January 25 Archives - PopHistory.org

American becomes first non-Japanese to achieve highest rank in sumo wrestling

On January 25, 1993, American Chad Rowan becomes the first non-Japanese sumo wrestler to become a “yokozuna,” the sport’s highest rank. Rowan, a 23-year-old Hawaii native who stands 6-foot-8 and weighs 455 pounds, is the 64^th person to hold the top rank in sumo, Japan’s national sport.

Rowan, who went by his sumo name, Akebono, which means “Sunrise” or “Dawn,” was unnaturally tall for a sumo wrestler but extremely long and athletic. Despite only playing high school basketball his senior year, he earned a basketball scholarship to Hawaii Pacific University. However, he quit basketball and dropped out of college to pursue a career in sumo wrestling.

Using his long reach, Rowan perfected a thrusting style, generating enormous force— enough to send opponents flying out of the ring. After breezing through the lower divisions and setting records along the way, he joined the senior division in 1990.

In 1992, Rowan won two tournament championships. After winning a second consecutive championship in early 1993, he was promoted to yokozuna. He went on to win four of the next eight championships before injuries slowed him.

Rowan initially faced skepticism upon his promotion. “I don’t have any complaints about [his] ability,” former grand champion selection committee chairman Yoshitaka Takahashi told the Associated Press. “But I don’t feel good about this.”

Added Shinichi Suzuki, the governor of Tokyo: “Akebono is still young and there should be no hurry for promotion. He should have more chances to study sumo and build up dignity.”

In response to the criticism, Rowan simply said, “I’ll do my best to train well and fulfill everyone’s expectations.”

When Rowan retired in 2001, he was sixth on the all-time list with 11 championships.

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First Winter Olympics

Year: 1924

Month Day: January 25

On January 25, 1924, the first Winter Olympics take off in style at Chamonix in the French Alps. Spectators were thrilled by the ski jump and bobsled as well as 12 other events involving a total of six sports. The “International Winter Sports Week,” as it was known, was a great success, and in 1928 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially designated the Winter Games, staged in St. Moritz, Switzerland, as the second Winter Olympics.

Five years after the birth of the modern Olympics in 1896, the first organized international competition involving winter sports was staged in Sweden. Called the Nordic Games, only Scandinavian countries competed. Like the Olympics, it was staged thereon every four years but always in Sweden. In 1908, figure skating made its way into the Summer Olympics in London, though it was not actually held until October, some three months after the other events were over.

In 1911, the IOC proposed the staging of a separate winter competition for the 1912 Stockholm Games, but Sweden, wanting to protect the popularity of the Nordic Games, declined. Germany planned a Winter Olympics to precede the 1916 Berlin Summer Games, but World War I forced the cancellation of both. At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, ice hockey joined figure skating as an official Olympic event, and Canada took home the first of many hockey gold medals. Soon after, an agreement was reached with Scandinavians to stage the IOC-sanctioned International Winter Sports Week. It was so popular among the 16 participating nations that, in 1925, the IOC formally created the Winter Olympics, retroactively making Chamonix the first.

In Chamonix, Scandinavians dominated the speed rinks and slopes, and Norway won the unofficial team competition with 17 medals. The United States came in third, winning its only gold medal with Charles Jewtraw’s victory in the 500-meter speed-skating event. Canada won another hockey gold, scoring 110 goals and allowing just three goals in five games. Of the nearly 300 athletes, only 13 were women, and they only competed in the figure-skating events. Austrian Helene Engelmann won the pairs competition with Alfred Berger, and Austrian Herma Planck Szabo won the women’s singles. The Olympics offered a particular boost to skiing, a sport that would make enormous strides within the next decade. At Chamonix, Norway won all but one of the nine skiing medals.

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Chairman Mao’s widow sentenced to death

Year: 1981

Month Day: January 25

Jiang Qing, the widow of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, is sentenced to death for her “counter-revolutionary crimes” during the Cultural Revolution.

