OPEC voted to freeze oil prices for three months. Saudi Arabia had been willing to reduce them, but Algeria, Iraq, and Iran, had not been.
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Actor turned politician Ronald Reagan delivered California's State of the State address, noting the oil crisis but asserting it was an opportunity to develop resources, freeing the US from foreign petroleum.
Reinstated the death penalty and brought in no-fault divorce.
What a bunch of boofadors.
Oh yeah. . . that's also the year we turned out Gale McGee for Malcolm Wallop around here.
Well, that was two years before Coors introduced Coors Light, and you could still drink and drive legally in the state at that time. We must have been doing too much of it.
Rendova was occupied by about 120 Japanese troops. 6,000 Americans would land, of which four wuld lose their lives.
Woodlark and Kiriwina Islands were significant enough to bear their own operational name, Operation Chronicle, although it was part of Operation Cartwheel.
It was an unopposed landing.
The Battle of Wickham Anchorage commenced between the US and the Japanese on Vangunu.
As was so often the case during World War Two, the attention of the news and public eye had been on the ETO, when all of a sudden, something significant happened in the Pacific. Most of these battles, of this campaign, are now forgotten.
Florence Ballard of The Supremes was born in Detroit. She'd die due to blood clots at age 32 in 1976.
The Soviets commenced the final assault on Stalingrad.
Sarah Sundin notes, for the same day:
Today in World War II History—January 10, 1943: US launches major offensive on Guadalcanal. Off New Britain, Japanese destroyers and aircraft sink giant submarine USS Argonaut.
The USS Argonaut was a V class submarine launched in 1927 which was in fact of a class that was the largest non-nuclear submarines ever built by the US, with the V-4 being the absolute largest. It was designed primarily for laying mines.
The American First Party was formed in Detroit by Gerald L. K. Smith. It should be noted that this is just one of several parties that have used this name.
It was a hyper isolationist party that nominated Smith in 1944 for the Oval Office and then went down in spectacular defeat. It was thereafter merged into the Christian Nationalist Party. Indeed, Smith, a Protestant minister, had founded the Christian Nationalist Crusade the year prior. He had at one time been a major supporter of Huey Long, which brings to mind once again Shepherd's piece on fanatics. Among other things, Smith was quite antisemitic.
Smith died in 1976, but the Christian Nationalist Crusade went away in 1973. The Christian Nationalist Party was its political wing. It's also only one of several parties that have used that name.
An odd day, historically.
Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford from 1975 to 1977, and again under George W. Bush, died at age 88.
Rumsfeld had a long career in government, including a stint in Congress. His association with the military began in 1954 when he was a Naval aviator. Under President Gerald Ford he would oversea the dramatic destruction of the Cambodian navy due to the Mayaguez Incident, demonstrating that the Untied States was not as weak communist forces in Southeast Asia might imagine. And yet, in spite of serving in the Navy, and that example, and as Secretary of Defense twice, it was his gross overestimation of the effectiveness of modern technology that lead to the under deployment of US forces early in Afghanistan, a result which lead to a protracted guerilla war, and perhaps to the situation in that country which exists today.
And on the same day the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Bill Cosby's conviction.
Cosby went from the heights of fame to the height of infamy when a series of allegations against him lead to convictions for sex crimes. He's being released not because he was found to be innocent, so to speak, but because his prosecutor failed to honor an agreement with a prior prosecutor.
As for the allegations, we can leave them as they are, but we will note that Cosby had the odd status of having been viewed nearly universally as a conservative family man while simultaneously being one of the individuals frequently found at parties at uber creep Hugh Hefner's mansion. That should have raised some red flags, although he certainly wasn't the only one who shared this status.
Perhaps that should in some ways be his legacy. What he was accused of was gross creepy sexual behavior, in a nation that has come to celebrate creepy sexual behavior. If that didn't match his image of being the ideal patriarch, perhaps that signifies that in our modern society we've come to tolerate conduct in the patriarchs and matriarchs that's creepy. We may be holding him to a higher standard than we hold ourselves, none of which argues for a restoration of his reputation, but a condemnation of our own.
Suffice it to say, both men have obtained reputations that will remain defined by events surrounding them late in life, and which stand in contrast, to some degree, with reputations obtained earlier in life.
