History Thread...

[CMRivdogs]

January 1

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-1?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0101-01012026

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On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation. Attempting to stitch together a nation mired in a bloody civil war, Abraham Lincoln made a last-ditch, but carefully calculated, decision regarding the institution of slavery in America.

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In 45 B.C., New Year’s Day is celebrated on January 1 for the first time in history as the Julian calendar takes effect.

Soon after becoming Roman dictator, Julius Caesar decided that the traditional Roman calendar was in dire need of reform. Introduced around the seventh century B.C., the Roman calendar attempted to follow the lunar cycle but frequently fell out of phase with the seasons and had to be corrected. In addition, the pontifices, the Roman body charged with overseeing the calendar, often abused its authority by adding days to extend political terms or interfere with elections.

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On January 1, 1835, President Andrew Jackson achieves his goal of entirely paying off the United States’ national debt. It was the only time in U.S. history that the national debt stood at zero, and it precipitated one of the worst financial crises in American history.

Jackson’s triumph contained the seeds of the economy’s undoing. The selling-off of federal lands had led to a real estate bubble, and the destruction of the national bank led to reckless spending and borrowing. Combined with other elements of Jackson’s fiscal policy as well as downturns in foreign economies, these problems led to the Panic of 1837. A bank run and the subsequent depression tanked the U.S. economy and forced the federal government to begin borrowing again.

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1863 

A farmer named Daniel Freeman submits the first claim under the new Homestead Act for a property near Beatrice, Nebraska.

Signed into law in 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln, the Homestead Act essentially legalized the long-standing American practice of squatting on the vast federal landholdings in the West, much of it taken from Native American tribes. Ever since the United States became a nation, intrepid pioneers rushed westward well before the government was prepared to oversee an ordered transfer of land into private hands. Ignoring legal niceties like titles or rent payments, the pioneers began farming and ranching wherever they found promising land, and often the government simply looked the other way.

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On New Year’s Day 1892, Annie Moore, a teenage girl from Ireland, becomes the very first immigrant to be processed on America’s Ellis Island. Annie, along with her two younger brothers, kick off an immigration era that, over the next 62 years, brings more than 12 million immigrants through Ellis Island, located in New York Harbor off the New Jersey coast.

Ellis Island, the first and largest federal immigration processing station, was operated until it was abandoned in 1954. Between 1900 and 1914, the island’s peak years of operation, an average of 1,900 people passed through the immigration station daily.

 

[CMRivdogs]

January 2

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-2

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On January 2, 1980, in a strong reaction to the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter asks the Senate to postpone action on the SALT II nuclear weapons treaty and recalls the U.S. ambassador to Moscow. These actions sent a message that the age of detente and the friendlier diplomatic and economic relations that were established between the United States and Soviet Union during President Richard Nixon’s administration (1969-74) had ended.

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The Continental Congress publishes the “Tory Act” resolution on January 2, 1776, which describes how colonies should handle those Americans who remain loyal to the British and King George.

The act called on colonial committees to indoctrinate those “honest and well-meaning, but uninformed people” by enlightening them as to the “origin, nature and extent of the present controversy.” The Congress remained “fully persuaded that the more our right to the enjoyment of our ancient liberties and privileges is examined, the more just and necessary our present opposition to ministerial tyranny will appear.”

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1788. Georgia votes to ratify the U.S. Constitution, becoming the fourth state in the modern United States. Named after King George II, Georgia was first settled by Europeans in 1733, when a group of British debtors led by English philanthropist James E. Oglethorpe traveled up the Savannah River and established Georgia’s first permanent settlement—the town of Savannah. In 1742, as part of a larger conflict between Spain and Great Britain, Oglethorpe defeated the Spanish on St. Simons Island in Georgia, effectively ending Spanish claims to the territory of Georgia.

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1962  

The Weavers, one of the most significant popular-music groups of the postwar era, saw their career nearly destroyed during the Red Scare of the early 1950s. Even with anti-communist fervor in decline by the early 1960s, the Weavers' leftist politics were used against them as late as January 2, 1962, when the group's appearance on The Jack Paar Showwas cancelled over their refusal to sign an oath of political loyalty.

The importance of the Weavers to the folk revival of the late 1950s cannot be overstated. Without the group that Pete Seeger founded with Lee Hays in Greenwich Village in 1948, there would likely be no Bob Dylan, not to mention no Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul and Mary. The Weavers helped spark a tremendous resurgence in interest in American folk traditions and folk songs when they burst onto the popular scene with "Goodnight Irene," a #1 record for 13 weeks in the summer and fall of 1950. The Weavers sold millions of copies of innocent, beautiful and utterly apolitical records like "Midnight Special" and "On Top of Old Smoky" that year.

