TODAY HISTORY LESSON: JANUARY 21
1189 Philip Augustus, Henry II of England and Frederick Barbarossa assemble the troops for the Third Crusade.
1525 The Swiss Anabaptist Movement is born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and a dozen others baptize each other in the home of Manz’s mother in Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union
1648 In Maryland, the first woman lawyer in the colonies, Margaret Brent, is denied a vote in the Maryland Assembly.
1785 Chippewa, Delaware, Ottawa and Wyandot Indians sign the treaty of Fort McIntosh, ceding present-day Ohio to the United States.
1789 W.H. Brown’s “Power of Sympathy” was published. It was the first American novel to be published. The novel is also known as the “Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth”.
1790 Joseph Guillotine proposes a new, more humane method of execution: a machine designed to cut off the condemned person’s head as painlessly as possible.
1793 The French King Louis XVI is guillotined for treason.
1799 Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccination is introduced
1830 Portsmouth (Ohio) blacks forcibly deported
1861 Jefferson Davis of Mississippi & 4 other southern senators resign
1880 1st US sewage disposal system separate from storm drains, Memphis TN
1919 The German Krupp plant begins producing guns under the U.S. armistice terms.
1941 The United States lifts the ban on selling arms to the Soviet Union
1954 The Nautilus was launched in Groton, CT. It was the first atomic-powered submarine. U.S. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower broke the traditional bottle of champagne across the bow.
1958 The Soviet Union calls for a ban on nuclear arms in Baghdad Pact countries.
1968 In Vietnam, the Siege of Khe Sanh begins as North Vietnamese units surround U.S. Marines based on the hilltop headquarters.
1974 The U.S. Supreme Court decides that pregnant teachers can no longer be forced to take long leaves of absence.
1976 Concorde takes off on its first scheduled flights
1977 President Carter urges 65 degrees as the maximum heat in homes to ease the energy crisis.
1979 Neptune becomes outermost planet (Pluto moves closer)
1983 Reagan certifies El Salvador human-rights abuses have decreased making country eligible for US military aid
1991 CBS News correspondent Bob Simon captured by Iraqis in Persian Gulf
1997 Newt Gingrich was fined as the U.S. House of Representatvies voted for first time in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct.
2002 In Goma, Congo, about fifty people were killed when lava flow ignited a gas station. The people killed were trying to steal fuel from elevated tanks. The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo began on January 17, 2002.
2003 The U.S. Census Bureau reported that Hispanics had surpassed Blacks as the largest minority group.
2008 Black Monday in worldwide stock markets. FTSE 100 had its biggest ever one-day points fall, European stocks closed with their worst result since 9/11, and Asian stocks drop as much as 15%.
2010 In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the government cannot restrict the spending of corporations for political campaigns, maintaining that it’s their First Amendment right to support candidates as they choose. This decision upsets two previous precedents on the free-speech rights of corporations.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