Originally an actress in Communist theater and film, her marriage to Mao in 1939 was widely criticized, as his second wife, Ho Zizhen, was a celebrated veteran of the Long March who Mao had divorced while she lay languishing in a Moscow hospital. His first wife, Yang Kaihui, was killed by the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War.

Jiang Qing was ordered to stay out of politics, and she did so until the 1960s, when she openly criticized traditional Chinese opera and the bourgeois influences in Chinese arts and literature. In 1966, Mao made her first deputy head of the Cultural Revolution and gave her far-reaching powers over China’s intellectual and cultural life. The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s attempt to revolutionize Chinese society, and Jiang proved adept at manipulating the media and the young radicals known as the Red Guards. The movement was characterized by terror and purges in which tens of thousands were killed and millions suffered.

In the late 1960s, the Cultural Revolution waned, and Jiang faded from the public eye. However, after her husband’s death in 1976, she and three other radicals who had come to power in the revolution were singled out as the “Gang of Four.” Jiang was arrested and in 1977 expelled from the Communist Party. Three years later, the Gang of Four were put on trial. Jiang was held responsible for provoking the turmoil and bloodshed of the revolution, but she denied the charges and denounced China’s leaders. She was found guilty and sentenced to die. On January 25, 1983, exactly two years after she was condemned, the Chinese government commuted her sentence to life imprisonment. In 1991, she died in prison of an apparent suicide.

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Russia activates its nuclear nukes for the first time

Year: 1995

Month Day: January 25

Russia’s early-warning defense radar detects an unexpected missile launch near Norway, and Russian military command estimates the missile to be only minutes from impact on Moscow. Moments later, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, his defense minister, and his chief of staff were informed of the missile launch. The nuclear command systems switched to combat mode, and the nuclear suitcases carried by Yeltsin and his top commander were activated for the first time in the history of the Soviet-made weapons system.

Five minutes after the launch detection, Russian command determined that the missile’s impact point would be outside Russia’s borders. Three more minutes passed, and Yeltsin was informed that the launching was likely not part of a surprise nuclear strike by Western nuclear submarines.

These conclusions came minutes before Yeltsin and his commanders should have ordered a nuclear response based on standard launch on warning protocols. Later, it was revealed that the missile, launched from Spitzbergen, Norway, was actually carrying instruments for scientific measurements. Nine days before, Norway had notified 35 countries, including Russia, of the exact details of the planned launch. The Russian Defense Ministry had received Norway’s announcement but had neglected to inform the on-duty personnel at the early-warning center of the imminent launch. The event raised serious concerns about the quality of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear systems.

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Charles Manson and his followers convicted of murder

Year: 1971

Month Day: January 25

In Los Angeles, California, cult leader Charles Manson is convicted, along with followers Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkle, of the brutal 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

In 1967, Manson, a lifetime criminal, was released from a federal penitentiary in Washington State and traveled to San Francisco, where he attracted a following among rebellious young women with troubled emotional lives. Manson established a cult based on his concept of “Helter Skelter”–an apocalyptic philosophy predicting that out of an imminent racial war in America would emerge five ruling angels: Manson, who would take on the role of Jesus Christ, and the four members of the Beatles. Manson convinced his followers that it would be necessary to murder celebrities in order to attract attention to the cult, and in 1969 they targeted Sharon Tate, a marginally successful actress who was married to Roman Polanski, a film director.

On the night of August 9, 1969, with detailed instructions from Manson, four of his followers drove up to Cielo Drive above Beverly Hills and burst into Polanski and Tate’s home. (Polanski was not home and friends were staying with the pregnant Tate.) During the next few hours, they engaged in a murderous rampage that left five dead, including a very pregnant Sharon Tate, three of her friends, and an 18-year-old man who was visiting the caretaker of the estate. The next night, Manson followers murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles; this time, Manson went along to make sure the killings were carried out correctly. The cases went unsolved for over a year before the Los Angeles Police Department discovered the Manson connection. Various members of his cult confessed, and Manson and five others were indicted on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

In January 1972, Manson and three others were found guilty, and on March 29 all four were sentenced to death. The trial of another defendant, Charles “Tex” Watson, was delayed by extradition proceedings, but he was likewise found guilty and sentenced to death. In 1972, the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in California, and Manson and his followers’ death sentences were reduced to life imprisonment. Manson died in prison in 2017.