 

[CMRivdogs]

January 3

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-3

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On January 3, 1990, Panama’s General Manuel Antonio Noriega, after holing up for 10 days at the Vatican embassy in Panama City, surrenders to U.S. military troops to face charges of drug trafficking. Noriega was flown to Miami the following day and crowds of citizens on the streets of Panama City rejoiced. On July 10, 1992, the former dictator was convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

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On January 3, 1521, Pope Leo X issues the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem, which excommunicatesMartin Lutherfrom the Catholic Church.

Martin Luther, the chief catalyst of Protestantism, was a professor of biblical interpretation at the University of Wittenberg in Germany when he drew up his 95 theses condemning the Catholic Church for its corrupt practice of selling indulgences, or the forgiveness of sins. He followed up the revolutionary work with equally controversial and groundbreaking theological works, and his fiery words set off religious reformers all across Europe.

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On January 3, 1861, just two weeks after South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, the state of Delaware rejects a similar proposal.

There had been little doubt that Delaware would remain with the North. Delaware was technically a state where slavery was legal, but the institution was not widespread. In 1861, there were some 20,000 Black people living in the state. About 1,800 of them were enslaved. Most of the enslaved people were concentrated in Sussex, the southernmost of the state’s three counties.

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Similar to Adolf Hitler, Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini did not become the dictator of a totalitarian regime overnight. For several years, he and his allies worked more or less within the confines of the Italian constitution to accrue power, eroding democratic institutions until the moment came for them to be done away with entirely. It is generally agreed that that moment came in speech Mussolini gave to the Italian parliament on January 3, 1925, in which he asserted his right to supreme power and effectively became the dictator of Italy.

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On January 3, 1973, a 12-member group headed by George Steinbrenner purchases the New York Yankees for $10 millionfrom Columbia Broadcasting System, which owned the team since 1964. The group includes CBS’s Yankees president Michael Burke, who briefly serves in that role under Steinbrenner. Known by many as "The Boss," Steinbrenner goes on to become one of the more controversial owners in sports history.

Steinbrenner’s initial investment was actually fairly small: $168,000, which was a little less than a 2 percent ownership stake. However, over the years he wrestled majority ownership of the team from others. Four months after Steinbrenner's purchase, Burke resigned his position. When he died in 2010, Steinbrenner owned 57 percent of the team, Business Insider reported.

Steinbrenner, who made his fortune in the shipping industry, had a football background—he served as a graduate assistant at Ohio State under legendary coach Woody Hayes.

 

Edited January 3 by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

The initial British raid on Norfolk’s waterfront on New Year’s Day burned nineteen buildings, worth three thousand pounds (added to the thirty-two houses, worth two thousand pounds, Lord Dunmore razed while fortifying the town when the British were still in control of it).

Howe & Woodford’s official communications will simply omit that it is Virginia & North Carolina troops who are responsible for destroying the eighth-largest town in the Thirteen Colonies, nor will they correct anyone who speaks or writes to them of British forces’ “horrid work.”

The Virginia Convention’s initial investigation will be headed by Howe himself, and it will conclude, unsurprisingly, that it is the British who destroyed the town—a conclusion that Americans will simply accept.
In 1777, after petitions from townsfolk, a further investigation will unearth the truth of matters, at which time the state legislature will compensate those victims who are not Loyalists. But the new investigation’s report will be kept secret.

Not until the 1830s will the Virginia government make the report public, and even then it will be buried in a legislative journal. It will be the twentieth century before historians discover the truth of the burning of Norfolk.    

 

 

 

[CMRivdogs]

January 4

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-4?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0104-01042026

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1896 Six years after Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon church, issued his Manifesto reforming political, religious, and economic life in Utah, the territory is admitted into the Union as the 45th state.

In July 1847, the 148 initial Mormon pioneers reached Utah’s Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Upon viewing the valley, Young declared: “This is the place,” and the pioneers began preparations for the tens of thousands of Mormon migrants who would follow.

In 1850, President Millard Fillmore named Young the first governor of the territory of Utah, and the territory enjoyed relative autonomy for several years. Relations became strained, however, when reports reached Washington that Mormon leaders were disregarding federal law and had publicly sanctioned the practice of polygamy. In 1857, President James Buchanan removed Young, a polygamist with over 20 wives, from his position as governor, and sent U.S. army troops to Utah to establish federal authority. Tensions between the territory of Utah and the federal government continued until Wilford Woodruff, the president of the Mormon church, issued his Manifesto in 1890, renouncing the traditional practice of polygamy, and reducing the domination of the church over Utah communities. Six years later, the territory of Utah was granted statehood.

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On January 4, 1965, in his State of the Union address, President Lyndon Baines Johnson lays out for Congress a laundry list of legislation needed to achieve his plan for a Great Society. On the heels of John F. Kennedy’s tragic death, Americans had elected Johnson, his vice president, to the presidency by the largest popular vote in the nation’s history. Johnson used this mandate to push for improvements he believed would better Americans’ quality of life.

