3 January 1888

Marvin Stone patents the paper drinking straw.

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3 January 1892

Scholar and author John Ronald Reuel Tolkein was born in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State. At the age of three he came to England with his mother and brother and remained there after the death of his father.


3 January 1921

The first radio broadcast of a weather forecast. The transmission was made by station 9XM from the university of Wisconsin in the uSA; the station had been broadcasting Morse code weather bulletins since 1917.

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3 January 1959

Orcadian poet, novelist and academic Edwin Muir dies aged 71. His argument that Scottish literature had a better chance of international recognition if it were to be written in English had led him into conflict with other Scottish writers, notably Hugh MacDiarmid.

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