TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 3
1496 Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine
1521 Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
1777 General George Washington defeats the British led by British General Lord Charles Cornwallis, at Princeton, New Jersey.
1825 Scottish factory owner Robert Owen buys 30,000 acres in Indiana as site for New Harmony utopian community
1833 Britain seized control of the Falkland Islands.
1861 Delaware rejects a proposal that it join the South in seceding from the Union.
1876 1st free kindergarten in US opens in Florence MA
1888 1st wax drinking straw patented, by Marvin C Stone in Washington DC
1910 The Social Democratic Congress in Germany demands universal suffrage.
1916 Three armored Japanese cruisers are ordered to guard the Suez Canal.
1920 The last of the U.S. troops depart France.
1921 Italy halts the issuing of passports to those emigrating to the United States.
1924 King Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus is uncovered near Luxor, Egypt.
1925 Benito Mussolini dissolves the Italian parliament and proclaims himself dictator of Italy, taking the title “Il Duce” (the Leader)
1931 Hundreds of farmers storm a small town in depression-plagued Arkansas demanding food.
1946 President Harry S. Truman calls on Americans to spur Congress to act on the on-going labor crisis.
1958 Edmund Hillary reaches South Pole overland
1959 Alaska is admitted into the Union as the 49th and largest state.
1973 George Steinbrenner III buys Yankees from CBS for $12 million
1977 Apple Computers incorporates.
1984 Syria frees captured US pilot after appeal from Jesse Jackson
1985 President Ronald Reagan condemns a rash of arson attacks on abortion clinics.
1985 Israel government confirms resettlement of 10,000 Ethiopian Jews
1990 Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to US forces.
1993 George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
1994 Millions of people from the former Apartheid Homelands gain South African citizenship
2000 The last original weekday Peanuts comic strip is published after a 50-year run, following the death of the strip’s creator, Charles Schultz.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