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World’s largest diamond found

Year: 1905

Month Day: January 25

On January 25, 1905, at the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, a 3,106-carat diamond is discovered during a routine inspection by the mine’s superintendent. Weighing 1.33 pounds, and christened the “Cullinan,” it was the largest diamond ever found.

Frederick Wells was 18 feet below the earth’s surface when he spotted a flash of starlight embedded in the wall just above him. His discovery was presented that same afternoon to Sir Thomas Cullinan, who owned the mine. Cullinan then sold the diamond to the Transvaal provincial government, which presented the stone to Britain’s King Edward VII as a birthday gift. Worried that the diamond might be stolen in transit from Africa to London, Edward arranged to send a phony diamond aboard a steamer ship loaded with detectives as a diversionary tactic. While the decoy slowly made its way from Africa on the ship, the Cullinan was sent to England in a plain box.

Edward entrusted the cutting of the Cullinan to Joseph Asscher, head of the Asscher Diamond Company of Amsterdam. Asscher, who had cut the famous Excelsior Diamond, a 971-carat diamond found in 1893, studied the stone for six months before attempting the cut. On his first attempt, the steel blade broke, with no effect on the diamond. On the second attempt, the diamond shattered exactly as planned; Asscher then fainted from nervous exhaustion.

The Cullinan was later cut into nine large stones and about 100 smaller ones, valued at millions of dollars all told. The largest stone is called the “Star of Africa I,” or “Cullinan I,” and at 530 carats, it is the largest-cut fine-quality colorless diamond in the world. The second largest stone, the “Star of Africa II” or “Cullinan II,” is 317 carats. Both of these stones, as well as the “Cullinan III,” are on display in the Tower of London with Britain’s other crown jewels; the Cullinan I is mounted in the British Sovereign’s Royal Scepter, while the Cullinan II sits in the Imperial State Crown.

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Thailand declares war on the United States and England

Year: 1942

Month Day: January 25

On January 25, 1942, Thailand, a Japanese puppet state, declares war on the Allies.

When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, Thailand declared its neutrality, much to the distress of France and England. Both European nations had colonies surrounding Thailand and hoped Thailand would support the Allied effort and prevent Japanese encroachment on their Pacific territory. But Thailand began moving in the opposite direction, creating a “friendship” with Japan and adding to its school textbooks a futuristic map of Thailand with a “Greater Thailand” encroaching on Chinese territory.

Thailand’s first real conflict with the Allies came after the fall of France to the Germans and the creation of the puppet government at Vichy. Thailand saw this as an opportunity to redraw the borders of French Indochina. The Vichy government refused to accommodate the Thais, so Thai troops crossed into French Indochina and battled French troops. Japan interceded in the conflict on the side of the Thais, and used its political alliance with Germany to force Vichy France to cede 21,000 square miles to Thailand.

On December 8, 1941, the Japanese made an amphibious landing on the coast of Thailand, part of the comprehensive sweep of South Pacific islands that followed the bombing raid at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese had assistance, though: Thailand’s prime minister, Lang Pipul, collaborated with the Japanese, embracing the Axis power’s war goal of usurping territory in China and ruling over the South Pacific. Pipul wanted to partake in the spoils; toward that end, he declared war on the United States and England. In October, he took dictatorial control of Thailand and became a loyal puppet of the Japanese.

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President Kennedy holds first live television news conference

Year: 1961

Month Day: January 25

On January 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to hold a live televised news conference.

