Lightning sets Sayreville home afire: This week in Central Jersey history, Jan. 29-Feb. 4
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Rare winter lightning struck a Sayreville neighborhood on Thursday, Feb. 4, 1999, setting one house on Fielek Terrace and a neighboring lawn afire.
There were no serious injuries.
Here's a look at events that happened in Central Jersey from five, 10, 25, 50 and 100 years ago this week.
Five years ago
Jan. 30: The Middlesex High School girls basketball team beat Carteret, 51-45, clinching its second-straight Blue Division title, their seventh since 2004.
Jan. 31: In a move hailed by civil rights groups as a step toward inclusion and fairness, New Jersey became the second state in the nation after California to adopt a law that required schools to teach about LGBT history.
Feb. 1: Joining a growing field of Democrats looking to be President Donald Trump's 2020 challenger, U.S. Senator Cory Booker, the former mayor of Newark, declared his candidacy for president.
Feb. 1: The New Jersey Department of Health began posting a form on its website allowing transgender, non-binary and intersex people to change their birth certificates from the gender they were assigned at birth to the gender they live.
Feb. 1: The Rock and Roll Playhouse would bring its kid-friendly salute to the music of the Grateful Dead to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2019, it was reported.
Feb. 1: It was reported iconic actor George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu for decades in "Star Trek," would appear in "Where No Story Has Gone Before" on Thursday, June 20, 2019, at the State Theatre in New Brunswick. The event would be preceded by the State Theatre's Pride Night Party.
Feb. 4: New Jersey joined the national movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour after years of rejection by Republican Gov. Chris Christie and many months of dispute between Democrats.
10 years ago
Jan. 30, 2014: It was reported the Bridgewater Planning Board began the long-awaited hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014, on the plan by the AlFalah Center to convert the former Redwood Inn into a mosque with a dome and minaret.
Jan. 31: Mark Anderson, a lawyer who had defended Raritan Borough against a continuing public-records lawsuit filed by Gannett New Jersey, would be losing his job as borough attorney, it was reported.
Jan. 31: The Gin Blossoms would perform on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014, at Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, it was reported.
Jan. 31: The boys swim team of St. Joseph High School in Metuchen earned its 37th consecutive Greater Middlesex Conference Championship at the Raritan Bay YMCA in Perth Amboy.
Feb. 3: Ricky Syers of Dunellen created a "Howie Long" marionette to emulate the former NFL defensive end and NFL on Fox studio analyst, for a filmed Super Bowl segment, it was reported.
1999
Jan. 29-31: The Urban Bush Women and the National Song and Dance Co. of Mozambique performed at New Jersey Performing Arts Center's Victoria Theater in Newark.
Jan. 30: Central Jersey hospitals were brimming with flu patients, which forced officials to scramble in search of available beds, it was reported.
Feb. 1: A natural gas leak at Cokesbury Road and Charlotte Drive in Clinton Township forced 14 families from their homes for two hours.
Feb. 1: In hockey, the New Jersey Devils tied the Detroit Red Wings, 2-2, with Martin Brodeur making five saves in overtime and receiving a big assist from a goalpost.
1974
Jan. 29, 1974: Gov. Brendan T. Byrne opened a gate valve station at Elizabethtown Gas Co.'s Dispatch Center in Elizabeth, marking the arrival of the first natural gas supplies in New Jersey in almost four years.
Jan. 30: It was reported New Jersey had banned gun-toting policemen from the hallways of public schools ― even when they were assigned to improve the relations between students and cops.
Jan. 30: The movies, "Barbarella" and "A Clockwork Orange" were shown at Amboy's Drive-In in Sayreville.
Feb. 1: Middlesex County Court Judge John E. Bachman severed JoAnne D. Chesimard and ordered Clark Squire to continue alone on trial for the murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in East Brunswick in 1973, it was reported.
Feb. 4: The Rutgers Scarlet Knights men's basketball team won their eighth consecutive basketball game over Bucknell, 80-69.
Feb. 4: It was reported an estimated 90 percent of independent truckers had joined a national fuel shortage protest that remained non-violent in New Jersey.
1924
Jan. 30, 1924: The North Plainfield High School girls' basketball sextette beat Rutherford High, 21-17.
Feb. 1-2: The movie, "The Fighting Blade," starring Richard Barthelmess, was shown at Reade's Strand Theatre in Perth Amboy.
Feb. 2: The amount of $11,201.65 had been reached, and contributions were still coming in, in the Y.W.C.A. of New Brunswick's first budget campaign, it was announced at a luncheon which closed the campaign.
Feb. 2: The Department of Commerce announced that for New Jersey, its preliminary estimate of the value, Sunday, Dec. 31, 1922, of the principal forms of wealth, the total was $11,794,101,000, as compared with $5,956,414,000 in 1912, an increase of 98 percent.
Feb. 2: Edward Gray of New Brunswick was stabbed in the leg on Burnet Street in New Brunswick, following an altercation. It was reported the wound was probably caused by a stiletto.
Brad Wadlow is a staff writer for MyCentralJersey.com
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ history for Jan. 29-Feb. 4