Following Johnson’s lead, Congress enacted sweeping legislation in the areas of civil rights, health care, education and the environment. The 1965 State of the Union address heralded the creation of Medicare/Medicaid, Head Start, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the White House Conference on Natural Beauty. Johnson also signed the National Foundation of the Arts and Humanities Act, out of which emerged the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

[Screwball]

"This is the place" - I don't think so.

I spent a month one week in Salt Lake City.

[CMRivdogs]

January 5

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-5?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0105-01052026

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On January 5, 1933, construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge, as workers began excavating 3.25 million cubic feet of dirt for the structure’s huge anchorages.

Following the Gold Rush boom that began in 1849, speculators realized the land north of San Francisco Bay would increase in value in direct proportion to its accessibility to the city. Soon, a plan was hatched to build a bridge that would span the Golden Gate, a narrow, 400-foot deep strait that serves as the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, connecting the San Francisco Peninsula with the southern end of Marin County.

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1914 Carmaker Henry Ford boldly announces he is doubling pay for his assembly-line workers to $5 a day. But raises come with a catch: invasive home inspections to rule out people who drank alcohol or had unkempt homes.

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American traitor and British Brigadier General Benedict Arnold enjoys his greatest success as a British commander on January 5, 1781 . Arnold’s 1,600 largely Loyalist troops sailed up the James River at the beginning of January, eventually landing in Westover, Virginia. Leaving Westover on the afternoon of January 4, Arnold and his men arrived at the virtually undefended capital city of Richmond the next afternoon.

Only 200 militiamen responded to Governor Jefferson’s call to defend the capital—most Virginians had already served and therefore thought they were under no further obligation to answer such calls. Despite this untenable military position, the author of the Declaration of Independence was criticized by some for fleeing Richmond during the crisis. Later, two months after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, he was cleared of any wrongdoing during his term as governor. Jefferson went on to become the leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, and his presidential victory over the Federalists is remembered as The Revolution of 1800.

After the war, Benedict Arnold attempted and failed to establish businesses in Canada and London. He died a pauper on June 14, 1801, and lays buried in his Continental Army uniform at St. Mary’s Church, Middlesex, London. To this day, his name remains synonymous with the word “traitor” in the United States.

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On January 5, 1920, the New York Yankees major league baseball club announces its purchase of the heavy-hitting outfielder George Herman “Babe” Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for the sum of $125,000.

In all, Ruth had played six seasons with the Red Sox, leading them to three World Series victories. On the mound, Ruth pitched a total of 29 2/3 scoreless World Series innings, setting a new league record that would stand for 43 years. He was fresh off a sensational 1919 season, having broken the major league home run record with 29 and led the American League with 114 runs-batted-in and 103 runs. In addition to playing more than 100 games in left field, he also went 9-5 as a pitcher. With his prodigious hitting, pitching and fielding skills, Ruth had surpassed the great Ty Cobb as baseball’s biggest attraction.

 

[CMRivdogs]

January 6

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-6?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0106-01062026

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On the afternoon of January 6, 2021, a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters descend on the U.S. Capitol, attempting to interfere with the certification of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.

The rioters assaulted the Capitol police force and ransacked the complex, destroying property and sending members of Congress and their staff into hiding in offices and bunkers. A protester who was shot by police died and approximately 140 members of law enforcement were assaulted.

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1994 

Olympic hopeful Nancy Kerrigan is attacked at a Detroit ice rink following a practice session two days before the Olympic trials. A man hit Kerrigan with a club on the back of her knee, causing the figure skater to cry out in pain and bewilderment. When the full story emerged a week later, the nation became caught up in a real-life soap opera.

One of Kerrigan’s chief rivals for a place on the U.S. Figure Skating Team was Tonya Harding. In mid-December 1993, Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, approached Shawn Eckardt about somehow eliminating Kerrigan from the competition. Eckardt set up a meeting with Derrick Smith and Shane Stant, who agreed to injure Kerrigan for a fee.

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After a bitterly contested election, Vice President Al Gore presides over a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2001, that certifies George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 election—an election Gore had lost. In one of the closest Presidential elections in U.S. history, George W. Bush was finally declared the winner more than five weeks after the election due to the disputed Floridaballots.

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On January 6, 1912, New Mexico is admitted into the United States as the 47th state.

