31 January 1958
On this date in 1958...
Explorer I was the first satellite launched by the United States was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida by the Jupiter C rocket and was designed, built, and launched under the direction of Dr. Wernher Von Braun.
Other Years:
- 1861 - Louisiana state troops seized the U.S. Mint and Customs House in New Orleans.
- 1865 - General Robert E. Lee was appointed commander-in-chief of the Confederate States forces.
- 1865 - The US House of Representatives passed the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.
- 1874 - The James-Younger gang robbed a train at Gads Hill, Missouri.
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30 January 1838
On this date in 1838...
Seminole Chief Osceola died in prison at Fort Moultrie, on Charleston Harbor, South Carolina from what many say was a broken heart.
Other Years:
- 1712 – During the Tuscarora War, South Carolina settlers and Indian allies led by Colonel John Barnwell destroyed a fort built and manned by the Tuscaroroa and Coree tribes near New Bern, North Carolina.
- 1861 - The U.S. revenue cutter Lewis Cass surrendered to Alabama state troops at Mobile.
- 1863 - The ironclads C.S.S. Chicora and C.S.S. Palmetto State, dispersed the entire Union blockade fleet in front of Charleston harbor and raised the federal blockade for 24 hours.
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29 January 1845
On this date in 1845...
Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Raven" was first published in the New York Evening Mirror. American literature has never been the same since.
Other Years:
- 1802 - John Beckley of Virginia was appointed first Librarian of Congress.
- 1832 - Folsom's band of Choctaw reached the Kiamichi River region of Indian Territory.
- 1834 - US President Andrew Jackson ordered first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labor dispute on the Chesepeake and Ohio Canal.
- 1850 – Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky proposed the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.
- 1872 - Francis L. Cardoza was elected State Treasurer of South Carolina.
- 1964 - In Louisiana, Grand Avenue High School of DeQuincy, Louisiana defeated Audrey Memorial High School of Cameron, Louisiana and posted sports history’s most lopsided high-school basketball score, 211-29.
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28 January 1986
On this date in 1986...
The space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The blast killed all seven crew members, including flight commander Francis R. “Dick” Scobee; pilot Michael J. Smith; Ronald E. McNair; Ellison S. Onizuka; Judith A. Resnik; Gregory B. Jarvis; and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
Other Years:
- 1833 - A Cherokee commission of John Ross, John Baldridge, Richard Taylor, and Joseph Vann, met with the Secretary of War in Washington and refused to negotiate about Cherekee removal while the federal government failed to live up to its agreements to protect them from the State of Georgia,
- 1861 - South Carolina adopted the Palmetto Flag.
- 1861 - Louisiana state troops occupied Fort Macomb.
- 1865 - The cruiser C.S.S. Stonewall was officially designated and began its trip to the Confederate States.
- 1980 - The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Blackthorn collided with the tanker Capricorn while leaving Tampa, Florida and capsized killing 23 Coast Guard crewmembers.
- 1981 – The tanker Olympic Glory collided with another vessel and spilled a million gallons of oil in Galveston Bay, Texas.
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27 January 1825
On this date in 1825...
The U.S. Congress approved Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians down the "Trail of Tears."
Other Years:
- 1785 – The first state university was chartered at Athens, Georgia.
- 1814 - Red Stick Creeks attacked an encampment of almost 1,000 Georgia militia and allied Indians on Callabee Creek. The Allies lost 22 killed and almost 150 wounded and the American expedition was forced to leave the area.
- 1826 - Confederate General Richard Taylor was born in the Zachary Taylor House at Louisville, Kentucky.
- 1870 - After accepting the 15th amendment, Virginia was readmitted to the United States.
- 1956 - Elvis Presley recorded his first single for RCA, "Heartbreak Hotel." It became the first of many #1 hits for Presley.
- 1967 - Astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo 1 spacecraft at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
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26 January 1945
On this date in 1945...
While covering the men of his company near Holtzwihr, France, Texan 2nd Lt. Audie Murphy killed more than 240 German soldiers and destroyed 6 tanks. For this and other courageous actions, Murphy became the most decorated American soldier of WWII.
Other Years:
- 1716 - A Creek and Yamassee delegation arrived at the neutral Cherokee village of Tugaloo in northeastern Georgia. Rather than talking peace, the delegation urges the Cherokee to help attack South Carolina settlements. The Cherokee killed the representatives.
- 1838 - Tennessee enacted the first prohibition law in the United States
- 1861 - Georgia state troops seized Oglethorpe Barracks and Fort Jackson.
