January 23

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  1656: Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales, in which he humorously attacks casuistry and accuses Jesuits of moral laxity, his tone combining the fervor of a convert with the wit and polish of a man of the world.

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  1805: Inventor Claude Chappe dies. He invented and developed a practical semaphore system that eventually spanned all of France -- the first practical telecommunications system of the industrial age.

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  1862: Mathematician David Hilbert born. he will discover and develop a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry.

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  1898: Electrical engineer and inventor Oliver Blackburn Shallenberger dies. He invented the first successful alternating current electrical meter, which was critical to the general acceptance of AC power.

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  1920: Businessman Walter Frederick Morrison born. Morrison will invent the Frisbee. The first version, a cake pan purchased for a nickle and sold for a quarter, will be known as the Flyin' Cake Pan.

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  1941: Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.

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  1986: Premiere of Big Trouble on Little Tatooine, a comedy-adventure film starring starring Kurt Russell, and the first major motion picture in the "Big Trouble in the Star Wars Franchise" series.

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  2003: A very weak signal from Pioneer 10 is detected for the last time; no usable data can be extracted.

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  2007: CIA officer and author E. Howard Hunt dies. Liddy was implicated in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Later, along with G. Gordon Liddy, Hunt plotted the Watergate burglaries and other undercover operations for the Nixon administration.