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This Day in History - January 21

January 21
1189 – Philip Augustus, Henry II of England and Frederick Barbarossa prepare the troops for the Third Crusade
1525 – A thousand-year tradition of church-state union is broken and the Swiss Anabaptist Movement is born when over a dozen people baptize each other in the family home of Felix Manz in Zurich
1648 – In Maryland, the first woman lawyer in the colonies, Margaret Brent, is denied a vote in the Maryland Assembly
1683 – England’s First Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, dies
1738 – American Revolutionary commander Ethan Allen is born
1785 – A group of Indians-Chippewa, Delaware, Wyandot and Ottawa, sign the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, ceding present-day Ohio to the US
1790 – Joseph Guillotine proposes a new method of execution: a machine designed to cut off a person’s head as painlessly as possible
1793 –French King Louis XVI is executed at the guillotine for treason
1824 – Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is born
1855 – John Moses Browning, the “father of modern firearms,” is born
1863 – The First Battle of Sabine Pass takes place, where the Confederates chase Yankee ships into open water until they surrender
1867 – French General Maxime Weygand is born
1899 – Opel builds its first car
1905 – French fashion designer, Christian Dior is born
1910 – Japan rejects the American proposal to neutralize ownership of the Manchurian Railway
1915 – The first Kiwanis Club is founded in Detroit
1919 – The German Krupp plant begins producing guns under the US armistice terms
1921 – JD Rockefeller pledges $1 million for the relief of Europe’s poorest
1924 – The first leader of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, dies
1925 – British comedian Benny Hill is born
1930 – An intentional arms control meeting opens in London
1933 – The League of Nations rejects Japanese terms for settlement with China
1938 – French director, Georges Melies dies
1940 – American golfer, Jack Nicklaus is born
1941 – The US lifts the ban on selling arms to the Soviet Union
1941 – Spanish tenor and conductor, Placido Domingo is born
1942 – German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel launches a drive to push the British eastward in North Africa
1943 – 34 are killed at a London school by a Nazi daylight air raid
1950 – Former State Department official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury for his testimony regarding his alleged involvement in a Soviet spy ring during World War II, a claim he denied until his death
1950 – English author, George Orwell dies
1951 – Communist troops force the UN army out of Inchon, Korea
1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, is launched
1957 – Patsy Cline first gains national attention with her appearance on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts
1958 – The Soviet Union calls for a ban on nuclear arms in Baghdad Pact countries
1959 – Actor Carl Dean Switzer, “Alfalfa” in Our Gang, is shot by Moses “Bud” Stiltz in a fight allegedly over a debt owed to Switzer. A jury ruled the incident as justifiable homicide
1963 – American and Nigerian basketball player Hakeem Olajuwon is born
1964 – Carl Rowan is named the director of the US Information Agency
1968 – The Siege of Khe Sanh begins as North Vietnamese units surround US Marines on hilltop headquarters, in Vietnam
1974 – The US Supreme Court decides that pregnant teachers can no longer be forced to take long leaves of absence
1976 – Henry Kissinger meets with Leonid Brezhnev to discuss the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
1976 – The first Concordes with commercial passengers takes off from London’s Heathrow Airport
1977 – President Carter urges Americans to preserve heat by keeping homes at a maximum of 65 degrees, to ease the energy crisis
1977 – President Carter grants pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who had evaded the draft during the Vietnam War
1990 – John McEnroe becomes the first player since 1963 to be disqualified from a Grand Slam tournament for misconduct, when he was given code violations for swearing, glaring at a lineswoman after a call and racket abuse
1993 – Congressman Mike Epsy of Mississippi is confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Agriculture
1996 – 340 people are killed when an overloaded ferry sinks during a storm off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia
1997 – American and Dutch talent manager Colonel Tom Parker dies
1998 – Pope John Paul II visits Cuba
2003 – The US Census Bureau reported that Hispanics have passed Blacks as the largest minority group
2008 – World stocks plummet as the FTSE 100 has its biggest ever one-day points fall, Asian stocks drop as much as 15% and European stocks closed with their worst day since September 11
2009 – Toyota surpasses General Motors as the world’s biggest carmaker
2010 – The US Supreme Court rules that the government cannot restrict the spending of corporations for political campaigns, in the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission

Written by Crystal McCann
Crystal is the Chief Operating Officer of Lanterns Media Network and the owner of Madisons Media. She lives in Texas with her husband and dogs and is the proud mother of two adult children.
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