- 1861 - Louisiana seceded from the union.
- 1861 – The "Arkansaw" comedian Harry McCarthy began writing The Bonnie Blue Flag after witnesing the unfurling of the new Mississippi Republic flag in Jackson.
- 1875 - As many as 40 Mexican and Indian cattle rustlers attacked a squad from troop G, ninth cavalry outside Ringgold Barracks, Texas killing two troopers. Several suspects were captured and 9 Mexicans were found guilty of murder.
- 1983 - Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant died in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
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25 January 1993
On this date in 1993...
Muslim extremist Mir Aimal Qazi fired on CIA employees as they waited in their cars at a stoplight near the entrance of Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Two CIA employees were killed and three others wounded. Qazi was convicted of capital murder and executed by lethal injection in 2002.
Other Years:
- 1947 - Al Capone died of complications of syphilis, pneumonia, and heart failure at Palm Island, Florida after fearing all his life he would suffer a violent death.
- 1999 - In Louisville, KY, Matthew Scott received the first hand transplant in the United States.
- 2010 - In Arlington, TX, the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame opened.
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24 January 1814
On this date in 1814...
An attack by Andrew Jackson's force of American soldiers and Indian allies caused considerable losses on the Red Stick Creeks led by William Weatherford at Enitachopco Creek in Alabama.
Other Years:
- 1781- Lt. Col. Henry Lee and Francis Marion’s Patriot troops raided British installations at Georgetown, South Carolina.
- 1806 - Cherokee Chief Doublehead and 16 others signed a treaty ceding lands on the north side of the Tennessee River for a little over $10,000, a cotton gin, and a gristmill. Cherokee traditionalists will kill Doublehead for making the agreement.
- 1861 - Georgia state troops took control of the federal arsenal in Augusta.
- 1940 - The movie, The Grapes of Wrath was released, detailing the hardships of Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl victims as they searched for work in California.
- 1952 - Texas organized its first NFL team the Dallas Texans (formerly the NY Yanks.)
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23 January 1812
On this date in 1812...
An estimated magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit the Missouri boot-heel during the New Madrid earthquake swarm and was felt all across the South. When Shawnee chief Tecumseh had visited the Creek Indians, he told them to wait for a sign which would tell then it was time to begin their uprising against the whites. Tecumseh said he would stamp the ground and make every house in Tuckabatchee fall down. Many Creek felt this tremor was the sign.
Other Years:
- 1861 - The Louisiana secession convention convened.
- 1897 - Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.
- 1964 - The 24th Amendment abolished the poll tax, which had originally been instituted in 11 southern states.
- 1973 - U.S. President Richard Nixon announced an accord had been reached to end the Vietnam War.
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22 January 1973
On this date in 1973...
The US Supreme Court issued its Roe v. Wade opinion legalizing abortion-on-demand and over-ruling laws against infanticide in all Southern states.
Other Years:
- 1599 – In retaliation for an ambushed patrol, Spanish soldiers attacked the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, burning most of the village and killing more than 600 Indians and enslaving 500 others.
- 1875 - D.W. Griffith, early film director and producer best known for Birth of a Nation and Intolerance was born in LaGrange, Kentucky.
- 1879 - James Shields began a term as a U.S. Senator from Missouri. He had previously served Illinois and Minnesota. He was the first Senator to serve three states
- 1961 - Wilma Rudolph, from St. Bethlehem, Tennessee set a world indoor record in the women’s 60-yard dash, 6.9 seconds.
- 1985 - A cold wave damaged 90% of Florida's citrus crop.
- 2000 - Elian Gonzalez's grandmothers met privately with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno as they appealed for help in removing the boy from his Florida relatives and reuniting him with his father in Cuba.
- 2001 - Authorities captured four of the "Texas 7" in a Woodland Park, Colorado convenience store with a fifth convict killed himself inside a motor home.
- 2002 - Lawyers suing Texas-based Enron Corp. asked a court to prevent further shredding of documents due to the pending federal investigation.
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21 January 1824
On this date in 1824...
Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was born in Clarksburg, Virginia.
Other Years:
- 1698 - French missionary Father de Montigny reached the Tensas Indian village on the Mississippi River in Louisiana and stayed with them to instruct them in Catholic Christianity.
- 1789 - Georgetown College was established as the first Catholic college in the U.S. in Washington, DC.
- 1861 - Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and 4 other southern senators resigned after their states seceded.
- 1880 - Memphis, Tennessee started operation of the first sewage disposal system separate from storm drains in the U.S. designed George E. Waring,Jr.
