“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”-Mahatma Gandhi

January 7

January 7, 1714 – A patent was issued for the first typewriter designed by British inventor Henry Mill “for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another, as in writing.”

January 7, 1782 – The first U.S. commercial bank opened as the Bank of North America in Philadelphia.

January 7, 1989 – Emperor Hirohito of Japan died after a long illness. He had ruled for 62 years and was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Akihito.

January 7, 1999 – The first presidential impeachment trial in 130 years began as members of the U.S. Senate were sworn in by Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist to decide whether President Clinton should be removed from office. House prosecutors had delivered two articles of impeachment charging Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice.

Birthday – Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) the 13th U.S. President was born in a log cabin in Cayuga County, New York. He was a Whig who became president upon the sudden death of Zachary Taylor in 1850 from cholera. Best remembered for signing five bills concerning slavery known as the Compromise of 1850 which temporarily prevented civil war in the U.S. He was not re-nominated by his party.

January 8

January 8, 1798 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, preventing lawsuits against a state by anyone from another state or foreign nation.

January 8, 1815 – The Battle of New Orleans occurred as General Andrew Jackson and American troops defended themselves against a British attack, inflicting over 2,000 casualties. Both sides in this battle were unaware that peace had been declared two weeks earlier with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812.

January 8, 1918 – Amid the ongoing World War in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson proposed his Fourteen Points, calling for a reduction of arms, self-determination for governments, and the creation of a League of Nations, all intended to serve as a basis for resolving the conflict and establishing a lasting peace in Europe.

January 8, 1959 – Charles de Gaulle took office as the first president of France‘s Fifth Republic. De Gaulle had led the Free French government in exile during Nazi occupation. Following the war, he advocated a strong presidency to balance the powerful National Assembly. He was chosen to head the new government following years of political instability in which no French government was able to stay in power for more than a few months. On this day in 1966, he took office for a second term.

January 8, 1964 – President Lyndon Johnson declared War on Poverty during his State of the Union message before Congress.

January 8, 1982 – The American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) Company was broken up as a result of an antitrust suit. AT&T gave up 22 local Bell system companies, opening the U.S. telephone system to competition.

January 8, 1987 – The Dow Jones industrial average first topped the 2,000 mark.

Birthday – Elvis Presley (1935-1977) was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.

January 9 

January 9, 1960 – With the first blast of dynamite, construction work began on the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in southern Egypt. One third of the project’s billion-dollar cost was underwritten by Soviet Russia. The dam created Lake Nasser, one of the world’s largest reservoirs, at nearly 2,000 square miles and irrigated over 100,000 acres of surrounding desert. The dam was opened in January of 1971 by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and President Nikolai Podgorny of the Soviet Union.

Birthday – Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994) the 37th U.S. President, was born in Yorba Linda, California. He served as vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953-61, then made an unsuccessful run for the presidency, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy. Nixon ran for governor of California in 1962 and lost. He then told reporters he was leaving politics. However, he re-emerged in 1968 and ran a successful presidential campaign against Hubert Humphrey. He won re-election by a landslide in 1972 but resigned two years later amid impeachment proceedings resulting from the Watergate scandal.

Birthday – Carrie Lane Chapman (1859-1947) was born in Ripon, Wisconsin. She was the women’s rights pioneer who founded the National League of Women Voters in 1919.

January 10

January 10, 1776 – Common Sense, a fifty-page pamphlet by Thomas Paine, was published. It sold over 500,000 copies in America and Europe, influencing, among others, the authors of the Declaration of Independence.

January 10, 1861 – Florida became the third state to secede from the Union in events leading up to the American Civil War.

January 10, 1863 – The world’s first underground railway service opened in London, the Metropolitan line between Paddington and Farringdon.

January 10, 1878 – An Amendment granting women the right to vote was introduced in Congress by Senator A.A. Sargent of California. The amendment didn’t pass until 1920, forty-two years later.

