January 01:
1735: Paul Revere born in Boston, Mass.
1863: President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
1892: The Ellis Island Immigrant Station opened in New York City.
1901: Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed.
1907: Barry Goldwater born.
1913: the US Parcel Post system went into effect.
1919: JD Salinger born.
1942: 26 nations, including the United States, signed the Declaration of the United Nations.
1953: Singer Hank Williams, Sr., 29, was found dead in the back seat of his car while on the way to a concert.
1959: Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaires to victory over Fulgencio Batista.
1984: AT&T was divested of its 22 Bell System companies.
2001: Actor Ray Walston ("My Favorite Martian") died at age 86.
January 02:
1893: the US Post Office issued its first adhesive commemorative stamp to honor the Columbian Expedition and the Quadracentennial of Christopher Columbus's voyage.
1900: Secretary of State John Hay announced an "Open Door Policy" to encourage trade with China.
1920: Isaac Asimov born.
1935: Bruno Hauptmann went on trial for the kidnapping and murder of the Charles Lindbergh baby. He was found guilty and executed.
1942: Manilla fell to the Japanese.
1971: Congrress banned all cigarette ads on radio and TV.
1974: President Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph.
January 03:
106 B.C.: Cicero born.
1521: Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
1777: Continental Army forces under General George Washington defeat the British in the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey.
1833: Britain seizes control of the Falkland Islands.
1892: JRR Tolkien born.
1938: The March of Dimes was organized to fight polio.
1959: Alaska becomes the 49th state.
1961: US ends diplomatic relations with Cuba.
1967: Jack Ruby dies.
January 04:
1885: The first recorded appendectomy is performed by Dr. William Grant of Davenport, Iowa on 22 year old Mary Gartside.
1948: Burma gained its independence from Britain.
1951: North Korea captured Seoul, Korea.
1960: Albert Camus died in auto accident at age 46.
1965:TS Eliot died in London at age 76.
1965: President Lyndon Johnson outlined the proposals of his Great Society in his State of the Union address.
January 05:
1781: A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Virginia.
1896: The first public account of German physicist Wilhem Roetgen's discovery of X-rays is given in the Austrian newspaper, Wiener Presse.
1905: The National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals was incorporated in New York.
1933: Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, died at age 60.
1949: In his State of the Union address, President Truman calls his policies the "Fair Deal."
1965: President Johnson announces the programs in his "Great Society."
1998: Singer (and politician) Sonny Bono (formerly of Sonny & Cher fame), died at age 62 when he hit a tree while skiing.
January 06:
1412: According to tradition, Joan of Arc was born in Domrey, France.
1759: George and Martha Washington married.
1838: Samuel Morse gave his first public demonstration of the telegraph in Morristown, New Jersey.
1878: Carl Sandburg was born.
1880: Tom Mix born.
1912: New Mexico became the 47th State.
1919: Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President, died.
1941: Franklin Roosevlet delivered his Four Freedoms speech. The four freedoms he identified were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedomd from want and freedom from fear.
1942: The first "Around the World" trip by a commercial airlines was completed as the Pan Am "Pacific Clipper" arrived in New York.
January 07:
1610: Galileo sighted four of Jupiter's moons.
1714: The first patent for a typewriter was issued in England.
1782:The Bank of North America opened in Philadelphia. It was the the first commercial bank in the United States.
1789: The first US Presidential election was held.
1798: Great Britain, to its everlasting shame, introduced the world's first income tax.
1953: President Truman, in his State of the Union Address, announced that the US had developed the hydrogen bomb.
1959: The US recognized Fidel Castro as head of Cuba's government.
1979: Vietnamese forces captured Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and overthrew the Khmer Rouge government.
1986: President Reagan ordered cessation of all trading with Libya.
1995: Murray Rothbard, free market economist, died.
2015: Islamic terrorists stormed the Paris headquarters of the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 individuals, allegedly6 for making fun of the profit Muhammad.
2017: Prolific author on civil liberties and jazz, Nat Hentoff, died at age 91.