Spanish explorers passed through the area that would become New Mexico in the early 16th century, encountering the well-preserved remains of a 13th-century Pueblo civilization. Exaggerated rumors about the hidden riches of these Pueblo cities encouraged the first full-scale Spanish expedition into New Mexico, led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1540. There they encountered the region’s Indigenous peoples, including the agrarian Pueblo tribes, who they subjected to virtual slavery, cultural genocide and extreme cruelty. To a lesser extent, they also encountered semi-nomadic tribes, such as the Navajo and Apache. All the Indigenous peoples were fiercely resistant to Spanish attack on their sovereignty, spiritual practices and ways of life.

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1540 Henry VIII marries Anne of Cleves, sight unseen, after viewing her painted portrait. When they first met, he is said to have exclaimed, "I like her not!" and that she had "evil smells." By July, the marriage was annulled.

 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[CMRivdogs]

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"Deep stratagems, dark disguise, Fiction, falsehood, are but the fair side of the picture."

The more things change.....

[CMRivdogs]

January 6 is a wedding anniversary for two presidents: George Washington and George H.W. Bush.

In 1759, a 26-year-old George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis. The recently widowed, Virginia-born Martha was an educated mother of two. George Washington–then a rising young officer in the colonial British army–moved his new bride and family to his estate at Mount Vernon. Washington soon adopted Martha’s two young children, Jack and Patsy. The couple was married until his death in 1799, a 40-year union.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-6/two-future-presidents-marry-respective-sweethearts

[CMRivdogs]

January 7

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-7?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0107-01072026

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Congress sets January 7, 1789 as the date by which states are required to choose electors for the country's first-ever presidential election. A month later, on February 4, George Washington was elected president by state electors and sworn into office on April 30, 1789.

As it did in 1789, the United States still uses the Electoral College system, which today gives all American citizens over the age of 18 the right to vote for electors, who in turn vote for the president. The president and vice president are the only elected federal officials chosen by the Electoral College instead of by direct popular vote.

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1959 

Just six days after the fall of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in Cuba, U.S. officials recognize the new provisional government of the island nation. Despite fears that Fidel Castro, whose rebel army helped to overthrow Batista, might have communist leanings, the U.S. government believed that it could work with the new regime and protect American interests in Cuba.

The fall of the pro-American government of Batista was cause for grave concern among U.S. officials. The new government, temporarily headed by provisional president Manuel Urrutia, initially seemed chilly toward U.S. diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador Earl E. T. Smith. Smith, in particular, was wary of the politics of the new regime. He and other Americans in Cuba were suspicious of the motives and goals of the charismatic rebel leader Fidel Castro.

Despite this promising beginning, relations between Cuba and the United States almost immediately deteriorated. U.S. officials realized that Castro, who was sworn in as the premier of Cuba in February 1959, wielded the real power in Cuba. His policies concerning the nationalization of American-owned properties and closer economic and political relations with communist countries convinced U.S. officials that Castro’s regime needed to be removed. Less than two years later, the United States severed diplomatic relations, and in April 1961, unleashed a disastrous—and ineffectual—attack by Cuban exile forces against the Castro government (the Bay of Pigs invasion).

 

[CMRivdogs]

January 8

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-8?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0108-01082026

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On January 8, 1877, Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse and his men—outnumbered, low on ammunition and forced to use outdated weapons to defend themselves—fight their final losing battle against the U.S. Cavalry in Montana.

Six months earlier, in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse and his ally, Sitting Bull, led their combined forces of Sioux and Cheyenne to a stunning victory over Lieutenant Colonel George Custer (1839-76) and his men. The Native Americans were resisting the U.S. government’s efforts to force them back to their reservations. After Custer and over 200 of his soldiers were killed in the conflict, later dubbed “Custer’s Last Stand,” the white American public wanted revenge. As a result, the U.S. Army launched a winter campaign in 1876-77, led by General Nelson Miles (1839-1925), against the remaining tribes on the Northern Plains.

Though he had escaped decisive defeat, Crazy Horse realized that Miles and his well-equipped cavalry troops would eventually hunt down and destroy his cold, hungry followers. On May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse led approximately 1,100 Native Americans to the Red Cloud reservation near Nebraska’s Fort Robinson and surrendered. Five months later, a guard fatally stabbed him after he allegedly resisted imprisonment by policemen.

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On January 8, 1790, President George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address to the assembled Congress in New York City.

Washington began by congratulating North Carolina’s recent decision to join the federal republic. North Carolina had rejected the Constitution in July 1788 because it lacked a bill of rights. Under the terms of the Constitution, the new government acceded to power after only 11 of the 13 states accepted the document. By the time North Carolina ratified in November 1789, the first Congress had met, written the Bill of Rights and dispatched them for review by the states.

After covering the clearly federal issues of national defense and foreign affairs, Washington urged federal influence over domestic issues as well. The strongly Hamilton-influenced administration desired money for and some measure of control over Agriculture, Commerce and Manufactures as well as Science and Literature. These national goals required a Federal Post Office and Post-Roads and a means of public education, which the president justified as a means to secure the Constitution, by educating future public servants in the republican principles of representative government.

