TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: JANUARY 3
1431 Joan of Arc handed over to the bishop
1496 References in Leonardo da Vinci notebooks suggested that he tested his flying machine. The test didn’t succeed and he didn’t try to fly again for several years.
1521 Martin Luther is Excommunicated by Pope Leo X from the Roman Catholic Church for failing to recant parts of his Ninety-five Theses which started the Protestant Reformation
1777 General George Washington defeats the British led by British General Lord Charles Cornwallis, at Princeton, New Jersey.
1823 Stephen F. Austin received a grant from the Mexican government and began colonization in the region of the Brazos River in Texas.
1825 Scottish factory owner Robert Owen buys 30,000 acres in Indiana as site for New Harmony utopian community
1861 Delaware rejects a proposal that it join the South in seceding from the Union.
1865 Con Orem & Hugh O’Neill box 193 rounds before darkness ends match
1912 Plans are announced for a new $150,000 Brooklyn stadium for the Trolley Dodgers baseball team.
1916 Three armored Japanese cruisers are ordered to guard the Suez Canal.
1920 The New York Yankees acquired Babe Ruth and so began the “curse of the Bambino” that haunted the Boston Red Sox until 2004.
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.
1938 The March of Dimes was established by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The organization fights poliomyelitis. The original name of the organization was the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.
1946 President Harry S. Truman calls on Americans to spur Congress to act on the on-going labor crisis.
1947 U.S. Congressional proceedings were televised for the first time. Viewers in Washington, Philadelphia and New York City saw some of the opening ceremonies of the 80th Congress.
1957 The first electric watch is available
1959 Alaska is admitted into the Union as the 49th and largest state.
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
1993 George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
1994 More than 7 million people receive South African citizenship that had previously been denied under Apartheid policies.
1999 Israeli authorities detained, and later expelled, 14 members of Concerned Christians. Israili officials claimed that the Denver, CO-based cult was plotting violence in Jerusalem to bring about the Second Coming of Christ.
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.
2001 The ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) charged the “Texas 7” with weapons violations. An autopsy showed that Office Aubrey Hawkins, killed by the convicts, had been shot 11 times and run over with a vehicle.
REFERENCES: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeoplehistory.com, timeandate.com, factmonster.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
