic skater from Woburn, Massachusetts lay wounded on the practice ice in Detroit on this date in 1994...
Tonya Harding would eventually plead quilty to a conspiracy charge in the attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan, implicating ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, his friend Shawn Eckardt and attacker Stant. The whole ugly event was pure soap opera to all but Kerrigan who was forced out of competition. After recovering from the wound she would go on to win a silver medal at the Lillehammer Olympics just one month later. Gillooly, Shawn Eckhardt and 2 others spent time in prison. And Tonya ? Harding was placed on 3 years probation and fined $160,000. Several 911 calls and a few career changes later, Tonya uses her fists in the ring as a professional prize fighter...
Nancy Kerrigan, 36, is now living in Lynnfield, Mass. and is married with 2 sons. She continues to appear in a variety of ice skating shows and created a foundation to raise awareness and support for the vision impaired...
More January 6 Memories...
1759) George Washington prooving that "behind every great man, there's a woman, etc..." marries Martha Dandridge Custis (cherry pie is served as desert at the reception)...
1838) Samuel Morse demonstrates his telegraph for the 1st time in Morristown, NJ...
1936) Porky Pig debuts in a WB cartoon, "Gold Diggers of '49" (one year later Mel Blanc starts voicing Porky along with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester and Tweety)...
1942) The Pan American Pacific Clipper arrives in New York after becoming the 1st round-the-world commercial flight...
1945) Future president George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce walk down the aisle in Rye, NY...
1952) "Peanuts" debuts in Sunday papers across the U.S...
1957) Elvis Presley makes his 7th and final appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show"...
1958) Danny & the Juniors are #1 with "At The Hop"...
1963) "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" premieres on NBC-TV, hosted by Marlin Perkins...
1964) The Rolling Stones tour for the 1st time as a headline act (the Ronettes open)...
1967) "The Milton Berle Show" bows out on ABC-TV...
1968) The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" LP goes to #1 for the 1st of 8 weeks...
1968) Dick Clark premieres his TV series "Happening '68" (the show runs through September of '69)...
1969) WLIW-TV, channel 21 in Garden City, LI, a PBS station, begins broadcasting...
1975) "Wheel Of Fortune" debuts on NBC-TV...
1975) ABC-TV debuts "A.M. America" with Bill Beutel as host...
1975) About a thousand Led Zeppelin fans riot while waiting for tickets to go on sale at Boston Garden. $30,000 in damage later, Mayor Kevin White cancels the show...
1993) Bill Wyman announces that he has officially left the Rolling Stones...
1993) Ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev dies at 54...
1993) Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie dies at 75...
1994) Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is beaten in Detroit (feature story)...
1995) While coaching Atlanta to a win, Lenny Wilkens becomes the winningest coach in NBA history with 939 victories...
1997) Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. top the charts with "You Don't Have To Be A Star" (to be in my show)"...
1999) The 106th Congress opens and the 1st item on the agenda is the impeachment proceedings of President Bill Clinton (with trial set to begin January 7)...
To ensure accuracy, multiple reference sources were used in the timeline...
Happy Birthday To...
1921) Pollster Lou Harris...
1924) Country great Earl Scruggs...
1935) Nino Tempo...
1937) Lou Holtz...
1944) Bonnie Franklin...
1957) Nancy Lopez Knight...
1970) Julie Chen...
This is the 6th day of 2006 with 359 remaining...make the most of it...
Saturday, January 7, 2006...
January 7 Memories...
1782) The 1st U.S. commercial bank, The Bank of North America, opens in Philadelphia...
1789) Americans vote for the electors that will choose George Washington to be our 1st president...
1896) The 1st "Fannie Farmer Cookbook" is published...
1926) George Burns and Gracie Allen say "I Do" (George says "Goodnight Gracie")...
1927) ("London Calling") The 1st transatlantic telephone service begins between New York and London (31 calls are made on the 1st day)...
1927) The Harlem Globetrotters play their 1st game in Hinckley, Illinois (starting a streak of 5,238,612 consecutive wins)...
1929) The "Buck Rogers" comic strip runs in newspapers across the country (the title starts out as "Buck Rogers 2429 A.D." but is changed to "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century")...
