January 22

1961 - Clarksville native Wilma Glodean Rudolph set a world indoor track record in the womens 60-yard dash with a time of 6.9 seconds in a meet in Los Angeles, California. Despite suffering from polio in her early childhood that caused paralysis in her left leg, Rudolph, overcame the odds to become a member of the famous Tennessee State University Tiger Bell track team and to win three gold medals, the 100- and 200-meter races and the 4x100-meter relay, in the 1960 Olympic Games held in Rome. She was the first woman to ever win three gold medals in the games.


January 23

1797 - Society of Friends (Quakers) member Thomas Embree, a native North Carolinian who settled in Washington County, Tennessee, wrote the Knoxville "Gazette" urging organization of an abolition society. In keeping with his Quaker beliefs, Embree opposed slavery and it is thought that a house of his in East Tennessee was part of the Underground Railroad.

1977 - The first television episode of Roots, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize winning bestseller by Henning, Tennessee, resident Alex Haley, aired on ABC. Over 130 million viewers watched the mini-series that traced the Haley family back to Gambia in West Africa.

1986 - When the first inductees were announced for the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, a number of Memphis and Nashville recording artists were included. The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley, whose early careers were nurtured in Tennessee recording studios, were joined by Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, and Fats Domino for charter inductee honors.


January 24

1939 - Ray Stevens, the singer who acheived fame with such zany comedy classics as "The Streak" and "Along Came Jones," was born in Clarksdale, Georgia. Stevens moved to Nashville in 1962 following the release of his hit "Ahab the Arab." He acheived gold records for the zany parody "Gitarzan" and for the international hit "Everything Is Beautiful."

1949 - Congressman Barton Jennings "Bart" Gordon (D), who has served the Tennessee Sixth Congressional District since 1985, was born in Murfreesboro.

1997 - A supercell tornado outbreak resulted in 13 tornadoes, ranging from F2 to F4 intensity, across Cannon, Rutherford, Smith, and Wilson counties causing damages in excess of $9 million. Over 300 buildings were damaged or destroyed and 31 persons were injured. The fact that there were no fatalities despite the magnitude of the destruction was attributed in great part to the advance warnings issued by the Nashville office of the National Weather Service that serves the 42 counties in Middle Tennessee. Learn more from the NWS on how this storm was tracked.

2000 - The first race in the Year 2000 presidential election was held in Iowa. Democrats selected Vice-President Al Gore of Carthage, Tennessee, over New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley and Republicans chose Texas Governor George W. Bush.


January 25

1865 - Confederate General John Bell Hood, relinquished his command of the Department of Tennessee and Georgia that he had held since August 15, 1864. Hood had received a crippling arm injury at Gettysburg and had a leg amputated after Chicamauga. But, tightly strapped onto his horse in horrible pain with devastating injuries that never had the time needed to heal, Hood led the Army of Tennessee into virtual annihilation at the Battle of Franklin in November, 1964, and at Nashville one month later. Much blame for the crippling bloody defeats were attributed to this man, but it should be noted that Hood never failed to answer the call to service for his desperate nation despite the horrible disabling injuries he had endured.

1988 - Robert Nelson "Bob" Clement was sworn in for the first time as U.S. Congressman from the Tennessee Fifth District, that includes most of Davidson and Robertson Counties. Now in his seventh term, Congressman Clement serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Budget Committee.

1997 - On January 25 and 26, the Reform Party held a national organizing meeting in Nashville. Each state was permitted one voting delegate and every state was represented, except Alaska, Georgia, Hawaii, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The meeting was not without controversy. Factions of the party had existed in several states, primarily Minnesota, New York, and Oregon, before Ross Perot announced the new party in September, 1995. Some of those persons walked out of the meeting to protest the fact that they were not represented on the four-person National Organizing Committee that was selected by the delegates.


January 26

1838 - Tennessee became the first state in the Union to outlaw alcohol. Funds raised from fines imposed at the discretion of judges on persons found guilty of embibing in "spirituous liqueurs" were designated for education. Since the 14 year federal prohibition on alcohol would not begin until the enactment of the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919, the moonshine industry in Tennessee got a (boot)leg up on the rest of the nation. Learn about moonshiners on The Ridge in the true tale of "Mammie and the Moonshiners".

1911 - Ben W. Hooper (R) was inaugurated as governor of Tennessee.

1926 - John Ayers Merritt, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, was born. Ninth in all-time wins among college football coaches, his overall record was 232-65-11. Coach Merritt became on institution at Tennessee State University where he led the Tigers football program to an amazing record of 172-33-7. At TSU he coached many players who would go on to acheive success in the National Football League, including Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Richard Dent, and "Jefferson Street" Joe Gilliam. Merritt had previously coached for ten years at Jackson State University where he compiled a 60-32-4 record. "John A. Merritt Boulevard" in Nashville is named in his honor.

1956 - Rock 'n' roll legend Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holly made his first recordings for the Decca label, with whom he had recently contracted to record country music, at Owen Bradley's recording studio in Nashville. The Texas native would come to be known for his attention to every aspect of his music, from arrangement to production, but at this first session he did not play guitar because Bradley said it made recording too difficult. His career as a country artist never took off, but one of the country songs he recorded, "That'll Be the Day," would later become a hit in a rock version.


January 27


January 28

1861 - The Tennessee Legislature passed a resolution calling for a convention of delegates from all the slaveholding states to assemble in Nashville on February 4 of that year "to digest and define bases upon which, if possible, the federal Union and the constitutional rights of the slave States may be preserved and perpetuated." The resolution further empowered the General Assembly to appoint "our ablest and wisest men" as Tennessee delegates to the convention.

1956 - Elvis Presley made his first television appearance on the Dorsey Brothers Stage Show.

2005 - Iraqis living all across the United States made their way to Nashville for the first day of voting in their homeland's election. Nashville was one of five U.S. cities, selected because of their large Iraqi populations, to host the registration and election process. Three days of balloting also took place in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., as well as 13 other countries.


January 29

1869 - Kenneth (Douglas) McKellar, who served Tennessee in the United States Senate from 1917 to 1953, was born in Richmond, Alabama. McKellar moved to Memphis in 1892 and was admitted to the bar and began practicing law the same year. He represented the 10th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1911 to 1917 and served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Seventy-ninth, Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses.

1940 - This was the last time that the Cumberland River froze, according to the Nashville Office of the National Weather Service.

1996 - A U.S. Navy aircrew that had just taken off from Nashville in an F-14 Tomcat enroute to Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego, California, crashed into a home killing the pilot, the radar intercept officer, and three persons on the home. According to the official hearing record of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, "The U.S. Navy investigation concluded that the accident was a result of pilot error. Apparently the pilot lost control of the aircraft because of vertigo he experienced by attempting a maneuver that is already restricted by existing Navy regulations."

1999 - One million dollars was allocated from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to purchase land at the top of Lookout Mountain for the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park. Because the park was previously permitted only to acquire land through donations, language had to be added to the Interior portion of the fiscal year 1999 Omnibus Appropriations Bill authorizing the Park to acquire land by purchase. The change allowed appropriation of the funds to purchase the 27-acre tract of land from the five landowners who were willing to sell, but not donate, their land to the National Park Service.


January 30

2000 - The AFC Champion Tennessee Titans came up inches short on the last play of Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta to lose 23-16 to the St. Louis Rams.


January 31

1951 - A cold front that had advanced on the area for several days dumped five inches of snow and ice on Nashville in the greatest one-day precipitation event for January in the city's recorded history. "The Blizzard of '51" is the stuff of legend amongst those who experienced it.