January 10, 1912 – The flying boat airplane, invented by Glenn Curtiss, made its first flight at Hammondsport, New York.

January 10, 1920 – The League of Nations officially came into existence with the goal of resolving international disputes, reducing armaments, and preventing future wars. The first Assembly gathered in Geneva ten months later with 41 nations represented. More than 20 nations later joined; however, the U.S. did not join due to a lack of support for the League in Congress.

January 10, 1922 – Arthur Griffith was elected president of the newly formed Irish Free State.

January 10, 1946 – The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place in London with delegates from 51 countries. The U.N. superseded its predecessor, the League of Nations.

January 10, 1984 – The U.S. and Vatican established full diplomatic relations after a break of 116 years.

January 11

January 11, 1861 – Alabama seceded from the Union in events leading to up the American Civil War.

January 11, 1964 – The U.S. Surgeon General declared cigarettes may be hazardous to health, the first such official government report.

January 11, 1990 – In Lithuania, 200,000 persons demanded political independence from Soviet Russia after Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, publicly warned that separatism could lead to tragedy. Independence was achieved in September of 1991, three months before the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.

Birthday – Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) was born in the British West Indies. He was a founder of the United States who favored a strong central government and co-authored the Federalist Papers, a series of essays in defense of the new Constitution. He was selected by George Washington to be the first Secretary of the Treasury. He died from a gunshot wound received during a duel with Aaron Burr.

January 12

January 12, 1879 – In Southern Africa, the Zulu War began between the British and the natives of Zululand, ultimately resulting in the destruction of the Zulu Empire.

January 12, 1932 – Hattie W. Caraway, a Democrat from Arkansas, was appointed to the U.S. Senate to fill the term of her deceased husband. Later in the year, she became the first woman elected to the Senate.

January 12, 1990 – Romania outlawed the Communist Party following the overthrow of Dictator Nicolae Ceauescu who had ruled for 24 years.

January 12, 1991 – Congress authorized President George Bush to use military force against Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait.

January 12, 1996 – The first joint American-Russian military operation since World War II occurred as Russian troops arrived to aid in peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia.

January 12, 1999 – President Bill Clinton sent a check for $850,000 to Paula Jones officially ending the sensational sexual harassment legal case that ultimately endangered his presidency. The president withdrew $375,000 from his and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal funds and got the remaining $475,000 from an insurance policy. The lawsuit had exposed the president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and resulted in investigations by Independent Counsel Ken Starr that led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representatives and subsequent trial in the Senate.

Birthday – John Winthrop (1588-1649) was born in Suffolk, England. In 1630. He joined a group of Puritans emigrating to America and became the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, establishing a colony on the peninsula of Shawmut, which became Boston.

Birthday – Irish orator, politician and philosopher Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was born in Dublin. Best known for his essays and pamphlets including Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), On American Taxation (1774), On Conciliation with the Colonies (1775) and Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).

Birthday – American statesman and patriot John Hancock (1737-1793) was born in Braintree, Massachusetts. He was elected president of the Second Continental Congress in 1775, was the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, and went on to become the first elected governor of Massachusetts.

January 13

January 13, 1893 – The British Independent Labor Party was founded with James Keir Hardie as its leader.

January 13, 1898 – French author Emile Zola published J’Accuse, a letter accusing the French government of a cover-up in the Alfred Dreyfus case. Dreyfus had been convicted of treason for selling military secrets to the Germans and had been sent to Devil’s Island. As a result of Zola’s letter and subsequent trail, Dreyfus was completely vindicated.

January 13, 1935 – The population of the Saar region bordering France and Germany voted for incorporation into Hitler’s Reich. The 737 square-mile area with its valuable coal deposits had been under French control following Germany’s defeat in World War I.

January 13, 1990 – Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the first African American governor in the U.S. as he took the oath of office in Richmond.

Birthday – Author Horatio Alger (1834-1899) was born in Revere, Massachusetts. He wrote over 100 books for boys, many featuring “rags to riches” themes of poor boys triumphing over life’s obstacles.