On this day

January 31, 1949

Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.

Notable Births

Johan Derksen

1949Johan Derksen, Dutch footballer and journalist[†]

Johannes Gerrit "Johan" Derksen is a Dutch sports journalist and former football player. He played professional football between 1966 and 1978 for six clubs: Go Ahead Eagles, Cambuur, Veendam, HFC Haarlem, SV Meppen and MVV Maastricht. During and after his footballing career, he became a sports journalist, specialising in football. He was the editor-in-chief of Voetbal International, the Netherlands' most prominent football magazine, from 2000 until his retirement in 2013. Derksen was while working at Voetbal International and after his retirement a television football pundit on RTL7's Voetbal International and Veronica Inside on Veronica TV. His current TV talkshow is Vandaag Inside on SBS6.

Norris Church Mailer

1949Norris Church Mailer, American model and educator (died 2010)[†]

Norris Church Mailer was an American novelist, actress, artist, and model. Norris published two novels, Windchill Summer and Cheap Diamonds, and a memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, which focuses on her nearly thirty-year marriage to Norman Mailer.

Ken Wilber

1949Ken Wilber, American sociologist, philosopher, and author[†]

Kenneth Earl Wilber II is an American theorist and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory, a four-quadrant grid which purports to encompass all human knowledge and experience. Starting publishing in the 1970s, his works were popular among a section of readers in the 1980s, but have lost popularity since the 1990s, retaining some popularity at dedicated web forums.

Historical Events

1949These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera, is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago, United States.[†]

These Are My Children is an American television soap opera, or novella, that ran on NBC from January 31 to March 4, 1949. The show was broadcast live from WNBQ in Chicago, Illinois, airing 15 minutes a day, five days a week, at 5 p.m. EST. It is widely credited as the first soap opera broadcast on television. It may be more accurately described as the first daytime drama or the first soap opera strip, as it was preceded by DuMont series Faraway Hill in 1946 and Highway to the Stars in 1947, both of which are described as soap operas but aired later in the evenings and broadcast only once a week; Guiding Light had also been in production for 12 years once These Are My Children debuted, but only as a radio series - its TV version did not debut until 1952.

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Headlines from January 31, 1949

Big Snows Add to Flood Peril Along Untamed Mississippi; Danger of a Major Disaster Faces Region With Protection Still Poor -- Ten-Year, $10,000,000,000 Job Held Necessary Wide Areas Face Annual Threat of Heavy Losses From Floods SITES OF CONTROL PROJECTS IN REGIONS ENDANGERED BY HIGH WATER

By William M. Blairspecial To the New York Times

Fed, state and local authorities projects east of Mississippi River discussed; map; creation of Conn River Valley Flood Control Comm noted; map of New Eng projects

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