Famous People Born In
The Month Of January
And Notable Events
Born today?
Well known people born on January 30th - your in good company
Well known people born on January 30th - your in good company
Paul Revere (/rɪˈvɪər/; December 21, 1734 O.S. – May 10, 1818[N 1]) was an American silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting the Colonial militia to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride".
Revere was a prosperous and prominent Boston silversmith, who helped organize an intelligence and alarm system to keep watch on the British military. Revere later served as a Massachusetts militia officer, though his service culminated after the Penobscot Expedition, one of the most disastrous campaigns of the American Revolutionary War, for which he was absolved of blame. Following the war, Revere returned to his silversmith trade and used the profits from his expanding business to finance his work in iron casting, bronze bell and cannon casting, and the forging of copper bolts and spikes. Finally in 1800 he became the first American to successfully roll copper into sheets for use as sheathing on naval vessels. |
Betsy Ross (January 1, 1752 – January 30, 1836), born Elizabeth Phoebe Griscom,[1] also later known by her second and third married names: Elizabeth Ashburn and Elizabeth Claypoole,[1] is widely credited with making the first American flag purportedly in 1776, according to family tradition, upon a visit from General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and changing the shape of the stars described on the flag from six-pointed to easier-to-produce five-pointed stars.[2][3][4] However, there is no archival evidence or other verbal traditions that this story or "legend" of the first American flag is true and supposedly the story first surfaced in the early 1870s by the description of her descendents—a grandson—a century later, with no mention being made or documented anywhere in earlier decades.[5]
Betsy Ross was born to parents, Samuel Griscom (1717-1793) and Rebecca James Griscom (1721-1793) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 1, 1752, the eighth of seventeen children, but only Betsy and eight of her siblings survived childhood. Two siblings, sister Sarah (1745-1747) and brother William (1748-1749), died before Elizabeth ("Betsy") was born (another sister, Sarah Griscom Donaldson (1749-1785), was named after the earlier deceased Sarah). Betsy was just five years old when her sister Martha (1754-1757) died, and another sister, Ann (1757-1759), only lived to the age of 2. Betsy also lost brothers Samuel I (1753-1756) and Samuel II (1758-1761), who both died at the age of three. Two others, twins, brother Joseph (1759-1762) and sister Abigail (1759-1762), died in one of the frequentsmallpox epidemics in the autumn of 1762.[6][7] She grew up in a household where the plain dress and strict discipline of the Society of Friends dominated her life.[8]She learned to sew from great-aunt Sarah Elizabeth Ann Griscom.[8] Her great-grandfather, Andrew Griscom, a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), was a carpenter, who had emigrated in 1680 from England.[7] |
John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972 at age 77. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.
Late in life and after his death Hoover became a controversial figure, as evidence of his secretive, somewhat questionable, actions began to surface. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI [1] and claim that he used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[2] and to collect evidence using controversial methods.[3] Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting Presidents.[4] However, according to biographer Kenneth Ackerman, the notion that Hoover’s secret files kept presidents from firing him is a myth.[5] According to President Harry S. Truman, Hoover transformed the FBI into his private secret police force; Truman stated that "we want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him".[6] |
Thomas Rocco Barbella (January 1, 1919[1] — May 22, 1990), better known as Rocky Graziano, was an American boxer. Graziano was considered one of the greatest knockout artists in boxing history, often displaying the capacity to take his opponent out with a single punch. He was ranked 23rd on The Ring magazine list of the greatest punchers of all time. His life story was the basis of the 1956 Oscar-winning drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me, based on his 1955 autobiography of the same title.
Rocky Graziano was the son of "Fighting Nick Bob", a boxer with a brief fighting record. Born in Brooklyn, he later moved to Little Italy on New York's Lower East Side. Graziano grew up as a street fighter and learned to look after himself before he could read or write. He spent years in reform school, jail, and Catholic protectories.[2] His father, who got occasional work as a longshoreman, kept boxing gloves around the house and encouraged Graziano and his brothers to fight one another. When Graziano was as young as three years of age, his father would make him and his brother Joe (three years Rocky's senior) fight almost every night in boxing gloves. At age 18 he won the Metropolitan A.A.U. welterweight championship. Despite the fame and money that professional fighting seemed to offer, he didn't want to become a serious prize fighter. He didn't like the discipline of training any more than he liked the discipline of school or the Army.[3] |
Dana Andrews (January 1, 1909 – December 17, 1992) was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's major stars of the 1940s, and continued acting, though generally in less prestigious roles, into the 1980s. One of his best-known roles, and the one for which he received the most praise, was as war veteran Fred Derry in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). He was born Carver Dana Andrews on a farmstead outside Collins, Covington Coul ppl poultry, Mississippi, the third of thirteen children of Charles Forrest Andrews, a Baptist minister, and his wife Annis (née Speed).[2] The family subsequently moved to Huntsville, Texas, where his younger siblings (including actor Steve Forrest) were born. He attended college at Sam Houston State University[3] and also studied business administration in Houston, Texas. In 1931, he traveled to Los Angeles, California, seeking opportunities as a singer. He worked at various jobs, including pumping gas in Van Nuys. To help Andrews study music at night, "The station owners stepped in ... with a deal: $50 a week for full-time study, in exchange for a five-year share of possible later earnings."[4]
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