TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 8
1610 Simon Marius. a German astronomer, independently discovers the first three moons of Jupiter one day after Galileo
1675 1st American commercial corporation chartered (New York Fishing Co)
1708 Spanish armada headed by the San Jose and loaded with gold sunk after British squadron attacks off coast of Colombia (rediscovered 2015)
1790 1st US President George Washington delivers 1st state of the union address
1798 11th Amendment ratified, judicial powers construed
1815 The Battle of New Orleans began. The War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814, with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The news of the signing had not reached British troops in time to prevent their attack on New Orleans.
1835 US national debt is $0 for the first and only time in history
1877 Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).
1889 The tabulating machine was patented by Dr. Herman Hollerith. His firm, Tabulating Machine Company, later became International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
1902 New York state assemblyman Francis G. Landon gets a bill passed to criminalize men turning around on a street and “looking at a woman in that way”
1908 A subway line opens linking the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
1918 Woodrow Wilson outlined his Fourteen Points peace program.
1918 Mississippi becomes 1st state to ratify the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution, authorizing the prohibition of alcohol
1926 Abdulaziz Ibn Saud becomes King of Nejd and Hejaz; forerunner of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson declares “War on Poverty”
1975 Ella T. Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first female governor in the US who did not come into office by succeeding her husband.
1979 The United States advises the Shah to leave Iran.
1982 The AT&T Bell System telephone monopoly agreed to divest itself of 22 Bell System companies and split itself into seven “Baby Bells.”
1992 George H. W. Bush gets ill & vomits on Japanese prime minister’s lap
1994 Valeri Polyakov, a Russian cosmonaut leaves earth, bound for the Mir space station; he will spend a record 437 days in space
1998 The mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, was sentenced to life in prison.
2002 US President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act, intended to improve America’s educational system
2011 An attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is part of a shooting spree in which Jared Lee Loughner kills 6 and wounds 13.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
