TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 24
41 Shortly after declaring himself a god, Caligula is assassinated by two Praetorian tribunes.
1458 Matthias Corvinus, the son of John Hunyadi, is elected king of Hungary.
1639 Representatives from three Connecticut towns band together to write the Fundamental Orders, the first constitution in the New World.
1722 Czar Peter the Great caps his reforms in Russia with the “Table of Rank” which decrees a commoner can climb on merit to the highest positions.
1848 Gold is discovered by James Wilson Marshall at his partner Johann August Sutter’s sawmill on the South Fork of the American River, near Coloma, California.
1899 Rubber heel for boots or shoes patented by American Humphrey O’Sullivan
1903 U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and British Ambassador Herbert create a joint commission to establish the Alaskan border.
1908 Lieutenant General Robert Baden-Powell publishes “Scouting for Boys” as a manual for self-instruction in outdoor skills and self-improvement. The book becomes the inspiration for the Scout Movement.
1922 Christian K. Nelson patented the Eskimo Pie.
1935 Krueger Brewing Company placed the first canned beer on sale in Richmond, VA.
1946 The UN establishes the International Atomic Energy Commission.
1972 Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi was discovered in Guam, having spent 28 years hiding in the jungle thinking World War II was still going on.
1972 The U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws that denied welfare benefits to people who had resided in a state for less than a year.
1978 A nuclear-powered Soviet satellite plunged through Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated. The radioactive debris was scattered over parts of Canada’s Northwest Territory.
1980 In a rebuff to the Soviets, the U.S. announces intentions to sell arms to China.
1982 A draft of Air Force history reports that the U.S. secretly sprayed herbicides on Laos during the Vietnam War.
1984 Apple Computer Inc unveils its revolutionary Macintosh personal computer
1987 In Lebanon, gunmen kidnapped educators Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill and Mitheleshwar Singh. They were all later released.
1989 Ted Bundy, the confessed serial killer, was put to death in Florida’s electric chair for the 1978 kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.
2000 The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Missouri law that limited the contributions that individuals could donate to a candidate during a single election.
2002 The U.S. Congress began a hearing on the collapse of Enron Corp.
2003 The Department of Homeland Security, under Tom Ridge, became a cabinet department.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
