TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 22
1666 Shah Jahan, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, died at the age of 74. He was the Mongul emperor of India that built the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz-i-Mahal.
1689 England’s “Bloodless Revolution” reaches its climax when parliament invites William and Mary to become joint sovereigns.
1807 President Thomas Jefferson exposes a plot by Aaron Burr to form a new republic in the Southwest.
1813 During the War of 1812, British forces under Henry Proctor defeat a U.S. contingent planning an attack on Fort Detroit.
1874 A patent was issued to Samuel W. Francis for the spork.
1879 Eighty-two British soldiers hold off attacks by 4,000 Zulu warriors at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in South Africa.
1879 James Shields began a term as a U.S. Senator from Missouri. He had previously served Illinois and Minnesota. He was the first Senator to serve three states.
1901 Queen Victoria of England died after reigning for 63 years (the 4th longest among longest-reigning monarchs and the longest for queens).
1905 Russian troops fire on civilians beginning Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg.
1917 U.S. President Wilson pleaded for an end to war in Europe, calling for “peace without victory.” America entered the war the following April.
1929 The bill that would make farmers exempt from a five cents gas tax was rejected by the Senate on this day.
1930 Excavation for the Empire State Building began. When completed only 410 days after the construction began, it stood as the world’s tallest building.
1932 Government troops crush a Communist uprising in Northern Spain.
1939 A Nazi order erases the old officer caste, tying the army directly to the Party.
1943 Americans had bombed Italian Railroads in an effort to thwart a lecture being given by Hitler addressed to the Italian leader Benito Mussolini. The bombing was an attempt to force Italy to resist Hitler’s Power.
1946 US president Harry Truman sets up the Central Intelligence Agency
1950 Alger Hiss, a former adviser to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, was convicted of perjury for denying contacts with a Soviet agent. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
1957 This was the day when a New York man, known as the “Mad Bomber” had confessed to the planting of approximately 30 bombs within New York City.
1971 Communist forces shell Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the first time.
1973 Roe vs Wade: US Supreme Court legalizes most abortions
1979 Abu Hassan, the alleged planner of the 1972 Munich raid, is killed by a bomb in Beirut.
1982 President Ronald Reagan formally links progress in arms control to Soviet repression in Poland.
1984 A new Apple Computer was introduced . The ad for the new Macintosh computer was first displayed during the Super Bowl.
1995 Two Palestinian suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip detonated powerful explosives at a military transit point in central Israel, killing 19 Israelis.
1997 The U.S. Senate confirmed Madeleine Albright as the first female secretary of state.
1998 Theodore Kaczynski pled guilty to federal charges for his role as the Unabomber. He agreed to life in prison without parole.
2000 Elian Gonzalez’s grandmothers met privately with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno as they appealed for help in removing the boy from his Florida relatives and reuniting him with his father in Cuba.
2002 Kmart Corp files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
2002 In Calcutta, India, Heavily armed gunmen attacked the U.S. government cultural center. Five police officers were killed and twenty others, including one pedestrian and one private security guard, were wounded.
2002 Lawyers suing Enron Corp. asked a court to prevent further shredding of documents due to the pending federal investigation.
2008 Following stocks plunging around the world on Monday 21st January, The Federal Reserve slashed a key interest rate by 3/4 of a percentage point on federal funds rate from 4.25 percent down to 3.5 percent on Tuesday Jan. 22nd, and signaled that further rate cuts were likely.
2010 Following an announcement by US President Barack Obama of plans to regulate the banking industry, the US stock market drop continues, The market lost nearly 3.0% in 2 days and the banking sector has dropped up to 5.0%
2013 The United Nations Security Council approved the tightening of sanctions after North Korea test launched a long-range missile.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