January 08:
1642: Galileo died in Arcetri, Italy.
1815: US forces under the command of General Andrew Jackson defeated British forces at the Battle of New Orleans.
1935: Elvis Presley born in Tupelo, Miss.
1959: Fidel Castro took control of Havana.
1964: President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared his "War on Poverty."
1968: Otis Redding's hit, "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" was released one month after the singer's death on December 10, 1967.
January 09:
1788: Connecticut became the 5th state to ratify the US Constitution.
1861: Mississippi seceded from the Union.
1908: Simone de Beauvoir born.
1913: Richard Milhous Nixon born.
1972: Howard Hughes held a telephone press conference to denounce a biography by Clifford Irving as fraudulent.
January 10:
1776: Thomas Paine published Common Sense, calling for American independence.
1870: John D Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.
1901: Oil is discovered at Spindletop, launching the oil boom in Texas.
1917: Wm. F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody died.
1920: The League of Nations was established.
1928: The Soviet Union exiled Leon Trotsky.
1946: The first General Assembly of the United Nations convened in London.
January 11:
1757: Alexander Hamilton born in West Indies.
1842: William James born.
1905: Ellery Queen born.
1935: Amelia Earhardt began a trip between Honolulu and Oakland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific.
1964: US Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government warning that smoking may be hazardous to your health.
January 12:
1773: The first public museum in America was established in Charleston, South Carolina.
1876: Jack London born.
1915: The US House of Representatives defeated a bill to give women the right to vote.
1932: Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
1935: "The Amazing Kreskin" born.
1945: German forces retreated during the Battle of the Bulge.
1966: The TV series "Batman," starring Adam West and Burt Ward, premiered on ABC.
1971: All in the Family premiered on CBS.
1976: Dame Agatha Christie died in Wallingford, England, at age 85.
1997: This is HAL's date of birth. HAL was the computer in Arthur C Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
January 13:
1733: James Oglethorpe and 130 English colonists arrived at Charleston, South Carolina.
1832: Horatio Alger born.
1864: Stephen Foster died in New York.
1941: James Joyce died in Zurich, Switzerland.
1968: Singer Johnny Cash performed two shows at Folsom State Prison in California, and Columbia Records released the album.
1978: Hubert Humphrey died in Waverly, Minn. at age 66.
1982: An Air Florida 737, while taking off in a snowstorm, crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C., and fell into the Potomac River. 78 died.
1990: L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the nation's first elected black governor.
January 14:
1784: Peace treaty with England ratified by Congress, ending the Revolutionary War.
1875: Albert Schweitzer born.
1896: John Dos Passos born.
1898: The Reverend Charles L Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, died.
1922: The Irish Free State was established.
1952: The Today Show premeired on NBC.
1967: A "Human Be-In" in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, is said to mark the beginning of the "Summer of Love."
January 15:
1559: Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey, England.
1622: Moliere born.
1777: New Connecticut declared its independence. New Connecticut later became the State of Vermont.
1870: The Democrat Party was represented for the first time by the donkey in a cartoon by Thomas Nash in Harper's Weekly.
1913: Lloyd Bridges born.
1929: Martin Luther King, Jr. born in Atlanta.
1943: Work completed on the Pentagon.
1973: President Nixon announced the suspension of all US offensive action in North Vietnam.
January 16:
1547: Ivan the Terrible is crowned Czar of Russia.
1883: U.S. Civil Service established.
1919: The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, approving prohibition of alcohol, was ratified by the necessary number of states. Of all the states, only Rhode Island refused to ratify it.
1944: General Dwight D. Eisenhower took command of the Allied Invasion Forces.
1969: Two manned Soviet spaceships become the first vehicles to dock in space and transfer personnel.
1991: Operation Desert Storm begin to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
2013: Andre Cassagnes, the inventor of the Etch A Sketch (still manufactured by the Ohio Art Co.), died in a Paris suburb at the age of 86.
January 17:
1706: Ben Franklin born.