- 1987 - B.B. King donated his 7,000 record collection to the University of Mississippi.
- 1997 - A judge in Fairfax, Virginia sentenced Mir Aimal Kasi to death for an attack outside the CIA headquarters in 1993 that killed two men and wounded three other people.
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20 January 1981
On this date in 1981...
Iran released 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, just minutes after the U.S. presidency passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.
Other Years:
- 1801 - John Marshall of Virginia was appointed chief justice of the United States.
- 1861 - Mississippi state troops seized federal installations at Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico.
- 1868 - Florida’s reconstruction constitutional convention met in Tallahassee.
- 1870 - The Mississippi reconstruction legislature elected AME minister Hiram R. Revels to finish the term of Jefferson Davis as U.S. Senator for Mississippi.
- 1891 - James Hogg took office as the first native-born governor of Texas.
- 1952 - In Juarez, Mexico, Patricia McCormick of Texas debuted as the first professional woman bullfighter from the United States.
- 1988 - An Arizona committee opened a hearing on the impeachment of Governor Evan Mecham.
- 1994 - Shannon Faulkner became the first woman to attend classes at The Citadel in South Carolina under court order but soon dropped out.
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19 January 1807
Other Years:
- 1847 - Governor George Bent was attacked, killed, and scalped along with eight other Americans in Don Fernandez de Taos (now Taos) New Mexico while trying to prevent a revolt of Mexican and Pueblo Indians. Many Mexicans would join the revolt against the Americans.
- 1861 - Georgia seceded from the Union.
- 1862 - The Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky.
- 1937 - Texas millionaire Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
- 1977 - Snow fell for the only time in recorded history in Miami, Florida. Snow also fell in the Bahamas.
- 1982 – A heater exploded at Star Elementary School in Spencer, Oklahoma, killing 6 children and a teacher.
- 1987 - Guy Hunt became Alabama's first Republican governor since 1874.
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18 January 1983
On this date in 1983...
Jim Thorpe's two confiscated Olympic gold medals from the 1912 Stockholm pentathlon and decathlon were returned to his heirs.
Other Years:
- 1803 - Thomas Jefferson by secret communication with Congress sought authorization for the first official exploratory expedition by the U.S. government.
- 1862 - The Confederate Territory of Arizona was formed
- 1916 - A 611 gram chondrite-type meteorite struck a house near the village of Baxter in Stone County, Missouri.
- 1939 - Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded "Jeepers Creepers."
- 1981 – Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachuted off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories
- 1990 – Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting
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17 January 1781
On this date in 1781...
Continental Army forces and militia commanded by Daniel Morgan of Virginia won a decisive victory over the British Army led by Colonel Banastre Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens in northwestern Cherokee County, South Carolina. Cowpens was a turning point in the Patriot campain to retake South Carolina from British control.
Other Years:
- 1806 - James Madison Randolph, grandson of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, was the first child born in the White House.
- 1821 - Mexico permitted Moses Austin and 300 American families to settle in Texas. After Moses Austin’s death leadership of the colony passes to his son Stephen F. Austin.
- 1874 - Armed Democrats seized and liberated the Texas government, ending radical reconstruction in Texas.
- 1893 - A group northern US-backed businessmen and sugar planters forced Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate her throne. The coup ended Hawaii’s ancestral monarchy.
- 1900 - Yaqui Indians in Texas proclaimed their independence from Mexico.
- 1983 - Alabama Gov George C Wallace, became governor for a record fourth time.
- 1998 - U.S. President Bill Clinton gave his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit becoming the first U.S. President to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil lawsuit.
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16 January 1935
On this date in 1935...
FBI agents killed Missouri gangsters Fred and Ma Barker at their hideout in Lake Weir, Florida.
Other Years:
- 1825 - Confederate General George Pickett was born in Richmond, Virginia.
- 1831 - Mushulatubbe declared he would resign as Chief of the Choctaw when removal to Indian Territory started. He recommended that Peter Pitchlynn as his replacement.
- 1871 - Jefferson Long of Georgia was sworn in as the second black U.S. Congressman during reconstruction.
- 1919 - The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,prohibiting the sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages, was ratified.
- 1920 - Prohibition went into effect in the U.S.
- 1991 - The White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive invading Iraqi forces from Kuwait during the undeclared First Persian Gulf War.
- 1998 - The first woman to enroll at Virginia Military Institute withdrew from school.
- 1998 - It was announced that Texas would receive $15.3 billion in a tobacco industry settlement with payouts planned over 25 years.
