1569 – England’s first state lottery was held.

1770 – The first shipment of rhubarb was sent to the United States from London.

1805 – The Michigan Territory was created.

1861 – Alabama seceded from the United States.

1867 – Benito Juarez returned to the Mexican presidency, following the withdrawal of French troops and the execution of Emperor Maximilian.

1878 – In New York, milk was delivered in glass bottles for the first time by Alexander Campbell.

1902 – “Popular Mechanics” magazine was published for the first time.

1913 – The first sedan-type car was unveiled at the National Automobile Show in New York City. The car was manufactured by the Hudson Motor Company.

1922 – At Toronto General Hospital, Leonard Thompson became the first person to be successfully treated with insulin.

1935 – Amelia Earhart Putnam became the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California.

1938 – In Limerick, ME, Frances Moulton assumed her duties as the first woman bank president.

1942 – Japan declared war against the Netherlands. The same day, Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies.

1943 – The United States and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China.

1947 – “Murder and Mrs. Malone” debuted on ABC radio.

1958 – “Seahunt” debuted on CBS-TV. The show was aired on the network for four years.

1964 – U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry released a report that said that smoking cigarettes was a definite health hazard.

1973 – The Open University awarded its first degrees.

1973 – Owners of American League baseball teams voted to adopt the designated-hitter rule on a trial basis.

1977 – France released Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

1978 – Two Soviet cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz 27 capsule linked up with the Salyut 6 orbiting space station, where the Soyuz 26 capsule was already docked.

1980 – Nigel Short, age 14, from Bolton in Britain, became the youngest International Master in the history of chess.

1986 – Author James Clavell signed a 5$ million deal with Morrow/Avon Publishing for the book “Whirlwind”. The book is a 2,000 page novel.

1988 – U.S. Vice President George Bush met with representatives of independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh to answer questions about the Iran-Contra affair.

1991 – An auction of silver and paintings that had been acquired by the late Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, brought in a total of $20.29 million at Christie’s in New York.

1996 – Ryutaro Hashimoto become Japan’s prime minister. He replaced Tomiichi Murayama who had resigned on January 5, 1996.

2000 – The merger between AOL and Time Warner was approved by the U.S. government with restrictions.

2000 – The U.S. Postal Service unveiled the second Vietnam Veterans Memorial commemorative stamp in a ceremony at The Wall.

2001 – The Texas Board of Criminal Justice released a review of the escape of the “Texas 7.” It stated that prison staff missed critical opportunities to prevent the escape by ignoring a fire alarm, not reporting unsupervised inmates and not demanding proper identification from inmates.

2001 – The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved the merger of America Online and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner.

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January 10, 1973: Hunt to Burglars: White House Will Take Care of Families If They Plead Guilty, Remain Quiet

E. Howard Hunt, the leader of the seven Watergate burglars (see 2:30 a.m.June 17, 1972) currently on trial, tells fellow burglars Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, and Bernard Barker (sometimes called the “Cubans”) that if they plead guilty and keep their mouths shut, the White House will financially take care of their families. Hunt will plead guilty the next day; the others will plead guilty days later (see January 8-11, 1973). [Spartacus Schoolnet, 8/2007] Hunt has been pressuring the White House for executive clemency—in essence, a presidential pardon—for himself in return for his and the burglars’ guilty pleas and subsequent silence. [Reeves, 2001, pp. 557-558] Watergate burglar Bernard Barker will write of the decision to plead guilty in October 1974. He will recall Hunt as being thoroughly demoralized by the death of his wife Dorothy (see December 8, 1972), and telling Barker, “Well, you do what you want, but I am going to plead guilty.” When Barker asks why, Hunt replies: “We have no defense. The evidence against us is overwhelming.” Barker asks, “What about Liddy and McCord?” asking about the two accused burglars, G. Gordon Liddy and James McCord, who are being tried separately. Hunt replies: “Liddy and McCord are in a different sector. We are in one sector and they are in another. They have their own plan.” Barker then asks the Cubans’ lawyer, Henry Rothblatt, what his strategy is. Rothblatt confirms that they have no defense against the charges (see Early January, 1973), but he intends to “aggravate that Judge Sirica [John Sirica, presiding over the trial] to the point where I am going to drive him out of his cotton-pickin’ mind, and he is going to make so many mistakes with his arrogance that this will be a perfect case for appeal.” Unimpressed, Barker says he will follow Hunt’s lead and plead guilty. Rothblatt insists that Barker not trust Hunt and the others, saying: “They are a bunch of b_stards. They’ll double-cross you. They’ll sell you down the river.” Nevertheless, Barker and the other three burglars agree to follow Hunt’s lead and plead guilty. Rothblatt resigns from the case. Apparently, Barker is unaware at this time of Hunt’s negotiations with the White House for executive clemency for himself. [Harper’s, 10/1974]
Entity Tags: Henry Rothblatt, E. Howard Hunt, Dorothy Hunt, Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, G. Gordon Liddy, John Sirica, Virgilio Gonzalez, James McCord, Frank Sturgis, Nixon administration
Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate

source: historycommons.org

The lend-lease program laid a foundation for the post-war Marshall Plan, which provided aid to European nations to help rebuild their economies after two devastating world wars.

