1789 – W.H. Brown’s “Power of Sympathy” was published. It was the first American novel to be published. The novel is also known as the “Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth”.

1793 – During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI was executed on the guillotine. He had been condemned for treason.

1812 – The Y-bridge in Zanesville, OH, was approved for construction.

1846 – The first issue of the “Daily News,” edited by Charles Dickens, was published.

1853 – Dr. Russell L. Hawes patented the envelope folding machine.

1861 – The future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, resigned from the U.S. Senate. Four other Southerners also resigned.

1865 – An oil well was drilled by torpedoes for the first time.

1900 – Canadian troops set sail to fight in South Africa. The Boers had attacked Ladysmith on January 8, 1900.

1908 – In New York City, the Sullivan Ordinance was passed. It made smoking in public places by women illegal. The measure was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. two weeks later.

1911 – The first Monte Carlo car rally was held. Seven days later it was won by Henri Rougier.

1915 – The first Kiwanis club was formed in Detroit, MI.

1924 – Soviet leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died. Joseph Stalin began a purge of his rivals for the leadership of the Soviet Union.

1927 – The first opera broadcast over a national radio network was presented in Chicago, IL. The opera was “Faust”.

1941 – The British communist newspaper, the “Daily Worker,” was banned due to wartime restrictions.

1946 – “The Fat Man” debuted on ABC radio.

1954 – The Nautilus was launched in Groton, CT. It was the first atomic-powered submarine. U.S. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower broke the traditional bottle of champagne across the bow.

1954 – The gas turbine automobile was introduced in New York City.

1970 – The Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight from New York to London for Pan American.

1970 – ABC-TV presented “The Johnny Cash Show” in prime time.

1976 – The French Concorde SST aircraft began regular commercial service for Air France and British Airways.

1977 – U.S. President Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.

1980 – Gold was valued at $850 an ounce.

1986 – Former major-league player, Randy Bass, became the highest-paid baseball player in Japanese history. Bass signed a three-year contract for $3.25 million. He played for the Hanshin Tigers.

1994 – A jury in Manassas, VA, acquitted Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding (severing his penis) her husband John. She accused him of sexually assaulting her.

1997 – Newt Gingrich was fined as the U.S. House of Representatives voted for the first time in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct.

1999 – The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a ship headed for Houston, TX, that had over 9,500 pounds of cocaine aboard. It was one of the largest drug busts in U.S. history.

2002 – In Goma, Congo, about fifty people were killed when lava flow ignited a gas station. The people killed were trying to steal fuel from elevated tanks. The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo began on January 17, 2002.

2002 – In London, a 17th century book by Capt. John Smith, founder of the English settlement at Jamestown, was sold at auction for $48,800. “The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles” was published in 1632.

Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, declaring that “democracy has prevailed” and summoning American resilience and unity

– PBS

1265 – The first English parliament met in Westminster Hall.

1801 – John Marshall was appointed chief justice of the United States.

1839 – Chile defeated a confederation of Peru and Bolivia in the Battle of Yungay.

1841 – The island of Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain. It returned to Chinese control in July 1997.

1885 – The roller coaster was patented by L.A. Thompson.

1886 – The Mersey Railway Tunnel was officially opened by the Prince of Wales.

1887 – The U.S. Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.

1891 – James Hogg took office as the first native-born governor of Texas.

1892 – The first official basketball game was played by students at the Springfield, MA, YMCA Training School.

1929 – The movie “In Old Arizona” was released. The film was the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors.

1937 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to be inaugurated on January 20th. The 20th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution officially set the date for the swearing in of the President and Vice President.

1942 – Nazi officials held the Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their “final solution” that called for exterminating Europe’s Jews.

1944 – The British RAF dropped 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.

1952 – In Juarez, Mexico, Patricia McCormick debuted as the first professional woman bullfighter from the United States.

1953 – “Studio One” became the first television show to be transmitted from the United States to Canada.

1954 – The National Negro Network was formed on this date. Forty radio stations were charter members of the network.

1972 – The number of unemployed in Britain exceeded 1 million.

1981 – Iran released 52 Americans that had been held hostage for 444 days. The hostages were flown to Algeria and then to a U.S. base in Wiesbaden, West Germany. The release occurred minutes after the U.S. presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.

1985 – The most-watched Super Bowl game in history was seen by an estimated 115.9 million people. The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Miami Dolphins, 38-16. Super Bowl XIX marked the first time that TV commercials sold for a million dollars a minute.

1986 – The U.S. observed the first federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

1986 – Britain and France announced their plans to build the Channel Tunnel.

1986 – New footage of the 1931 “Frankenstein” was found. The footage was originally deleted because it was considered to be too shocking.

1987 – Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped in Beirut, Lebanon. He was there attempting to negotiate the release of Western hostages. He was not freed until November 1991.

1994 – Shannon Faulkner became the first woman to attend classes at The Citadel in South Carolina. Faulkner joined the cadet corps in August 1995 under court order but soon dropped out.

1996 – Yasser Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Authority and his supporters won two thirds of the 80 seats in the Legislative Council.

1997 – Bill Clinton was inaugurated for his second term as president of the United States.

1998 – American researchers announced that they had cloned calves that may produce medicinal milk.

1998 – In Chile, a judge agreed to hear a lawsuit that accused Chile’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet with genocide.

1999 – The China News Service announced that the Chinese government was tightening restrictions on internet use. The rules were aimed at ‘Internet Bars.’

2000 – Greece and Turkey signed five accords aimed to build confidence between the two nations.

2002 – Michael Jordan (Washington Wizards) played his first game in Chicago as a visiting player. The Wizards beat the Bulls 77-69.

On a freezing day in Washington, D.C., Barack Hussein Obama is sworn in as the 44th U.S. president. The son of a Black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, Obama had become the first African American to win election to the nation’s highest office the previous November.

As the junior U.S. senator from Illinois, he won a tight Democratic primary battle over Senator Hillary Clinton of New York before triumphing over Arizona Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate, in the general election. Against a backdrop of the nation’s devastating economic collapse during the start of the Great Recession, Obama’s message of hope and optimism—as embodied by his campaign slogan, “Yes We Can”—struck an inspirational chord with a nation seeking change.

As Inauguration Day dawned, crowds of people thronged the National Mall, stretching from the Capitol Building to beyond the Washington Monument. According to an official estimate made later by the District of Columbia, some 1.8 million people witnessed Obama’s inauguration, surpassing the previous record of 1.2 million, set by the inaugural crowd of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.