TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 24
41 Claudius succeeds his nephew Caligula as Roman Emperor after the later’s assassination by officers of the Praetorian Guard
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 was first discovered in California, in Sutter’s mill. When President Polk announced the news in December, the gold rush began.
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.
1911 U.S. Cavalry is sent to preserve the neutrality of the Rio Grande during the Mexican Civil War.
1922 Eskimo Pie patented by Christian K Nelson of Iowa (not an Eskimo)
1931 The League of Nations rebukes Poland for the mistreatment of a German minority in Upper Silesia.
1935 The first canned beer goes on sale “Krueger Cream Ale,” sold by Krueger Brewing Co. of Richmond, Va.to the general public.
1946 The UN establishes the International Atomic Energy Commission.
1958 After warming to 100,000,000º, 2 light atoms are bashed together to create a heavier atom, resulting in 1st man-made nuclear fusion
1961 The divorce of Marilyn Monroe to playwright Arthur Miller is granted in Mexico, where a judge signed the decree. The grounds of divorce were listed as “incompatibility”.
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.
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.
1988 1st WWF Royal Rumble – Jim Duggan wins
1989 1st reported case of AIDS transmitted by heterosexual oral sex
1990 Japan launches its first lunar probe
2003 The Department of Homeland Security, under Tom Ridge, became a cabinet department.
2011 An explosion caused by a suicide bomber at the Domodedovo Airport in Moscow kills over thirty people and injures over one-hundred people.
2013 The US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that the military would end its ban on women in combat roles in the US Armed Forces.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