On January 10, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt introduces the lend-lease program to Congress. The plan was intended to help Britain beat back Hitler’s advance while keeping America only indirectly involved in World War II.

Lend-Lease Act

As Roosevelt addressed Congress, the Battle of Britain was in its full destructive swing and Hitler seemed on the verge of invading Great Britain. The cash-strapped Brits desperately needed airplanes, tanks and ships to fight Hitler’s imminent invasion. For months, Britain’s prime minister, Winston Churchill, had begged Roosevelt for help, but the president was committed to abiding by Americans’ wishes to stay out of another bloody world war.

The lend-lease program provided for military aid to any country whose defense was vital to the security of the United States. The plan thus gave Roosevelt the power to lend arms to Britain with the understanding that, after the war, America would be paid back in kind. Congress overwhelmingly accepted the plan, which only staunch isolationists opposed. Roosevelt’s program enabled the U.S. military to prepare for the growing threat of Japan on its Pacific flank while helping Britain to contain Hitler across the Atlantic, as it permitted aid to Europe without committing American troops that might be needed in a Pacific war. Even though Roosevelt’s plan did not require immediate repayment, the United States commandeered what was left of Britain’s gold reserves and overseas investments to help pay for the increased defense production.

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japan forced the entry of the United States into the war. Roosevelt then recognized the strategic advantage of also supplying the Soviet Union with arms under lend-lease in order to draw Hitler’s resources away from Western Europe. This gave the United States a better chance at fighting a war on two fronts while planning for an invasion to liberate Europe. Roosevelt, mindful of the inherent conflict between American democracy and Soviet communism, counted on using U.S. military aid to the Soviet Union as a bargaining chip in post-war diplomatic relations.

By the end of the war the United States had given more than $50 billion in armaments and financial support to Britain, the U.S.S.R. and 37 other countries. The lend-lease program laid a foundation for the post-war Marshall Plan, which provided aid to European nations to help rebuild their economies after two devastating world wars.

The first General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising 51 nations, convenes at Westminster Central Hall in London, England. One week later, the U.N. Security Council met for the first time and established its rules of procedure. Then, on January 24, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction

for the complete article .. history.com

1776 – “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine was published.

1840 – The penny post, whereby mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than paid for by the recipient, began in Britain.

1861 – Florida seceded from the United States.

1863 – Prime Minister Gladstone opened the first section of the London Underground Railway system, from Paddington to Farringdon Street.

1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.

1901 – Oil was discovered at the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont, TX.

1911 – Major Jimmie Erickson took the first photograph from an airplane while flying over San Diego, CA.

1920 – The League of Nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I with Germany.

1927 – Fritz Lang’s film “Metropolis” was first shown, in Berlin.

1928 – The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky.

1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sailed from Miami, FL, to Trinidad thus becoming the first American President to visit a foreign country during wartime.

1943 – The quiz show, “The Better Half,” was heard for the first time on Mutual Radio.

1946 – The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place with 51 nations represented.

1950 – Ben Hogan appeared for the first time in a golf tournament since an auto accident a year earlier. He tied ‘Slammin’ Sammy Snead in the Los Angeles Open, however, Hogan lost in a playoff.

1951 – Donald Howard Rogers piloted the first passenger jet on a trip from Chicago to New York City.

1957 – Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation of Anthony Eden.

1963 – The Chicago Cubs became the first baseball club to hire an athletic director. He was Robert Whitlow. (MLB)

1971 – “Masterpiece Theatre” premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke. The introduction drama series was “The First Churchills.”

1978 – The Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a redezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory.

1981 – In El Salvador, Marxist insurgents launched a “final offensive”.

1984 – The United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century.

1986 – The uncut version of Jerome Kern’s musical, “Showboat”, opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

1990 – Chinese Premier Li Peng ended martial law in Beijing after seven months. He said that crushing pro-democracy protests had saved China from “the abyss of misery.”

1990 – Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. completed a $14 billion merger. The new company, Time Warner, was the world’s largest entertainment company.

1994 – In Manassas, VA, Lorena Bobbitt went on trial. She had been charged with maliciously wounding her husband John. She was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.

1997 – Shelby Lynne Barrackman was strangled to death by her grand-father when she licked the icing off of cupcakes. He was convicted of the crime on September 15, 1998.

2000 – It was announced that Time-Warner had agreed to buy America On-line (AOL). It was the largest-ever corporate merger priced at $162 billion. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the deal on December 14, 2000.

2001 – American Airlines agreed to acquire most of Trans World Airlines (TWA) assets for about $500 million. The deal brought an end to the financially troubled TWA.

2002 – In France, the “Official Journal” reported that all women could get the morning-after contraception pill for free in pharmacies.

2003 – North Korea announced that it was withdrawing from the global nuclear arms control treaty and that it had no plans to develop nuclear weapons.

2007 – The iTunes Music Store reached 1.3 million feature length films sold and 50 million television episodes sold.

2019 – In Venezuela, Juan Guaidó and the National Assembly declared incumbent President Nicolás Maduro “illegitimate” and started the process of attempting to remove him from office.

2020 – The green Ford Mustang from the 1968 Steve McQueen thriller “Bullitt” was sold for $3.4 million at the Mecum Auctions event in Kissimmee, FL.

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