Jan 5, 2018 2 min read

Today is Friday, Jan. 5, the fifth day of 2018. There are 360 days left in the year.

On Jan. 5, 1953, Samuel Beckett’s two-act tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot,” considered a classic of the Theater of the Absurd, premiered in Paris.

In 1066, Edward the Confessor, King of England, died after a reign of nearly 24 years.

In 1781, a British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va.

In 1905, the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals was incorporated in New York state.

In 1925, Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming took office as America’s first female governor, succeeding her late husband, William, following a special election.

In 1933, the 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, died in Northampton, Mass., at 60. Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge. (Work was completed four years later.)

In 1943, educator and scientist George Washington Carver died in Tuskegee, Ala., at about 80.

In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed assistance to countries to help them resist Communist aggression in what became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.

In 1964, during a visit to the Holy Land, Pope Paul VI met with Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople in Jerusalem.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan announced he was nominating Elizabeth Dole to succeed Drew Lewis as secretary of transportation; Dole became the first woman to head a Cabinet department in Reagan’s administration, and the first to head the DOT.

“Wisdom is divided into two parts: (a) having a great deal to say, and (b) not saying it.”

– Author unknown