Jan. 2
1942: The Philippine capital of Manila was captured by Japanese forces during World War II.
1959: The Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 launched, becoming the first spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravity.
2016: An armed group seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, beginning a 41-day standoff.
Jan. 3
1920: Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold the contract of Babe Ruth (Nicknamed “The Bambino”) to the New York Yankees, beginning a championship era for the Yankees and decades of heartache for Red Sox fans, known as the “Curse of the Bambino.”
1977: Apple Computer was incorporated iby Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Mike Markkula Jr.
Jan. 4
2007: Democrat Nancy Pelosi was elected the first female speaker of the House.
1853: New Yorker Solomon Northup regained his freedom after being kidnapped and forced into slavery in 1841; he would later tell his story in his memoir, “Twelve Years a Slave.”
1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his State of the Union address in which he outlined the goals of his “Great Society” initiative.
Jan. 5
1933: Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge; the bridge was completed in May 1937.
1896: German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovered a new type of radiation that came to be called “X-rays.”
1925: Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming took office as America’s first female governor.
1953: Samuel Beckett’s two-act tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot,” considered a classic of the Theater of the Absurd, premiered in Paris.
1980: “Rapper’s Delight,” by the Sugarhill Gang, became the first hip-hop song to reach the Billboard Top 40.
Jan. 6
1919: Former President Theodore Roosevelt died at age 60.
1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined the goal of “Four Freedoms” for the world: freedom of speech and expression, the freedom of people to worship God in their own way, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
1974: Year-round daylight-saving time began in the United States on a trial basis as a fuel-saving measure in response to the OPEC oil embargo.
1994: Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the leg by an assailant at Detroit’s Cobo Arena; four men, including the ex-husband of Kerrigan’s rival, Tonya Harding, went to prison for their roles in the attack.
2021: Rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in protest of Joe Biden’s victory over incumbent Donald Trump.
Jan. 7
1610: Astronomer Galileo Galilei observed four of Jupiter’s moons for the first time.
1955: Singer Marian Anderson became the first Black American to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.”
1979: Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.
Jan. 8
1790: President George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address in New York City.
1815: The last major engagement of the War of 1812 came to an end as U.S. forces defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans.
1867: The U.S. House of Representatives joined the Senate in overriding President Andrew Johnson’s veto of the District of Columbia Suffrage Act, giving Black men in the nation’s capital the right to vote.