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In competing versions of the story, what Elvis Presley really wanted for his birthday was a rifle or a bicycle—both fairly typical choices for a boy his age growing up on the outskirts of Tupelo, Mississippi. Instead, Elvis’s highly protective mother, Gladys—”She never let me out of her sight,” Elvis would later say—took him to the Tupelo Hardware Store and bought a gift that would change the course of history: a $7.75 guitar. It was January 8, 1946, and Elvis Aaron Presley was 11 years old.

 

[microline133]

1 hour ago, CMRivdogs said:

These national goals required a Federal Post Office and Post-Roads and a means of public education...

Interesting, maybe only to me, but seeing this just crystallized the history of some road names out here. A common one being Boston Post Road running through several towns near me. The creation of a federal Post Office and the designation or creation of associated Post Roads connects some dots with present day road names that have survived. I'll have to dig into it a little later today to verify.

[CMRivdogs]

January 9

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-9?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0109-01092026

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On January 9, 1493, explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near what is now the Dominican Republic, records in his ship's journal that, on the previous day, he saw three “mermaids”—in reality manatees—and describes them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.” Six months earlier, Columbus (1451-1506) set off from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, hoping to find a western trade route to Asia. Instead, his voyage, the first of four he would make, led him to the Americas, or “New World.”

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On January 9, 2001, Apple launches iTunes, a media player that revolutionized the way people consumed digital media.

Bill Kincaid and Jeff Robbin, two former Apple employees, developed an MP3 player called SoundJam MP in the late 1990s. In 2000, Apple re-hired them and their partner, Dave Heller, to work on a similar player that would come standard with Apple computers. The first version of iTunes debuted early the next year, on the cusp of a new era in digital entertainment.

Along with the iPod, the MP3 player Apple released later in 2001, iTunes revolutionized the music industry, providing consumers with a simple, portable way of listening to a large library of music. Sleek and focused on a simplified user experience, iTunes made it easy for users to burn CDs and to manage digital music files. Apple founder Steve Jobs is credited with iTunes’ success as a music marketplace. Seeing that music was easier to access than ever, but that record labels were losing money due to internet piracy, Jobs made a deal with the five major record labels to sell their content via iTunes. The fact that it was above-board and profitable for the music industry, combined with the cultural cache of its companion product, the iPod, made iTunes an unqualified success.

 

[CMRivdogs]

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Paine had arrived the colonies just 13 months ago from his home country after failing in business as a shopkeeper and corset maker and honing a sense of injustice against the upper class he’s excluded from. At 38, nothing in his career suggests he is bound for fame as a writer. 

It’s a case of the right man at the right time. Paine’s prose is punchy and readable, dispensing with intricate constitutional analysis as he makes his forceful case for independence. He starts with a question few Americans have dared to ask publicly: By what right does the monarchy even exist? 

”The present race of kings,” he writes, has its origin in “the principal ruffian of some restless gang.” In these modern times George III has never cared a whit for his American subjects, and the fact of his sending armies to crush the liberty movement ought to wake us up to this fact. 

“There is something absurd, in supposing a Continent to be perpetually governed by an island.” America has already formed a government spanning all the colonies in Congress; with its vast resources it will be a country. A “Charter of the United Colonies” on a democratic basis is the next step. 

“But where, say some, is the King of America? I'll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain.”

“Common Sense” appears in the bookshops of Philadelphia after being heavily advertised in the city’s newspapers and is an instant sensation, selling 120,000 copies in three months. Paine repudiates any profit, and earns no royalties from a work that has never gone out of print in 250 years. 

The appearance of “Common Sense” coincides with the publication in Philadelphia of George III’s vow to carry out war to suppress rebellion. Paine writes with satisfaction: “The Speech, instead of terrifying, prepared a way for the manly principles of Independence.” 

 

[CMRivdogs]

January 10

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-10

 

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On January 10, 1901, a drilling derrick at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas, produces an enormous gusherof crude oil, coating the landscape for hundreds of feet and signaling the advent of the American oil industry.

The geyser was discovered at a depth of over 1,000 feet, flowed at an initial rate of approximately 100,000 barrels a day and took nine days to cap. Following the discovery, petroleum, which until that time had been used in the U.S. primarily as a lubricant and in kerosene for lamps, would become the main fuel source for new inventions such as cars and airplanes; coal-powered forms of transportation including ships and trains would also convert to the liquid fuel.

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On January 10, 1920, the League of Nations formally comes into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, takes effect.

In 1914, a political assassination in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of the most costly war ever fought to that date. As more and more young men were sent down into the trenches, influential voices in the United States and Britain began calling for the establishment of a permanent international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. President Woodrow Wilson became a vocal advocate of this concept, and in 1918 he included a sketch of the international body in his 14-point proposal to end the war.

