Jan. 29
1891: Lili‘uokalani was sworn in as the first and only queen of the Hawaiian Kingdom following the death of her brother, King Kalākaua.
1936: The first five inductees of baseball’s Hall of Fame — Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson — were elected in Cooperstown, N.Y.
2002: In his first State of the Union address, President George W. Bush said terrorists were still threatening America and warned of “an axis of evil” consisting of North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
Jan. 30
1649: England’s King Charles I was executed for high treason.
1933: Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany.
1948: Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, 78, was shot and killed in New Delhi by a Hindu extremist.
1968: The Tet Offensive began during the Vietnam War as Communist forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese towns and cities.
Jan. 31
1863: During the Civil War, the First South Carolina Volunteers—an all-black Union regiment composed of many who escaped from slavery—was mustered into federal service at Beaufort, South Carolina.
1958: The United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite, Explorer 1, from Cape Canaveral.
1971: Astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.
Feb. 1
1865: Abolitionist John S. Rock became the first black lawyer admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1960: Four black college students began a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., after being refused service.
2002: Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was killed by Islamist militants in Pakistan, nine days after he was kidnapped.
Feb. 2
1536: Present-day Buenos Aires, Argentina, was founded by Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza.
1653: New Amsterdam — now New York City — was incorporated as a city.
1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, officially ending the Mexican American War.
1992: Dissident playwright Václav Havel became the first president of the independent Czech Republic after the split of Czechoslovakia.
Feb. 3
1913: The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, authorizing a federal income tax, was ratified.
1917: The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. That same day, the American cargo ship SS Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat off Britain after the crew was allowed into lifeboats.
1959: In what became known as “the day the music died,” rock ’n’ roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson died in a small plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.
Feb. 4
1789: Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.
1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta.
1974: Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19, was kidnapped in California by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She later took part in a bank robbery with the group and was convicted. (Her sentence was commuted, and she was later pardoned.)
