January 18th
Today in America's Present Past
1644 | Perplexed Pilgrims report the first UFO sighting in America, Boston, Massachusetts.
1733 | First polar bear exhibited in America, Boston, Massachusetts.
1776 | Revolutionary War: General Knox arrives from Fort Ticonderoga in Massachusetts.
1782 | Daniel Webster was born.
1813 | Entrepreneur Joseph Glidden was born.
1827 | Religious Leader Joseph Smith wed Emma Hale.
1854 | Inventor Thomas Watson was born.
1858 | Doctor Daniel Hale Williams was born.
1862 | POTUS: President John Tyler died.
1862 | Statehood: Confederate Territory of Arizona is formed.
1863 | Civil War: Shelton Laurel massacre.
1865 | Civil War: Battle of Fort Moultrie, South Carolina.
1877 | Entrepreneur Samuel Zemurray was born.
1892 | Actor Oliver Hardy was born.
1896 | First college basketball game (Chicago vs. Iowa).
1904 | Actor Carey Grant was born.
1911 | First shipboard landing of an airplane (USS Pennsylvania).
1911 | Actor Danny Kaye was born.
1918 | POTUS: Democrat President Woodrow Wilson introduces his “14 Point Plan” for a League of Nations.
1933 | White Sands National Monument in New Mexico is established.
1933 | Inventor and Entrepreneur Ray Dolby was born.
1934 | “Days Without End,” a play by Eugene O’Neill, debuts.
1944 | Civil Rights: First Chinese naturalized US citizen post-Exclusion Acts repeal.
1955 | Actor Kevin Costner was born.
1958 | Civil Rights: Battle of Hayes Pond in Maxton, North Carolina.
1974 | TV: “$6 Million Man” premieres on ABC TV.
1974 | Maya Angelou wed Paul Bernard Du Feu.
1975 | TV: “All in the Family” premieres on CBS TV.
1983 | The Olympic IOC restores Jim Thorpes’s Medals, 70 years after revoking them for his receipt of $25 for playing a baseball game.
1993 | First Federal Martin Luther King, Jr. Day observed.
2016 | Musician Glenn Frey died.
2023 | Musician David Crosby died.