In November 1918, the Central Powers agreed to an armistice to halt the killing in World War I. Two months later, the Allies met with conquered Germany and Austria-Hungary at Versailles to hammer out formal peace terms. President Wilson urged a just and lasting peace, but England and France disagreed, forcing harsh war reparations on their former enemies. The League of Nations was approved, however, and in the summer of 1919 Wilson presented the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations to the U.S. Senatefor ratification.

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The first General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising 51 nations, convenes at Westminster Central Hall in London, England.

One week later, the U.N. Security Council met for the first time and established its rules of procedure. Then, on January 24, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction.

In 1944, at the Dumbarton Oaks conference in Washington, D.C., the groundwork was laid by Allied delegates for an international postwar organization to maintain peace and security in the postwar world. The organization was to possess considerably more authority over its members than the defunct League of Nations, which had failed in its attempts to prevent the outbreak of World War II. In April 1945, with celebrations of victory in Europe about to commence, delegates from 51 nations convened in San Francisco to draft the United Nations Charter. On June 26, the document was signed by the delegates, and on October 24 it was formally ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories.

 

[CMRivdogs]

January 11

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-11?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0111-01112026

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On January 11, 1964, United States Surgeon General Luther Terry releases a groundbreaking government reportannouncing a definitive link between smoking and cancer.

Knowing his report was a bombshell, Terry intentionally chose to release it on that date, which fell on a Saturday, in order to limit its immediate effects on the stock market.

The link had long been suspected. Anecdotal evidence had always pointed to negative health effects from smoking, and by the 1930s physicians were noticing an increase in lung cancer cases. The first medical studies that raised serious concerns were published in Great Britain in the late 1940s.

American cigarette companies spent much of the next decade lobbying the government to keep smoking legal and advertising reduced levels of tar and nicotine in their products. Some 44 percent of Americans already believed smoking caused cancer by 1958, and a number of medical associations warned that tobacco use was linked with both lung and heart disease. Despite all this, nearly half of Americans smoked, and smoking was common in restaurants, bars, offices and homes across the country.

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Francis Salvador, the first Jewish person to hold an elected office in the Americas, takes his seat on the South CarolinaProvincial Congress on January 11, 1775. He later became the first recorded Jewish soldier killed in the American War for Independence.

Born in 1747, Salvador was descended from a line of prominent Sephardic Jews who made their home in London. His great grandfather, Joseph, was the East India Company’s first Jewish director. His grandfather was influential in bravely moving a group of 42 Jewish colonists to Savannah, Georgia, in 1733 despite the colony’s prohibition on Jewish settlers. The Salvadors then purchased land in South Carolina.

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On January 11, 1908, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt declares the massive Grand Canyon in northwestern Arizona a national monument.

Though Native Americans lived in the area as early as the 13th century, the first European sighting of the canyon wasn’t until 1540, by members of an expedition headed by the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Because of its remote and inaccessible location, several centuries passed before North American settlers really explored the canyon. In 1869, geologist John Wesley Powell led a group of 10 men in the first difficult journey down the rapids of the Colorado River and along the length of the 277-mile gorge in four rowboats.

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On January 11, 1922, 14-year-old Leonard Thompson becomes the first person to receive an injection of the hormone insulin for Type-1 diabetes—a disease that for millennia had been considered a death sentence for anyone who developed it. The breakthrough would be one of the most consequential in medical history, saving millions of lives.

Diabetes has been recognized as a distinct medical condition for more than 3,000 years, but its exact cause was a mystery until the 20th century. By the early 1920s, many researchers strongly suspected that diabetes was caused by a malfunction in the digestive system related to the pancreas gland, a small organ that sits near the liver. At that time, the only way to treat the fatal disease was through a diet low in carbohydrates and sugar and high in fat and protein. Instead of dying shortly after diagnosis, this diet allowed diabetics to live—for about a year.

 

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January 12

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On January 12, 2010, Haiti is devastated by a massive earthquake. It drew an outpouring of support from around the globe, but the small nation has yet to fully recover.

Haiti has a history of seismic activity—devastating earthquakes were recorded there in 1751, 1770, 1842 and 1946. The island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, lies mostly between two large tectonic plates, the North American and the Caribbean. The Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince practically straddles this fault line. Despite this knowledge and warnings from seismologists that another earthquake was likely in the near future, the country's poverty meant that infrastructure and emergency services were not prepared to handle the effects of a natural disaster.

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On January 12, 1777, American Brigadier General Hugh Mercer dies from the seven bayonet wounds he received during the Battle of Princeton.

