Oprah Born: Future Queen of American Media
Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first television job as a news anchor for being 'too emotionally invested in the stories.' She was 22. She was given a failing local talk show in Chicago in 1986 as a consolation assignment. Within a year it was the highest-rated show in the city. Within four years it was the highest-rated talk show in television history. She became the first Black female billionaire in American history, built a media empire, and hand-selected Barack Obama's book club picks before he was president. She turned down the role of Sofia in The Color Purple, then was cast anyway at the insistence of Steven Spielberg, and received an Academy Award nomination.
January 29, 1954
72 years ago
What Else Happened on January 29
The bloodiest rebellion in Chinese history ended with a son's blade. An Lushan - who'd killed hundreds of thousands and nearly toppled the Tang Dynasty - was st…
Sergius III seized the papacy by force, ousting the antipope Christopher and ordering his predecessor’s execution. This violent power grab solidified the influe…
Mu'izz al-Dawla didn't just want power—he wanted to make a statement. Blinding the sitting Caliph al-Mustakfi was a brutal medieval political ritual, rendering …
Feodor III ascended the Russian throne following the death of his father, Tsar Alexis. His brief six-year reign dismantled the archaic mestnichestvo system of a…
Napoleon Bonaparte launched a surprise night attack against Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at Brienne-le-Château, forcing the Prussian and Russian forces to retr…
A British East India Company officer steps onto a swampy, nearly uninhabited island and sees something no one else does: a future metropolis. Raffles negotiates…
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