Today in History - January 19 | Lucille Ball gives birth on TV and in real life
On January 19, 1953, actress Lucille Ball made history after welcoming her second child on the very same night her I Love Lucy character had a baby.
The "Lucy Goes to the Hospital" episode of the show's season two attracted more viewers than any other television episode up to that date.
According to History.com, at least 68 per cent of American households tuned in to watch Lucy give birth on the show.
Ball, then 41, had scheduled a C-section to welcome her second son Desi Arnaz Jr to coincide with the episode airing as an advertising ploy.
As the episode was playing across millions of American households, Ball also gave birth to little Desi.
The birth episode was such a cultural phenomenon, it whipped up more media attention than President Dwight D. Eisenhower's inauguration on January 20.
Ball later told Entertainment Weekly that, 16 years later, "Eisenhower was standing with us outside the El Dorado Country Club and he pointed to my son and said, 'Is that the young man who knocked me off the front pages?'"
In 1937, businessman and aviator Howard Hughes flew his H-1 from coast to coast in seven hours and 28 minutes, a new transcontinental record.
Hughes shattered his own personal record in the historic flight.
An eccentric businessman, Hughes earned his fortune in aviation, property and hotels.
In his H-1 Racer aircraft, Hughes flew from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey in seven hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
This broke the record he set only a year earlier by about two hours.
Hughes averaged around 534km an hour during his journey.
The New York Times reported at the time that Hughes decided to make his record-breaking flight only hours before taking off, only after hearing that another pilot was planning to beat his record.
The aviator nearly fainted while adjusting his oxygen mask during the flight while gliding over the Sierras.
Hughes was an Academy Award-winning producer and learned to fly while filming the 1930 WWII film Hell's Angels.
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