Mercer’s military service ranged over two continents and three armies. Born in Rosehearty, Scotland, Mercer studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen and first served as an assistant surgeon in Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army of 1745. After the Scots uprising against the British met its devastatingly bloody end at Culloden on April 16, 1746, Mercer returned to Aberdeenshire, where he spent a year in hiding before moving to Pennsylvania in March 1747.

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After his bank fails in the Panic of 1837, Joseph Smith flees Kirtland, Ohio, to avoid arrest and heads for Missouri to rebuild his religious community.

A sensitive and religious-minded man since his youth, Joseph Smith claimed the angel Moroni visited him in 1823, when he was 17 years old, and told him he was destined to become a modern prophet of God. For four years, Smith said he made annual visits to a hill in upstate New York where he received instructions preparing him for his new prophetic role. In 1827, he unearthed gold tablets inscribed in a mysterious language. Two years later, Smith created a local sensation when he revealed his discovery and made known his plans to publish a new volume of scripture based on his translation of the golden plates.

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On January 12, 1904, Henry Ford sets a land-speed record of 91.37 mph on the frozen surface of Michigan’s Lake St. Clair. He was driving a four-wheel vehicle, dubbed the “999,” with a wooden chassis but no body or hood. Ford’s record was broken within a month at Ormond Beach, Florida, by a driver named William K. Vanderbilt; even so, the publicity surrounding Ford’s achievement was valuable to the auto pioneer, who in June of the previous year had incorporated the Ford Motor Company, which would eventually go on to become one of America’s Big Three automakers.

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On January 12, 1969, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, the New York Jets of the American Football League defeat the NFL's Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III—a result considered one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Days earlier, Jets quarterback Joe Namath guaranteed a victory by New York, an 18-point underdog.

The win was the first in the Super Bowl for the AFL, which merged with the NFL for the 1970 season.

Before Super Bowl III, an NFL coach said, "Namath plays his first pro football game today." But the Colts, who had a 15-1 record entering the game, trailed 16-0 after three quarters.

 

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January 13

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-13?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0113-01132026

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On January 13, 1129, at the Council of Troyes, Pope Honorius II grants a papal sanction to the military order known as the Knights Templar, declaring it to be an army of God.

Led by the Frenchman Hughes de Payens, the Knights Templar organization was founded in 1118. Its self-imposed mission was to protect Christian pilgrims on their way to and from the Holy Land during the Crusades, the series of military expeditions aimed at defeating Muslims in Palestine. For a while, the Templars had only nine members, mostly due to their rigid rules. In addition to having noble birth, the knights were required to take strict vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. In 1127, new promotional efforts convinced many more noblemen to join the order, gradually increasing its size and influence.

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On January 13, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints the first African American cabinet member, making Robert C. Weaver head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD), the agency that develops and implements national housing policy and enforces fair housing laws. In keeping with his vision for a Great Society, Johnson sought to improve race relations and eliminate urban blight. As many of the country’s African Americans lived in run-down inner-city areas, appointing Weaver was an attempt to show his African American constituency that he meant business on both counts.

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In the midst of depression and a steep decline in his musical career, legendary country singer Johnny Casharrives to play for inmates at California's Folsom Prison on January 13, 1968. The concert and the subsequent live album launched him back into the charts and re-defined his career.

Despite his outlaw image, Cash never went to prison, save for a few nights drying out in various jails. It was not his own experience but rather the crime film Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison that inspired him to pen "Folsom Prison Blues," which was a modest hit for Cash in 1956. The song, characteristically mournful, is written from the point of view of an inmate "stuck in Folsom Prison" after shooting a man in Reno "just to watch him die" - Cash explained that he wanted to come up with the most senseless reason imaginable for the speaker to have committed murder. A decade later, Cash's alcoholism and addiction to pills had taken a marked toll on his health. Cash was popular in prisons across America and was known to correspond with imprisoned fans, and first played at Folsom in 1966 on the suggestion of a local preacher. Two years later, needing something to jump-start his career, he convinced his record company to let him record a live album there.

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On January 13, 1982, an Air Florida Boeing 737-222 plunges into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., killing 78 people. The crash, caused by bad weather, took place only two miles from the White House.

The Air Florida flight took off from Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, with 74 passengers and 5 crew members on board. The plane had flown into Washington from Miami in the early afternoon and was supposed to return to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, after a short stop. However, snow in Washington temporarily closed the airport. When it reopened, the plane was de-iced with chemical anti-freeze, but the plane still had difficulty moving away from the gate due to the ice. When it eventually made it to the airport’s only usable runway, it was forced to wait 45 minutes for clearance to take off.

Not wanting to further delay the flight, the pilot, Larry Wheaton, did not return for more de-icing, and worse, failed to turn on the plane’s own de-icing system. In fact, the pilot and co-pilot discussed the situation, and the co-pilot said “It’s a losing battle trying to de-ice these things. It gives you a false sense of security, that’s all it does.” During the delay, however, ice was accumulating on the wings, and by the time the plane reached the end of the runway, it was able to achieve only a few hundred feet of altitude.