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15 January 1895
On this date in 1895...
Deputy U.S. Marshal Bill Tilghman captured outlaw Bill Doolin of the “Wild Bunch” while Doolin recuperated at a health resort at Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Tilghman entered a bath house, and spotted Bill Doolin seated in the lobby. After A breif struggle Tilghman returned Doolin to Oklahoma for trial. Doolin soon escaped from a Guthrie, Oklahoma jail and briefly continued his outlaw career before Marshall Heck Thomas’s posse ended it for good with a shotgun blast to the chest.
Other Years:
- 1704 - The Spanish Governor of Florida, Juan Ruiz Mexia, launched a disasterous expedition of Spanish soldiers and Apalachee Indians to re-capture Spanish Mission of Ayubale in northern Florida from South Carolina militia and a thousand Creek allies under Governor James Moore.
- 1821 - Confederate General and U.S. Vice-president John C. Breckinridge was born in Lexington, Kentucky.
- 1844 - Confederate guerrilla and bandit Thomas Coleman "Cole" Younger was born at the Younger family farm in Jackson County, Missouri.
- 1861 - Florida officials seized the U.S. Coast Guard Survey Steamer Dana at St. Augustine.
- 1864 - Sixty starving Navajo surrendered to Kit Carson after the Battle of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona.
- 1927 - The Tennessee Supreme Court overturned John Scopes' guilty verdict for teaching evolution on a technicality, but the law was allowed to remain in place.
- 1943 - The Pentagon was dedicated as the world's largest office building in Arlington, Virginia covering 34 acres with 17 miles of corridors.
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14 January 1806
On this date in 1806...
Matthew Fontaine Maury, a commander in the CS Navy, diplomat for CS government in Europe, meteorologist, and the father of naval oceanography was born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
Other Years:
- 1784 - The United States ratified a peace treaty with England ending the Revolutionary War.
- 1833 - Missionary to the Cherokee. Reverend Samuel Worcester was released from imprisonment on a charge of defying the state’s order to swear allegiance to Georgia or leave the Cherokee nation..
- 1861 - Louisiana state troops seized Fort Pike and Fort Pickens fell to Florida state troops.
- 1863 – Confederate and federal gunboats fought on Bayou Teche, Louisiana.
- 1874 - Northern mulatto abolishonist I. D. Shadd was elected as Speaker of the lower house of Mississippi’s reconstruction legislature.
- 1943 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane while in office, flying from Miami, Florida to Morocco.
- 1963 - George C Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama. His inagural address contained his signature line, "Segregation now; segregation tomorrow; segregation forever!"
- 1973 - The Miami Dolphins defeated the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII and became the first NFL team to go undefeated in a season.
- 1985 - Former Miss America, Phyllis George of Texas joined Bill Kurtis as host of "The CBS Morning News"
- 1998 - In Dallas, Texas researchers reported an enzyme that slowed the aging process and prevented cell death.
- 1999 - The impeachment trial of U.S. President Bill Clinton began.
- 2004 - In St. Louis, the Lewis and Clark Exhibition opened at the Missouri History Museum featuring more than 500 rare and priceless objects used by the Corps of Discovery.
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13 January 1990
On this date in 1990...
Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the first elected black governor in the U.S. when he took the oath of office in Richmond.
Other Years:
- 1794 - U.S. President George Washington approved adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the union.
- 1815 - During the War of 1812, British troops captured Fort Peter in St. Marys, Georgia, the only battle of the war to take place in the state.
- 1830 - The Great Fire of New Orleans began.
- 1873 - P.B.S. Pinchback relinquished his office as Louisiana governor during reconstruction.
- 1968 – Johnny Cash performed live at Folsom State Prison.
- 1997 - Debbie Reynolds of El Paso, Texas finally received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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12 January 1864
Other Years:
- 1773 - The first public museum in America was established in Charleston, SC.
- 1861 - Florida state troops occupied Barrancas Barracks, Fort Barrancas, the Navy Yard at Pensacola, and demanded the surrender of Fort Pickens .
- 1896 - At Davidson College in North Carolina several students took x-ray photographs, the first X-ray photographs to be made in America.
- 1915 -The United States House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.
- 1944 - Olympic gold medal boxer and undisputed Heavyweight Champion “Smokin” Joe Frazier was born in Beaufort, South Carolina.
- 1948 - In Sipuel v Oklahoma State Board of Regents, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision requiring the admission of qualified black students to previously all-white state law schools.
- 1952 – The University of Tennessee admitted it's first black student
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