News for this January 15th in 1979 had much to do with the potentially dangerous situation in Iran. On the one hand, it was the first gathering of the newly installed Parliament, under the aegis of The Shah. But on the other hand, only a third of the Parliament members actually showed up. Nervous eyes were looking in the direction of Paris, where the exiled Ayatollah Khomeni was contemplating the next move. Sources close to The Shah were downplaying any significant influence Khomeni would have, but sources on the street in Tehran said otherwise. Sources also reported an American employed by a Copper Mine was murdered overnight in Iran And so it went.
Today also marked the first session of the 96th Congress. The subject of Federal Spending was likely to be brought up straight away. Talk of a National Health Insurance plan, discussed during the previous session, wasn’t likely to get anywhere during this session. The Senate was expected to be preoccupied with Foreign Policy matters, with particular emphasis on the subject of Taiwan as well as the usual suspects; Israel and SALT.
The Daniel Flood scandal was expected to be a source of major interest, with Fludd scheduled to go on trial shortly. Flood was to miss the swearing-in ceremony for his 16th term in Congress as Representative from Pennsylvania in favor of being present for jury selection in what was to be the first time a Congressman was brought to trial for allegedly doing so many illegal things while in Office.
That and so much more was what January 15th was all about in 1979, as presented by Dallas Townsend and The CBS World News Roundup.
Shameless Plugging:
2025 has arrived, kicking and screaming.. Past Daily is still quietly standing, still cranking out history and pop culture and still looking for your support. Fundraisers are pretty much tapped out – everybody seems to be doing them and even I’m sick of being hounded for money.
But still . . . some of these things are expensive to pull off. In case you didn’t already know, Past Daily is an extension of my archive (The Gordon Skene Sound Collection) – all the stuff I have collected since the beginning of time (it seems) – my goal is to share all of it with you, and since we’ve started there are over 11,000 posts which you, as a subscriber, can explore with thousands more waiting to be digitized..
And in case you didn’t know, once you subscribe you get notified every time we post something and you can download the audio file which you can’t do if you don’t subscribe. That’s the catch.
But it’s my way of saying Thank You for your support and helping me pay all the costs of keeping Past Daily up and running every day.
Subscribing is dead easy and totally painless – you can do it with Patreon – you can stretch it out over months, years or just today. You can do a trial subscription for free for 7 days and then you can either join us or go “no thanks” and life will continue.
Either way, your support is critical. Over this past year we’ve resumed running ads – simply because it’s helping offset the costs we can’t get around, but don’t have enough subscribers to do away with ads completely (believe me, I hate ads just as much as the next person – maybe more). Right now, a little over 100 of you are foregoing a cup of Starbucks in favor of downloading a concert or a World War 2 newscast or a reminder what happened two years ago – and I am completely over-the-moon for your support, you who are pitching in and seeing the possibilities. But we need more of you. We need 900 more to make a difference.
Look, all you have to do is click on the red banner below and make your pledge – you can also do Pay Pal or Buy Me A Coffee if you just want to do a one-time support.
But however you decide to do it, we’re grateful. We’ll be here as long as you are.
We can use the company. And 2025 has just gotten started.
