11 th January

49 BC Caesar crossed the Rubicon River.

1569 Great Britain held its first lottery.

1755 Alexander Hamilton was born. (See July 11th and February 6th entries.)

1923 France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr Valley.

1935 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific. (She completed the flight on January 12th.)

J 986 L - Douglas Wilder became Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. (See November 7th entry.)

A great personal life decision is sometimes described as “crossing the Rubicon.” Today is the anniversary of the event which spawned the phrase: Roman emperor Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon River. In 49 bc, Caesar committed himself irrevocably to war against Pompeii and the Roman Senate when he moved his troops into an offensive position from which there was no easy retreat. “The die is cast,” he said.

Human destiny is at least in part what we ourselves make it. Amelia Earhart set out to do what no woman had ever done before on this day in 1935. She set out to fly across

The Pacific Ocean—from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California. She accomplished both her goal and her destiny one day later.

Take a good look at the face on a ten dollar bill today because it’s Alexander Hamilton’s birthday. His serves as a reminder that none of us really knows what lies ahead. Born on this day in 1755, this American Revolutionary War hero suffered a fate familiar to many of us. He was mortally wounded in a duel he fought against Aaron Burr.

Events have consequences that cannot be foreseen. Today is no exception. In 49 bc, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River. In 1935, Amelia Earhart took a chance and became the first woman to fly from Hawaii to California. However, the consequences of the third event which took place on this day had broader repercussions than Caesar’s conquest or Earhart’s flight. In 1569 Great Britain held the world’s first lottery in London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Failing to keep a promise can have some drastic repercussions. Residents of a rural part of Germany discovered this simple truth firsthand in 1923, when France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr Valley after the German government failed to keep up its First World War reparation payments.

L. Douglas Wilder became Lieutenant Governor of Virginia on this day in 1986. What made this such a momentous occasion was that Wilder was the first African-American to become elected and sworn in as a Southern state official since the Civil War. Three years later, he became the nation’s first elected African-American governor.