January 1962 - January 23, 1962 (Tuesday)

January 23, 1962 (Tuesday)

• In his first year of eligibility, Jackie Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame, receiving 124 of the 160 ballots cast and becoming the first African-American to be enshrined at Cooperstown. In addition to being the first black MLB player of the modern era, Robinson had also been a six time All-Star, the 1947 Rookie of the Year, and the 1949 MVP for the National League. Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller, elected on the same day, was also inducted in his first year of eligibility. It was the first time since the original five selections (Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Honus Wagner and Christy Mathewson) that anyone had won 75% of the votes on their first try.
• Singer Tony Bennett first recorded what would become his signature song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco.Ralph Sharon, who accompanied Bennett's songs on the piano, had been shown the song in 1959 by writers George Cory and Douglass Cross, then put it away in a dresser drawer. Sharon ran across it again when Bennett was invited to perform in San Francisco, and Bennett sang it in December. The song was released as the B-side of Once Upon a Time, and went on to sell two million copies and to win two Grammy Awards.
• Physicist Thomas Townsend Brown received U.S. Patent 3,018,394 for the Electro-kinetic Transducer, a means of using an electric field as a means of propulsion of aircraft against gravity.
• Died: Natlia Sedova Trotsky, 79, widow of Leon Trotsky