EVENTS
- 1066 – Harold, Earl of Wessex, was crowned King of England following the death of his brother-in-law Edward the Confessor. Harold II was England’s last Anglo-Saxon king. In October of 1066, Harold met the invading army of William the Conqueror at Hastings and died on the field of battle.
- 1838 – Samuel Morse first successfully tested the electrical telegraph.
- 1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center.
- 1912 – New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U.S. state.
- 1912 – German scientist Alfred Wegener presents his theory of continental drift. His work laid the foundation for the theory of plate tectonics, which explains why continents move.
- 1929 – Mother Theresa arrives in India. Through her tireless work in helping the poor and ill, the Albanian religious sister later received the Nobel Peace Prize and was posthumously beatified.
- 1941 – President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union address to Congress asking for support for the lend-lease program aiding Allies fighting the Axis powers. Roosevelt also defined four essential freedoms worth defending; freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
- 1970 – The Wiener Musikverein is inaugurated. The famous concert hall is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
- 1990 – Poland’s Communist Party disbanded and then reorganized as the Social Democratic Party, an opposition party to Solidarity.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1412 – Joan of Arc (French Heroine and Catholic Saint)
- 1811 – Charles Sumner (American politician)
- 1878 – Carl Sandburg (Author)
- 1883 – Kahlil Gibran (Lebanese/American poet)
- 1914 – Danny Thomas (Actor)
- 1920 – John Maynard Smith (English biologist)
- 1937 – Lou Holtz (Ameican football player, coach and sportscaster)
- 1946 – Syd Barrett (English singer-songwriter, guitarist)
- 1957 – Nancy Lopez (LPGA Golf Champion)
DEATHS
- 1852 – Louis Braille (French educator, invented Braille)
- 1918 – Georg Cantor (German mathematician)
- 1919 – Theodore Roosevelt (American politician, 26th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate)
- 1993 – Dizzy Gillespie (American trumpet player, bandleader, composer)
- 1999 – Michel Petrucciani (French/American pianist)