1941) The NBC Blue radio network presents "The Squeaky Door" for the 1st time (the show will later be known as "Inner Sanctum")...
1950) Ernest Tubb makes his debut on "The Grand Ole Opry"...
1953) President Truman drops a bomb when he announces the development of the hydrogen bomb...
1955) Marian Anderson becomes the 1st black to sing at New York's Metropolitan Opera...
1959) The U.S. recognizes Fidel Castro's new government in Cuba...
1967) "The Newlywed Game" premieres on ABC-TV...
1968) "GE College Bowl" quiz show premieres on NBC-TV...
1972) The Los Angeles Lakers establish a new NBA record for consecutive victories (33) with a win over Atlanta...
1980) Jimmy Carter signs legislation authorizing $1.5 billion to bail out Chrysler...
1992) "The Franchise", Tom Seaver of the Mets is elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame with the highest (98.8%) percentage of votes in history (Seaver won 311 games)...
1996) One of the biggest blizzards in U.S. history blankets the east. More than 100 deaths follow...
1998) Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky signs an affidavit denying having an affair with president Clinton (Monica, your uh-nose is gonna grow)...
1999) President Clinton goes on trial before the Senate (only the 2nd time in history that a president facing impeachment charges goes to trial)...
To ensure accuracy, multiple reference sources were used in the timeline...
Happy Birthday To...
1928) William Peter Blatty (author of "The Exorcist")...
1938) Paul Revere (Paul Revere and the Raiders)...
1946) Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner...
1948) Kenny Loggins...
1956) David Caruso...
1957) Katie Couric...
1964) Nicolas Cage...
This is the 7th day of 2006 with 358 days remaining in the year...make the most of it...
Sunday, January 8, 2006...
January 8 Memories...
1675) The 1st corporation in the U.S. is the New York Fishing Company...
1815) General Andrew Jackson leads U.S. forces into New Orleans defeating the British in the closing battle of the War of 1812 (which was supposed to end in 1814 but not everyone got the word, obviously)...
1833) The Boston Academy of Music is the 1st U.S. music school established...
1908) A catastrophic train collision occurs in the smoke filled Park Avenue Tunnel, 17 die with 38 injured...
1955) After 130 home basketball wins, Kentucky loses to Georgia Tech 59-58 giving the Wildcats their 1st Kentucky loss since January 2, 1943...
1957) Elvis Presley celebrates his 22nd birthday by taking an Army pre-induction exam...
1958) 14-year old Bobby Fisher of Brooklyn, wins his 1st U.S. Chess Championship...
1964) President Johnson declares his "war on poverty"...
1965) "Hullabaloo" debuts on NBC-TV...
1966) The Beatles' "Rubber Soul" tops the LP charts for the 1st of 6 weeks. "We Can Work It Out" goes to #1 on the single's charts where it stays for 3 weeks...
1966) The Kinks and The Who appear on the last "Shindig!" show...
1973) The trail of 7 men accused in the Watergate break-in begins in Washington, D.C...
1973) Priscilla says "Happy Birthday Elvis", Elvis says "darlin', I'm filing for divorce"...
1975) Ella Grasso becomes the governor of Connecticut (she's the 1st woman to become governor of a state without a husband preceding her)...
1976) Chinese premier Chou En-lai dies in Beijing at 77...
1992) President George Bush collapses during a state dinner in Tokyo, doing his business in the lap of a Japanese official (oops!)...
1993) An Elvis Presley commemorative stamp is issued by the Postal Service. The 29-cent stamp shows the likeness of the 50's era Elvis...
1994) Tonya Harding wins the ladie's U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit (the U.S. Figure Skating Association later takes the title from Tonya for her involvement in that er-litttle Nancy Kerrigan incident)...
1998) Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life in prison for his role in masterminding the 1st World Trade Center boming in New York...
To ensure accuracy, multiple reference sources were used in the timeline...
Happy Birthday To...
1923) Larry Storch...
1926) Soupy Sales...
1933) Charles Osgood...
1937) Shirley Bassey...
1937) "Newlywed Game" host Bob Eubanks...
1940) Little Anthony (Gourdine)...
1942) Stephen Hawking...
1947) David Bowie...
This is the 8th day of 2006 with 357 days remaining in the year. Make the most of it and have a good weekend...
