January 8 Birthday
January 8 gave the world three extraordinary minds: Elvis Presley (1935), Stephen Hawking (1942), and David Bowie (1947). Elvis, the truck driver from Tupelo who became the most significant cultural figure of the 20th century, took rhythm and blues and made it safe for white audiences. Whether that is an accomplishment or a theft depends on whom you ask, but the reach of his influence is not in question. He borrowed from Black music, gospel, and country, fused them into something electrifying, and sold it by the millions. He died at Graceland on the toilet at 42. Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years after Galileo's death. He would spend decades defying a diagnosis that gave him two years to live. ALS should have killed him in 1965. He died in 2018, at 76, having rewritten our understanding of black holes, written the best-selling science book in history, and become the most recognizable scientist of his generation. His wheelchair and his synthesized voice became as iconic as Einstein's hair. His mind explored singularities and the origins of the universe while his body could not move a finger. David Bowie, born twelve years after Elvis, remade himself as often as Picasso — the folk troubadour, the androgynous alien Ziggy Stardust, the thin white duke, the Berlin art-rock experimentalist, the elder statesman. He was never the same artist twice, and each persona was a complete performance, from the music to the wardrobe to the press interviews. He released Blackstar two days before he died of cancer, and it was a farewell album, designed to be his epitaph. He knew what he was doing to the end. On this day in 1815, Andrew Jackson defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans. The Treaty of Ghent had been signed on December 24, 1814, ending the War of 1812, but news had not reached the armies. The battle was fought after the war was over, and 2,000 British soldiers died for nothing. Jackson became a national hero on the strength of a pointless victory and rode that fame all the way to the presidency. The pattern of wars ending and the killing continuing because of slow communication would not change until the telegraph. People born on January 8 fall under the zodiac sign of Capricorn. The birthstone is Garnet and the birth flower is Carnation. Historical events on January 8 include 1790: George Washington delivers first State of the Union address, 1815: Battle of New Orleans (after War of 1812 treaty already signed), 2002: No Child Left Behind Act signed into law. Famous people born on January 8 include Elvis Presley (1935), Stephen Hawking (1942), David Bowie (1947).