TODAY HISTORY LESSON: JANUARY 29
661 Rashidun Caliphate, then the largest empire in history, ends with the death of its leader, Ali. Succeeded by the Umayyad Caliphate.
1595 William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet” is thought to have been first performed. Officially published early 1597.
1802 John Beckley became the first Librarian of Congress. He was paid $2 a day.
1834 President Jackson orders 1st use of US troops to suppress a labor dispute
1845 Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” was published for the first time in the “New York Evening Mirror.”
1850 Henry Clay introduced in the Senate a compromise bill on slavery that included the admission of California into the Union as a free state.
1861 Kansas is admitted into the Union as the 34th state.
1865 William Quantrill and his Confederate raiders attack Danville, Kentucky.
1886 Karl Benz patents the “Benz Patent-Motorwagen” in Karlsruhe, Germany, the world’s 1st automobile with a burning motor
1926 Violette Neatley Anderson becomes the first African-American woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court
1929 The Seeing Eye, America’s first school for training dogs to guide the blind, founded in Nashville, Tennessee.
1936 Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson were the first players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
1944 The world’s greatest warship, Missouri, is launched.
1950 Riots break out in Johannesburg, South Africa, over the policy of Apartheid.
1955 John William Cox buys Yankee Stadium, sells grounds to Knights of Columbus, later leaves structure to Rice University (1962)
1969 Jimi Hendrix & Peter Townshend wage a battle of guitars
1979 President Carter commuted Patricia Hearst’s 7 year sentence to 2 years
1984 The Soviets issue a formal complaint against alleged U.S. arms treaty violations.
1987 “Physician’s Weekly” announced that the smile on the face of Leonardo DeVinci’s Mona Lisa was caused by a “…facial paralysis resulting from a swollen nerve behind the ear.”
1996 France stops nuclear testing. President Jaques Chirac announced the “definite end” to France’s nuclear testing program just 1 day after the country exploded a nuclear device in the South Pacific.
1997 America Online agreed to give refunds to frustrated customers under threat of lawsuits across the country. Customers were unable to log on after AOL offered a flat $19.95-a-month rate.
1998 A bomb exploded at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, AL, killing an off-duty policeman and severely wounding a nurse. Eric Rudolph was charged with this bombing and three other attacks in Atlanta.
2001 In Indonesia, thousands of student protesters stormed the parliament property and demanded that President Abdurrahman Wahid quit due to his alleged involvement in two corruption scandals. Wahid announced that he would not resign.
2014 Archaeologists announced that they had uncovered what they believed to be the oldest temple in Roman antiquity. The temple was found at the Sant’Omobono site in central Rome.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
