1066 – Harold Godwinson (or Harold II) is crowned King of England.
1540 – King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves.
1838 – Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
1839 – The most damaging storm in 300 years sweeps across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than twenty per cent of the houses in Dublin.
1853 – President-elect of the United States Franklin Pierce and his family are involved in a train wreck near Andover, Massachusetts. Pierce’s 11-year-old son Benjamin is killed in the crash.
1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome, Italy.
1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift.
1921 – Formation of the Iraqi Army.
1930 – The first diesel-engined automobile trip is completed, from Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York, New York.
1941 – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms speech in the State of the Union address. Click here to watch this fascinating speech from another time in our history. It begins, “At times like these, it is immature, … and incidentally, uncool…for anybody to brag…”
1947 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to offer a round-the-world ticket.
1994 – Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the knee at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit.
Births
1256 – Gertrude the Great, German mystic (d. 1302)
1412 – Joan of Arc, French martyr and saint (d. 1431)
1878 – Carl Sandburg, American poet and historian (d. 1967)
1883 – Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American poet, painter, and philosopher (d. 1931)
1925 – John DeLorean, American engineer and businessman, founded the DeLorean Motor Company (d. 2005)
1931 – E. L. Doctorow, American novelist, playwright, and short story writer (d. 2015)
Deaths
1387 – Peter IV of Aragon (b. 1319)
1481 – Ahmed Khan bin Küchük, Mongolian ruler
1919 – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States (b. 1858)
1993 – Dizzy Gillespie, American singer-songwriter and trumpet player (b. 1917)
1993 – Rudolf Nureyev, Russian-French dancer and choreographer (b. 1938)
2004 – Francesco Scavullo, American photographer (b. 1921)