1836: Jim Bowie and 30 men leave Goliad with orders from Sam Houston for Colonel Neill to abandon the Alamo and blow it up.
1871: Andrew Hallidie received a patent for a cable car system that began service in San Francisco in 1873.
1917: United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
193l: James Earl Jones born.
1946: United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.
2008: Bobby Fischer, chess champion, dies in Reykjavik, Iceland, at age 64.
2010: Erich Segal, author of Love Story, dies at age 72.
January 18:
1778: English navigator Captain James Cook discovers the Hawaiian Islands, which he dubbed the Sandwich Islands.
1782: Daniel Webster born in Salisbury, New Hampshire.
1788: The first English settlers arrive in Australia's Botany Bay, to establish a penal colony.
1862: John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States, dies in Richmond, Virginia, at age 71.
1871: William I of Prussia proclaimed emporor of Germany.
1892: Oliver Hardy (of Laurel and Hardy) born in Harlem, Ga.
1911: Eugene Ely becomes first person to land on a ship, the USS Pennsylvania, in San Francisco harbor.
1936: Author Rudyard Kipling died in Burwash, England.
1943: US imposes a war-time ban on pre-sliced bread.
2010: Author Robert B. Parker dies at age 77. Parker was the creator of the Spenser series of detective novels and was much admired among attorneys for his writing style.
January 19:
1736: James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, born in Scotland.
1807: Robert E. Lee born in Stratford, Virginia.
1808: Lysander Spooner born.
1809: Edgar Allan Poe born in Boston, Mass.
1825: Ezra Doggett and his nephew, Thomas Kerisett, obtained a patent for their process of storing food in tin cans.
1943: Argo Tunnel in Idaho Springs, Colorado, floods, killing 4 men.
1977: In one of his last acts in office, President Gerald Ford pardoned Iva Toruri D'Aquino, an American who made broadcasts during World War II as Tokyo Rose.
January 20:
1265: England's Parliment meets for the first time.
1801: John Marshall was appointed Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.
1887: US Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
1892: The first game of basketball is played at the YMCA in Springfield, Mass. Peach baskets were nailed to balcolonies at each end of the "court."
1981: Moments after the US Presidency passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan, Iran released 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days.
1920: American Civil Liberties Union formed.
2012: Blues singer Etta James dies at age 73.
January 21:
1793: French King Louis XVI executed by guillotine.
1861: Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four other southerners resigned from the US Senate.
1908: New York City enacted an ordinance that made smoking in public by women punishable by a fine of $25 and ten days in jail.
1924: Lenin died of a stroke at age 54.
1950: A Federal jury in New York finds Alger Hiss guilty of perjury.
1954: The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched.
1977: President Carter pardons almost all Vietnam war draft evaders.
January 22:
1561: Francis Bacon born.
1788: Lord Byron born in London.
1973: President Lyndon Baines Johnson died at age 64.
1901: The Victorian Era ends in England with the death of Queen Victoria at age 82
1938: Thorton Wilder's play, Our Town, performed for first time in Princeton, New Jersey.
1944: Allied forces began landing at Anzio, Itlay.
1968: Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In premiered on NBC.
1973: US Supreme Court decides Roe v. Wade
January 23:
1719: The principality of Liechtenstein was formed.
1789: Georgetown University established in Washington, D.C.
1845: Congress dedided all national elections will be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
1849: Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive an M.D. (from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y.).
1950: The Israeli Knesset approves a resolution proclaiming Jerusalem the capital of Israel.
1964: The 24th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, eliminating the poll tax.
1968: North Korea seized the US navy ship Pueblo, charging it had entered North Korean waters.
1973: It is announced that an accord has been reached to end the Vietnam War.
1977: The TV miniseries, Roots, begins on ABC.
1989: Salvidor Dali died in Spain at age 84.
1997: Richard Berry, songwriter of Louie, Louie, dies in LA at age 61.
2004: Bob Keeshan, TV star, dies at age 76. Keeshan played the clown Clarabell on the Howdy Doody Show. He was most famous as Captain Kangaroo. Captain Kangroo ran on CBS from October 3, 1955 to December, 1984. Keeshan then took the show to PBS where it ran until 1992.
