TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 26
1482 “Pentateuch” the Jewish Bible is 1st printed as a book in Bologna, Italy
1500 Vicente Yáñez Pinzón discovered Brazil.
1564 The Council of Trent issued its conclusions in the Tridentinum, establishing a distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism
1720 Guilio Alberoni is ordered out of Spain after his abortive attempt to restore his country’s empire.
1784 In a letter to his daughter, Benjamin Franklin expressed unhappiness over the eagle as the symbol of America. He wanted the symbol to be the turkey.
1788 A fleet of ships carrying convicts from England lands at Sydney Cove in Australia. The day is since known as Australia’s national day.
1802 Congress passed an act calling for establishment of a library within the US Capitol.
1837 Michigan became the 26th state in the United States.
1861 Louisiana secedes from the Union.
1870 The state of Virgina rejoined the Union.
1875 Pinkerton agents, hunting Jesse James, kill his 18-year-old half-brother and seriously injure his mother with a bomb.
1905 The Cullinan diamond, at 3,106.75 carats, was found by Captain Wells at the Premier Mine, near Pretoria, South Africa
1924 Petrograd is renamed Leningrad.
1926 John Logie Baird gives the first public demonstration of television in his laboratory in London
1934 Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance system.
1943 The first OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent parachutes behind Japanese lines in Burma.
1945 Soviet troops enter Auschwitz, Poland, freeing 7,000 starving camp survivors from the network of concentration camps revealing to the world the depth of the horrors perpetrated there.
1952 Anti British riots in the capital of Egypt Cairo have left 17 British residents murdered or burnt to death during the trouble. King Farouk has declared martial law
1964 Eighty-four people are arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta.
1992 Russian president Boris Yeltsin announced that his country would stop targeting U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.
1993 Vaclav Havel was elected president of the new Czech Republic.
1995 Unexpected missile launch was detected near Norway by Russians early-warning defense radar system. This sudden missile launch occurred must a few minutes away from Moscow.
1996 U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton testified before a grand jury concerning the Whitewater probe.
1998 President Bill Clinton says “I want to say one thing to the American people; I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”
1999 Saddam Hussein vowed revenge against the U.S. in response to air-strikes that reportedly killed civilians. The strikes were U.S. planes defending themselves against anti-aircraft fire.
2004 President Hamid Karzai signed the new constitution of Afghanistan.
2005 Condoleezza Rice is appointed to the post of secretary of state. The post makes her the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in a U.S. presidential cabinet.
2006 Western Union announces the end of Telegram Services from January 31st 2006 the last telegram is sent the next day.
2010 A French parliamentary committee’s report on a partial ban of the burqa, or full Islamic veil, has been made public.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
