661 – Rashidun Caliphate, then the largest empire in history, ends with the death of its leader, Ali. Succeeded by the Umayyad Caliphate. 1595 – William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet” is thought to have been first performed. Officially published early 1597. 1845 – American author Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven was first published, appearing in the New York Mirror; a melancholy evocation of lost love, it became one of the best-known poems in American literature. 1886 – Karl Benz patents the “Benz Patent-Motorwagen” in Karlsruhe, Germany, the world’s 1st automobile with a burning motor 1892 – The Coca-Cola Company is incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia. 1896 – Emile Grubbe is the first doctor to use radiation treatment for breast cancer. 1919 – The Prohibition (Eighteenth) Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified and went into effect the following year. 1924 – The first machine for rolling ice cream cones was patented by Carl Rutherford Taylor of Cleveland, Ohio. 2002 – US President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address describes “regimes that sponsor terror” an “Axis of Evil”, which includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Sport: 1936 – 1st players elected to Baseball Hall of Fame: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson & Walter Johnson.
Music: 1996 – 6,138th performance of “Cats” is held in London, surpassing record of Broadway’s longest-running musical, “A Chorus Line”.
TV & Film: 1964 – “Dr Strangelove”, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, premieres.