January 24:
1848: James Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter's Mill in northern California-which led to the gold rush of 1849.
1862: Edith Wharton born.
1908: The first Boy Scout troop is organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell.
1916: US Supreme Court rules in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240 U.S. 1, 36 S.Ct. 236, 60 L.Ed. 493 that the federal income tax is unconstitutional.
1917: Ernest Borgnine born.
1922: Christian K. Nelson of Onawa, Iowa, patents the Eskimo Pie.
1924: St. Petersburg is renamed Leningrad.
1941: Neil Diamond born.
1965: Winston Churchill dies in London at age 90.
January 25:
1533: England's King Henry VIII secretly marries his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who later gives birth to Elizabeth I.
1759: Robert Burns born.
1874: W. Somerset Maugham is born.
1882: Virginia Woolf is born.
1890: United Mine Workers of America is formed.
1915: Alexander Graham Bell began US transcontinental telephone service with a call between New York City and San Francisco.
1959: American Airlines began the jet age with the first scheduled transcontinental flight of a Boing 707.
1961: John F. Kennedy holds the first live televised presidential news conference.
1971: Charles Manson and three young female followers were convicted in Los Angeles of the Tate-LaBianca murders.
1981: The 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrive back in the United States.
January 26:
1784: In a letter to his daughter, Ben Franklin laments the choice of the eagle as the symbol of America. His choice: the turkey.
1788: The first European settlers in Australia, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, lands in present-day Sydney. The party includes 700 convicts.
1802: Congress passes an act calling for a library to be established within the US Capitol.
1836: The men of the Alamo sign a resolution to stay at the Alamo. "We cannot be driven from the post of honor."
1942: The first American expeditionary force to go to Europe during World War II goes ashore in Northern Ireland.
1988: The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Phantom of the Opera opens at the Broadway Majestic Theatre in New York.
January 27:
1756: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart born in Salzburg, Austria.
1832: Charles Letwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carrol) born in Chesire, England.
1880: Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incadescent lamp.
1943: First all-American air raid on Germany took place.
1951: Atomic test takes place when Air Force dropps a one kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats.
1967: Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test of Apollo I.
1973: Vietnam peace accords signed in Paris, France.
January 28:
1596: Sir Francis Drake dies during a voyage.
1868: Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified.
1873: Author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is born.
1878: The first daily college newspaper, The Yale News, began publication.
1915: Coast Guard created.
1973: A cease-fire went into effect in the Vietnam War.
1986: Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff.
January 29:
1737: Thomas Paine born.
1845: Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, is published in the New York Evening Mirror under a pseudonym.
1860: Anton Chekhov born.
1861: Kansas became the 34th state.
1939: Irish poet William Butler Yeats dies in Menton, France.
1963: Robert Frost died.
January 30:
1649: England's King Charles I was beheaded after being found guilty of making war against parliment at a trial held after the defeat of Charles by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Preston in 1648.
1882: Franklin D. Roosevelt born in Hyde Park, New York.
1912: Barbara Tuchman born.
1933: Adolf Hitler named Chancellor of Germany.
1933: First episode of The Lone Ranger radio program is broadcast.
1948: Mahatma Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu extremist.
1968: Tet Offensive begins during Vietnam War.
January 31:
1606: Guy Hawkes, convicted for his part in the Gunpowder Plot against the English Parliment and King James I, is executed.
1797: Composer Franz Schubert born in Vienna, Austria.
1865: General Robert E. Lee named commander-in-chief of CSA armies.
1872: Zane Grey born.
1923: Norman Mailer born.
1945: Amry private Eddie Slovik executed by an American firing squad in France, the only American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion.
1950: President Truman announced he had ordered the development of the hydrogen bomb.
1958: The United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of the satellite Explorer 1 into orbit.
1999: Asarco's Black Cloud, the last operating mine in Leadville, Colorado, closes, ending 140 years of mining history in Leadville.
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