Today in history—January 24
41: Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, better known as Caligula (“Bootsie”) is murdered by his Praetorian Guards at age 29. Porn publisher Bob Guccione will later make a lot of money on a film of his short life.
1832: Alfred Yarrow is born in poverty in East London. In 1865 he begins the partnership of Yarrow & Hedley on the Isle of Dogs, building steam river launches and eventually becoming one of Britain’s preeminent shipbuilders. One of his more prosaic innovations will be the first ferry boat capable of carrying automobiles.
1848: James W. Marshall spies some shiny nuggets of metal in the silt at Sutter’s Mill on the American River in Coloma, California (left). Before the year is out the “Gold Rush” is on.
1888: Ernst Heinrich Heinkel is born. After a stint as chief engineer for the Albatros Aircraft Co. of Berlin, he will in 1922 found Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke at Warnemünde, creating the first jet plane, the HE-178, in 1939.
1902: Economist and mathematician Oskar Morganstern is born. His development of “game theory” has probably led to more unintelligible law review articles than any other development of the 20th century, except perhaps the word processor.
1916: The United States Supreme Court declares the federal income tax unconstitutional in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad.
1918: Evangelist Oral Roberts is born at Pontotoc City, Oklahoma. He will open the university that bears his name in 1965.
1922: Christian K. Nelson of Onawa, Iowa, receives a patent for the first chocolate-covered ice cream bar without a stick, described as “a block or brick or frozen confection within an edible container or shell.” It’s sold under the name “Eskimo Pie.”
1935: The G. Krueger Brewing Co. of Newark, N.J., becomes the first to sell beer in metal cans, using a new process developed by the American Can Co. Krueger picks distant Richmond, Virginia, for a test market, in case the product (left) flops. It doesn’t.
1947: Singer Warren (Lawyers, Guns, and Money) Zevon is born in Chicago, Illinois.
1948: IBM dedicates is “SSEC” computer in New York City. The thing takes up three sides of a 30′ x 60′ room. It has 13,000 vacuum tubes and 21,000 relays, together with 36 punched-paper readers.
1962: At the home of drummer Pete Best, the four members of The Beatles sign a five-year management contract with Brian Epstein. Epstein does not sign the contract, which everyone seems to think means the Beatles can get out of the deal any time.
1964: CBS television buys the rights to broadcast the 1965-66 National Football League schedule for $14.1 million.
1964: Jockey Willie Shoemaker becomes horse racing’s all-time money leader, racking up $30,040,005 in purses.
1984: Apple Computer introduces the first computer with a graphical user interface, the Macintosh.
1986: Singer/actor Gordon MacRae, star of such TV shows as the Colgate Comedy Hour and Lux Television Theatre, dies of cancer in Lincoln, Nebraska.
1993: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall dies at age 84. When a group of Southern senators launched a confirmation fight and blocked his nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court in 1961, President Kennedy used a recess appointment to put him in the office.