TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 5
1531 Pope Clemens VII forbids English king Henry VIII to re-marry
1781 British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burns Richmond, Virginia
1804 Ohio legislature passes 1st laws restricting free blacks movement
1815 Federalists from all over New England, angered over the War of 1812, draw up the Hartford Convention, demanding several important changes in the U.S. Constitution.
1836 Davy Crockett arrives in Texas, just in time for the Alamo
1861 The merchant vessel Star of the West sets sail from New York to Fort Sumter, in response to rebel attack, carrying supplies and 250 troops.
1896 A German newspaper reported German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery of X-rays.
1904 American Marines arrive in Seoul, Korea, to guard the U.S. legation there.
1914 Henry Ford astounds the world as he announces that he will pay a minimum wage of $5 a day and will share with employees $10 million in the previous year’s profits.
1919 National Socialist Party (Nazi) forms as German Farmers’ Party
1920 GOP women demand equal representation at the Republican National Convention in June.
1923 The U.S. Senate debates the benefits of Peyote for the American Indian
1925 Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is sworn in as the first woman governor in the United States.
1945 Pepe LePew debuts in Warner Bros cartoon “Odor-able Kitty”
1947 Great Britain nationalizes its coal mines.
1957 Eisenhower asks Congress to send troops to the Mid East
1959 “Bozo the Clown” live children’s show premieres on TV
1968 Dr Benjamin Spock indicted for conspiring to violate draft law
1969 President Richard M. Nixon appoints Henry Cabot Lodge as negotiator at the Paris Peace Talks.
1971 President Richard M. Nixon names Robert Dole as chairman of the Republican National Party.
1972 President Nixon ordered the development of the space shuttle.
1976 “MacNeil-Lehrer Report” premieres on PBS
1982 A Federal judge voids a state law requiring balanced classroom treatment of evolution and creationism.
1989 2 French TV newsmen arrested for trying to plant fake bombs on 3 airlines at JFK airport in security test
1993 The state of Washington executed Westley Allan Dodd. It was America’s first legal hanging since 1965. Dodd was an admitted child sex killer.
2000 INS Commissioner Doris Meissner ruled that 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez must be returned to Cuba.
2005 Eris, largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System is discovered in images taken Oct. 21, 2003, at Palomar Observatory.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