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Douglas Wilder, the first African American to be elected governor of an American state, takes office as Governor of Virginia on January 13, 1990. Wilder broke a number of color barriers in Virginia politics and remains an enduring and controversial figure in the state's political scene.

Born in 1931 in Church Hill, a poor and segregated neighborhood of Richmond, Wilder is the grandson of slaves and is named for Frederick Douglass. He grew up in the Jim Crow era, graduating from Richmond's Virginia Union University in 1951. Wilder fought in the Korean War, earning the Bronze Star, before studying law at Howard University and returning to Richmond to practice.

 

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January 14

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-14?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0114-01142026

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On January 14, 1784, the Continental Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris, ending the War for Independence.

In the document, which was known as the Second Treaty of Paris because the Treaty of Paris was also the name of the agreement that had ended the Seven Years’ War in 1763, Britain officially agreed to recognize the independence of its 13 former colonies as the new United States of America.

In addition, the treaty settled the boundaries between the United States and what remained of British North America. U.S. fishermen won the right to fish in the Grand Banks, off the Newfoundland coast, and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Both sides agreed to ensure payment to creditors in the other nation of debts incurred during the war and to release all prisoners of war. The United States promised to return land confiscated during the war to its British owners, to stop any further confiscation of British property and to honor the property left by the British army on U.S. shores, including Negroes or slaves. Both countries assumed perpetual rights to access the Mississippi River.

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1639 

In Hartford, Connecticut, the first constitution in the American colonies, the “Fundamental Orders,” is adopted by representatives of Wethersfield, Windsor, and Hartford.

The Dutch discovered the Connecticut River in 1614, but English Puritans from Massachusetts largely accomplished European settlement of the region. During the 1630s, they flocked to the Connecticut valley from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and in 1638 representatives from the three major Puritan settlements in Connecticut met to set up a unified government for the new colony.

Roger Ludlow, a lawyer, wrote much of the Fundamental Orders, and presented a binding and compact frame of government that put the welfare of the community above that of individuals. It was also the first written constitution in the world to declare the modern idea that “the foundation of authority is in the free consent of the people.” In 1662, the Charter of Connecticut superseded the Fundamental Orders; though the majority of the original document’s laws and statutes remained in force until 1818.

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On January 14, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Presidential Proclamation No. 2537, requiring non-U.S. citizens from World War II-enemy countries—Italy, Germany and Japan—to register with the United States Department of Justice. Registered persons were then issued a Certificate of Identification for Aliens of Enemy Nationality. A follow-up to the Alien Registration Act of 1940, Proclamation No. 2537 facilitated the beginning of full-scale internment of Japanese Americans the following month.

While most Americans expected the U.S. to enter the war, presumably in Europe or the Philippines, the nation was shocked to hear of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In the wake of the bombing, the West Coast appeared particularly vulnerable to another Japanese military offensive. A large population of Japanese Americans inhabited the western states and American military analysts feared some would conduct acts of sabotage on west-coast defense and agricultural industries.

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An explosion aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise kills 27 people in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on January 14, 1969. A rocket accidentally detonated, destroying 15 planes and injuring more than 300 people.

The Enterprise was the first-ever nuclear-powered aircraft carrier when it was launched in 1960. It has eight nuclear reactors, six more than all subsequent nuclear carriers. The massive ship is over 1,100 feet long and carries 4,600 crew members.

At 8:19 a.m. on January 14, a MK-32 Zuni rocket that was loaded on an F-4 Phantom jet overheated due to the exhaust from another vehicle. The rocket blew up, setting off a chain reaction of explosions. Fires broke out across the deck of the ship, and when jet fuel flowed into the carrier’s interior, other fires were sparked. Many of the Enterprise’s fire-protection features failed to work properly, but the crew worked heroically and tirelessly to extinguish the fire.

In all, 27 sailors lost their lives and another 314 were seriously injured. Although 15 aircraft (out of the 32 stationed on the Enterprise at the time) were destroyed by the explosions and fire, the Enterprise itself was never threatened.

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On January 14, 1973, the Miami Dolphins achieve something no NFL team has repeated: a perfect season. Despite a gaffe by kicker Garo Yepremian that has earned its own place in history, the Dolphins hold on to beat Washington, 14-7, in Super Bowl VII, capping a 17-0 season.

The Dolphins, 10-3-1 the previous season, were the defending AFC champions. Despite being blown out by the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl VI, they were early favorites to win the relatively weak AFC East. Miami survived close calls with the Minnesota Vikings and Buffalo Bills early in the season and lost their starting quarterback, Bob Griese, to injury in Week 5.