 "A onlooker takes a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge from Marin Headlands viewpoint in Marin County, California, US. Reuters")
From the construction of California’s famed Golden Gate Bridge to Australia denying tennis superstar Novak Djokovic entry into the country, different incidents have occurred on January 5 through the years.
As part of Firstpost’s ongoing series titled ‘History Today’ , we take a look back at some of the most defining moments in the years gone by on this day and how it shaped the world.
Construction begins on Golden Gate Bridge
On January 5, 1933, construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge, as workers began excavating 3.25 million cubic feet of dirt for the structure’s huge anchorages.
The idea of such a bridge came about in 1849 following the Gold Rush boom. Gold miners came to the realisation that the land north of San Francisco Bay would increase in value in direct proportion to its accessibility to the city. Soon, a plan was hatched to build a bridge that would span the Golden Gate, a narrow, 400-foot deep strait that serves as the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, connecting the San Francisco Peninsula with the southern end of Marin County.
It was James Wilkins, a former engineering student, who called for the construction of a suspension bridge. His idea was estimated to cost an astounding $100 million. So, San Francisco’s city engineer, Michael M O’Shaughnessy began asking bridge engineers whether they could do it for less. Engineer and poet Joseph Strauss said he could.
Finally, after much planning and opposition work began on the bridge and it officially opened on May 27, 1937, becoming the longest bridge span in the world at the time.
Today, with its tall towers and famous trademarked “international orange” paint job, the Golden Gate Bridge has become a famous American landmark, and a symbol of San Francisco.
Discovery of Eris, largest known dwarf planet
On January 5, 2005, Eris, the solar system’s largest known dwarf planet, was discovered by Mike Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology; Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory; and David Rabinowitz of Yale University.
It was found that Eris had a diameter of 2,326 km (1,445 miles), making it slightly smaller than Pluto.
It takes 561 years for the distant dwarf planet to make a single trip around the sun, though it rotates once every 25 hours, making the length of its day very similar to a day on Earth.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsNovak Djokovic refused entry into Australia
On this day, January 5, 2022, the world was stunned when tennis superstar, ranked one in the world at the time, who had just arrived in Australia to begin his defence of the Australian Open was denied entry and told to leave.
The shock occurred as authorities cancelled his visa upon his arrival in Melbourne because he failed to meet the requirements for an exemption to COVID-19 vaccination rules.
The next day, he was sent to an immigration hotel, where he remained for four nights with the Australian Border Force saying Djokovic failed to meet entry requirements.
The drama ended on January 16 when three federal court judges upheld the decision to cancel the 34-year-old Serb’s visa on public interest grounds and he was made to leave the country.
This day, that year
>> On this day in 1953, Waiting for Godot, a hugely influential play by Irish writer Samuel Beckett, was staged for the first time, in Paris.
>> In 1968, the period of political liberalisation in Czechoslovakia began with the election of Alexander Dubček as the country’s leader.
>> In 1972, US President Richard Nixon signs a bill authorising $5.5 million in funding to develop a space shuttle. The space shuttle represented a giant leap forward in the technology of space travel.