January 1 in Pop Culture History

4713 BC – Julian Calendar day #1, according to Joseph Justus Scaliger’s cycle of 7980 years.

46 BC – The Julian Calendar began and was used widely until 1582.

1622 – January 1st became the start of the “New Year” (it was March 25 for a long time prior)

1751 – The British Calendar Act of 1751 made January 1st the start of a New Year in English-speaking countries. Before that, it was on March 25, ~ The Vernal Equinox.

1788 – The Times of London newspaper began publication.

1801 – Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland unite, founding the “United Kingdom.”

1818 – Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, was published (anonymously) in London. (500 copies were made)

1862 – U.S. income tax began, with 3% of incomes over $600 and 5% over $10,000.

1863 – The ‘Emancipation Proclamation’ issued by Abraham Lincoln

1886 – 1st Tournament of Roses took place in Pasadena, California

1896 – German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen announced his discovery of X-rays.

1908 – 1st New Year’s ball drop at Times Square, NYC

1910 – The Hydrox “biscuit bonbon,” a chocolate sandwich cookie with creme filling, was introduced. Oreos came out in 1912.

1915 – Aspirin was made available for the first time in tablet form. The pills were manufactured by Bayer pharmaceuticals and had been available in powder form before that.

1928 – The 21-story Milam Building was the first air-conditioned, high-rise office building in the United States (San Antonio, TX)

1925 – 1st Sugar Bowl and 1st Orange Bowl

1936 – The Herald Tribune of New York began microfilming the latest issues, becoming the first US newspaper to make a current record of its publication.

1946 – ENIAC, the first US computer, was completed. It was built at the Moore School of Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,

1948 – The first motion picture, ‘newsreel’ in color, was taken at the Tournament of Roses and the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, California.

1954 – NBC broadcasted Pasadena’s Rose Bowl Parade for the first time in color.

1960 – US population: 179,245,000

1962 – The Rose Bowl game on NBC was the first coast-to-coast color television broadcast of a college football game in the US.

1964 – Tops of the Pops first aired on BBC

1966 – #1 Hit January 1, 1966 – January 7, 1966: Simon & Garfunkel – The Sound Of Silence
1966 – “Caution Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health” warning started appearing on cigarettes.

1971 – Cigarette television ads cease.

1979 – The Grateful Dead played the final concert at the iconic Winterland venue in San Francisco on New Years’ Eve 1978, which lasted over 8 hours. The guests were treated to a hot buffet breakfast at dawn when the show ended.

1983 – The Evil Dead was released in theaters in the UK (Oct 15, 1981, in the US)

1985 – VH1 debuted on US cable

1985 – The AT&T monopoly was broken up into seven companies: Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell, and US West.

1995- The History Channel was launched

1995 – The last syndicated Far Side by cartoonist Gary Larson appeared. (started in 1985)

1997 – U.S. television networks adopted a rating system for programming similar to the one used for motion pictures.

1997 – The Emergency Alert System replaced the Emergency Broadcast System

1999- The Biography channel and DIY channels were introduced.

2000 – Fantasia 2000 was released in theaters.

2005 – #1 Hit January 1, 2005 – March 4, 2005: Mario – Let Me Love You

2008 – CourtTV was rebranded as TruTV

2011 – Discovery Health Channel became The Oprah Winfrey Network.

2014 -The manufacture and importing of the common 40-watt and 60-watt general service incandescent lamps was ended under the deadline set by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.