TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 2
1492 Catholic forces under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella take the town of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain.
1788 Georgia was admitted to the Union as the 4th state.
1791 Big Bottom massacre in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the Northwest Indian War
1811 US Sen Thomas Pickering is 1st senator censured (revealed confidential documents communicated by the president of the US)
1839 Photography pioneer Louis Daguerre takes the first photograph of the moon.
1865 Welterweight Con Orem & heavyweight Hugh O’Neill brawl for 185 rounds before darkness ends legendary bare knuckle boxing match in Virginia City, Montana
1903 President Theodore Roosevelt closes a post office in Indianola, Mississippi, for refusing to hire a Black postmistress.
1920 Responding to global fear of communism caused by the Russian Revolution, US Attorney General Palmer authorizes raids across the country on unionists and socialists
1923 Ku Klux Klan surprise attack on black residential area Rosewood Florida, 8 killed (compensation awarded in 1995)
1935 The Bruno R. Hauptmann trial began for the kidnap and murder of the Lindbergh baby.
1936 In Berlin, Nazi officials claim that their treatment of Jews is not the business of the League of Nations.
1959 The first spacecraft to fly by the Moon and also to orbit the Sun, Mechta (Luna 1) was launched by the USSR.
1960 John Reynolds sets age of solar system at 4,950,000,000 years
1974 U.S. President Richard M. Nixon signed a bill requiring all states to lower the maximum speed limit to 55 MPH. The law was intended to conserve gasoline supplies during an embargo imposed by Arab oil-producing countries. Federal speed limits were abolished in 1995.
1980 President Jimmy Carter asks the U.S. Senate to delay the arms treaty ratification in response to Soviet action in Afghanistan
1981 British police arrest the “Yorkshire Ripper” serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe.
1983 Gary Trudeau takes a 20-month break from writing “Doonesbury”
1988 Ashland Oil storage tank spills 3.8 million gallons
1996 The US deploys troops in Northern Bosnia with the intention of maintaining order and peace between Bosnian Serbs and Muslims
2006 A coal mine explosion in Sago, West Virginia, kills 12 miners and critically injures another. This accident and another within weeks lead to the first changes in federal mining laws in decades.
2016 Saudi Arabia executes 47 alleged terrorists, including Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