From a podium in the State Department auditorium, Kennedy read a prepared statement regarding the famine in the Congo, the release of two American aviators from Russian custody and impending negotiations for an atomic test ban treaty. He then opened the floor for questions from reporters, answering queries on a variety of topics including relations with Cuba, voting rights and food aid to impoverished Americans.

Ever since his televised presidential debate with Richard Nixon in 1960, Kennedy had been aware of the media’s enormous power to sway public opinion. On that day, Kennedy had appeared rested, well-groomed and in control. Nixon, on the other hand, was not as telegenic as Kennedy and appeared sweaty and flustered. His five o’clock shadow created more of a stir than his responses to the moderator’s questions.

Kennedy knew that, in a televised news conference, his appearance would count almost as much as what he said. On this day in 1961, the president exhibited a calm demeanor and responded to reporters’ questions with intelligence and decorum. Kennedy’s ability to project charm, intelligence, strength and openness defined the presidential image in the age of mass media.

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Paul McCartney is released from a Tokyo jail and deported from Japan

Year: 1980

Month Day: January 25

Paul McCartney’s arrival at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport on January 16, 1980, marked his first visit to Japan since the Beatles tour of 1966. The occasion was a planned 11-city concert tour by his band Wings. Instead, Paul’s visit was limited to a nine-day stint in the Tokyo Narcotics Detention Center, which ended on January 25, 1980.

McCartney was found to be carrying nearly half a pound of marijuana in his baggage upon arrival at Narita—an amount that Paul would later assure Japanese authorities was intended solely for his personal use. The amount was large enough, however, to warrant a smuggling charge and a potential seven-year prison sentence. Given Japan’s reputation for rigorous enforcement of its strict anti-drug laws, it was by no means a foregone conclusion that McCartney would escape trial and possible imprisonment, yet he was released and quickly deported from Japan on January 25, 1980, prior to making any appearance in court.

That a celebrity of McCartney’s stature would avoid the consequences that a less-famous drug smuggler might have faced was hardly surprising. After all, who could blame Japanese authorities for applying a double-standard to a prisoner whose sing-alongs inside the jailhouse and screaming fans outside threatened to create a significant distraction from the normal workings of the justice system? The question that troubled the minds of observers at the time was, “What was Paul thinking?” Half a pound of marijuana was a prodigious amount for one man to carry around for personal use—particularly a man who had had reason to expect especially close examination of his person and his baggage by Japanese customs officials. After all, Paul had been denied a Japanese entry visa just five years earlier due to his numerous earlier drug arrests in Europe.

Twenty years after his 1980 arrest, Paul would opine that his psychological motivation may have been to find an excuse to disband Wings, which he in fact did immediately following his return to England. In another interview, however, Sir Paul offered an explanation that may be the more compelling for its simplicity: “We were about to fly to Japan and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get anything to smoke over there,” McCartney said in 2004. “This stuff was too good to flush down the toilet, so I thought I’d take it with me.”

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Scottish poet Robert Burns is born

Year: 1759

Month Day: January 25

Scottish poet Robert Burns is born on January 25, 1759. The day is still celebrated by Burns fans across the English-speaking world, with high-spirited “Robert Burns Night” feasts, featuring haggis and other Scottish delicacies, as well as enthusiastic drinking, toasting, and speechmaking.

Burns, the son of a poor farmer, received little formal schooling but read extensively. A restless, dissatisfied spirit, he fell in love with a young woman named Jean Armour in the mid-1780s but refused to marry her when she became pregnant. The pair endured a legal struggle, at the end of which the courts declared Burns legally single-but he later married Armour anyway. Eventually, the couple had nine children, the last one born on the day of Burns’ funeral.

Burns published his first poetry collection, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, in 1786, and he quickly became the darling of elite Edinburgh intellectuals.

Perhaps more famous for his lively lyrics in the Scottish dialect than for his longer, more literary poems, Burns is still beloved and celebrated today as the author of the New Year’s anthem, “For Auld Lang Syne.”

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