TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 8
1675 The first corporation was chartered in the United States. The company was the New York Fishing Company.
1745 England, Austria, Saxony and the Netherlands form an alliance against Russia.
1790 1st US President George Washington delivers 1st state of the union address
1815 A rag-tag army under Andrew Jackson defeats the British on the fields of Chalmette in the Battle of New Orleans.
1835 The United States national debt is 0 for the first and only time.
1838 Alfred Vail demonstrated a telegraph code he had devised using dots and dashes as letters. The code was the predecessor to Samuel Morse’s code
1856 Borax (hydrated sodium borate) was discovered by Dr. John Veatch.
1877 Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitco) and his warriors fought their final battle against the U.S. Cavalry in Montana.
1889 Computer pioneer Herman Hollerith patents his punched card calculator
1892 A coal mine explosion kills 100 in McAlister, Oklahoma.
1900 U.S. President McKinley placed Alaska under military rule.
1908 A subway line opens linking the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
1918 Woodrow Wilson outlined his Fourteen Points peace program.
1939 Thomas Mooney was originally convicted of a bombing incident that took place in California in the year 1915. However, he had fought for his freedom for over 22 years because he did not even commit the crime. Finally Mooney’s day had come, and he was able to go home to his friends and family.
1940 Great Britain begins rationing sugar, meat and butter.
1945 Soviet Armies had handed over power to the U.S. and British Armies on this date. This event took place in what was known as West Berlin-many years before the walls were torn down between East and West Germany.
1954 President Dwight Eisenhower proposes stripping convicted Communists of their U.S. citizenship.
1964 President Lyndon Johnson announced his War on Poverty.
1973 A citizen’s action group called Action for Children’s Television (ACT) made known its request of the U.S. Federal Government to ban advertisements during children’s television shows.
1975 Ella T. Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first female governor in the US who did not come into office by succeeding her husband.
1979 The United States advises the Shah to leave Iran.
1992 U.S. President George H.W. Bush collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo. White House officials said Bush was suffering from stomach fl
1998 The mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, was sentenced to life in prison.
1999 The top two executives of Salt Lake City’s Olympic Organizing Committee resigned amid disclosures that civic boosters had given cash to members of the International Olympic Committee.
2002 US President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act, intended to improve America’s educational system.
2009 Unemployment around the globe is at the highest level seen in recent times with many countries at or close to 10% including the United States.
2011 An attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is part of a shooting spree in which Jared Lee Loughner kills 6 and wounds 13.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
