On This Day: January 10

This is the 10th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: Caesar across Rubicon

In 49 BC, Julius Caesar led one of his legions across a small stream called the Rubicon, thus defying the Roman Senate and breaking the Lex Cornelia Majestatis that forbade a general from bringing an army out of the province to which he was assigned. Turning to his lieutenants just before he crossed, Caesar remarked, "Iacta alea est." (The die is cast.) It was a de facto declaration of war against the Roman Republic. The Rubicon is a narrow river south of Ravenna that marked the border between the Republic and its province of Cisalpine Gaul, now northern Italy. His action initiated a three-year civil war but also led to the end of the Republic and began the age of Roman emperors. It was one man, armed with only a few soldiers and his own military genius, about to take over the largest and most advanced empire of the world.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Marcian of Constantinople, St. William of Bourges, St. Agatho, pope, St. Dermot or Diarmaid, St. Peter Orseolo, and St. John the Good.

Events

1776 - Thomas Paine published "Common Sense," a scathing attack on King George III's reign over the colonies and a call for complete independence.

1861 - Florida seceded from the Union.

1870 - John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.

1901 - The Texas oil boom started in Beaumont.

1920 - The League of Nations was established as the Covenant of the League of Nations/Treaty of Versailles went into effect and had its first meeting in Geneva.

1922 - Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin and one of the architects of the 1921 peace treaty with Britain, was elected president of the newly established Irish Free State.

1923 - Four years after the end of World War I, President Warren G. Harding ordered U.S. occupation troops stationed in Germany to return home.

1928 - The Soviet Union and Josef Stalin ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky.

1946 - The first General Assembly of the United Nations convened at Westminster Central Hall in London.

1949 - Vinyl records were launched by RCA (45 rpm) and Columbia (33.3 rpm).

1971 - "Masterpiece Theatre" premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke introducing a drama series, "The First Churchills."

1984 - The United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in 117 years.

2000 - America Online agreed to buy Time-Warner for $162 billion, making it the largest corporate merger to date.

2001 - American Airlines agreed to buy Trans World Airlines and, in a separate transaction, revealed plans to acquire 20% of US Airways.

Births

1864 - George Washington Carver, American chemist, agronomist.

Deaths

1971 - Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel, French fashion designer.