42 BC – Liberators’ civil war: Second Battle of Philippi – Mark Antony and Octavian decisively defeat Brutus’s army. Brutus commits suicide.
425 – Valentinian III is elevated as Roman emperor at the age of six.
1812 – Claude François de Malet, a French general, begins a conspiracy to overthrow Napoleon Bonaparte, claiming that the Emperor died in Russia and that he is now the commandant of Paris.
1850 – The first National Women’s Rights Convention begins in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States.
1861 – Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C., for all military-related cases.
A writ of habeas corpus (which literally means to “produce the body”) is a court order to a person or agency holding someone in custody (such as a warden) to deliver the imprisoned individual to the court issuing the order and to show a valid reason for that person’s detention.
1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies an airplane in the first heavier-than-air flight in Europe at Champs de Bagatelle, Paris, France.
1911 – First use of aircraft in war: Italo-Turkish War: An Italian pilot takes off from Libya to observe Turkish army lines.
1915 – Women’s suffrage: In New York City, 25,000-33,000 women march on Fifth Avenue to advocate their right to vote.
1929 – Wall Street Crash of 1929. After a steady decline in stock market prices since a peak in September, the New York Stock Exchange begins to crash.
1935 – Dutch Schultz, Abe Landau, Otto Berman, and Bernard “Lulu” Rosencrantz are fatally shot at a saloon in Newark, New Jersey in what will become known as The Chophouse Massacre.
1946 – The United Nations General Assembly convenes for the first time, at an auditorium in Flushing, Queens, New York City.
1970 – Gary Gabelich sets a land speed record in a rocket-powered automobile called the Blue Flame, fueled with natural gas.
SAN PEDRO, Calif., Jan. 26- Gary Gabelich, who held the world land-speed record for almost 13 years, was killed in a traffic accident here today, the police said. According to the police, Gabelich was riding a motorcycle ”at a high rate of speed” when he ran into the right side of a truck. Gabelich, of nearby Long Beach, died nearly three hours later at San Pedro Hospital of injuries suffered in the accident, the police said. Gabelich, who was 43 years old, set the land-speed record in a rocket- powered car of 622.407 miles per hour on Oct. 23, 1970. The record stood until Richard Noble of England averaged 634.051 m.p.h. on Oct. 4, 1983.
1973 – The Watergate scandal: President Richard M. Nixon agrees to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations.
1998 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat reach a “land for peace” agreement.
2002 – Moscow theater hostage crisis: Chechen terrorists seize the House of Culture theater in Moscow and take approximately 700 theater-goers hostage.
Click here for a laugh. Airdate Dec 14, 1988.
Births
1715 – Peter II of Russia (d. 1730)
1869 – John Heisman, American football player and coach (d. 1936)
1905 – Felix Bloch, physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1983)
1925 – Johnny Carson, American comedian and talk show host (d. 2005)
Deaths
42 BC – Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, Roman general and politician (b. 85 BC)
1581 – Michael Neander, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1529)
1867 – Franz Bopp, German linguist and academic (b. 1791)
1921 – John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish businessman, founded Dunlop Rubber (b. 1840)
1935 – Charles Demuth, American painter and educator (b. 1883)
1950 – Al Jolson, Lithuanian-American actor and singer (b. 1886)
1957 – Christian Dior, French fashion designer, founded Christian Dior S.A. (b. 1905)
2013 – Anthony Caro, English sculptor and academic (b. 1924)