TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: JANUARY 5
1477 Swiss troops defeat the forces under Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy.
1531 Pope Clemens VII forbids English king Henry VIII to re-marry
1781 British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burns Richmond, Virginia
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.
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.
1895 Alfred Dreyfus is sentenced to life imprisonment. The French artillery officer was accused of treason. He was later exonerated.
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.
1905 Charles Perrine announces discovery of Jupiter’s 7th satellite, Elara
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 German Workers’ Party forms, precursor to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi)
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.
1927 Judge Landis begins 3-day public hearing on charges that 4 games played between Chicago & Detroit in 1917 had been thrown to White Sox
1933 Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins
1945 Pepe LePew debuts in Warner Bros cartoon “Odor-able Kitty”
1947 Great Britain nationalizes its coal mines.
1956 In the Peanuts comic strip, Snoopy walked on two legs for the first time.
1972 President Nixon ordered the development of the space shuttle.
1981 British police arrest Peter Sutcliffe, a truck driver later convicted of “Yorkshire Ripper” murders of 13 women
1982 A Federal judge voids a state law requiring balanced classroom treatment of evolution and creationism.
1993 The oil tanker MV Braer runs aground on the coast of the Shetland Islands. The oil tanker spilled twice as much crude oil as the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
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.
REFERENCES: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeoplehistory.com, timeandate.com, factmonster.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
