Major John C. Frémont, popularly admired for his mapmaking expeditions to the West, was court-martialed on grounds of mutiny and disobeying orders on January 31, 1848. Continue reading.

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A bit of January 31st history…

1863 - 1st black Civil War regiment, South Carolina volunteers, mustered into US army

1865 - US Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery

1876 - US orders all Native Americans to move into reservations

1950 - US President Truman publicly announces support for development of a hydrogen bomb (pictured)

1985 - South African President PW Botha offers to free Nelson Mandela if he denounces violence

2019 - Colonization of the Americas in the late 1500′s killed so many people it cooled the planet and led to a “little ice age”, according to a scientific report published in “Quarternary Science Review”

2020 - UK finally withdraws from the European Union (Brexit) 

On January 30, 1815, President James Madison approved an act of Congress appropriating $23,950 to purchase Thomas Jefferson’s library of 6,487 volumes. Continue reading.

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A bit of January 30th history…

1661 - Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed after having been dead for 2 years

1835 - Richard Lawrence misfires at President Jackson on 1st attempted assassination of a US President

1948 - Mahatma Gandhi assassinated by Hindu extremist

1961 - JFK asks for an Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps

1963 - Ivan Sutherland submits a thesis containing his Sketchpad program, a forerunner to modern day graphic user interface and computer aided design programs

1975 - Erno Rubik applies for a patent for his “Magic Cube” invention, later known as the Rubik’s Cube (pictured)

1992 - Inventor Ray Kurzweil publishes “The Age of Intelligent Machines”, on AI, predicting the popularity of the internet

2020 - WHO declares COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern 

Kansas entered the Union as a free state on January 29, 1861. Continue reading.

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A bit of January 29th history…

661 - Rashidun Caliphate, then the largest empire in history, ends with the death of it’s leader, Ali; succeeded by Umayyad Caliphate

1595 - William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet” is thought to have been 1st performed; officially published in early 1597

1845 - Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” is published (pictured)

1850 - Senator Henry Clay drafts the Compromise of 1850 to diffuse tensions between slave states and free states over territories won during the Mexican - American War

1886 - Karl Benz patents the “Benz Patent-Motorwagon” in Germany, the world’s 1st automobile with a burning motor

1892 - Coca-Cola Company is incorporated

2002 - US President Bush in his state of the union address describes “regimes that sponsor terror” an “Axis of Evil”, which includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea 

On January 28, 1908, author and activist Julia Ward Howe, famous for her composition, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Continue reading.

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A bit of January 28th history…

1671 - British pirate Henry Morgan captures Panama City from the Spanish defenders

1807 - London’s Pall Mall is 1st street lit by gaslight

1887 - Work begins on Eiffel Tower in Paris

1958 - The Lego Company patents their design of Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today

1985 - Charity single “We Are the World” is recorded by supergroup USA for Africa

1986 - Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, with all 7 crew members killed including Christa McAuliffe who was to be the 1st teacher in space (pictured) 

John James Audubon, naturalist and artist famous for his drawings and paintings of North American birds, died at his home in New York City on January 27, 1851. Continue reading.

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A bit of January 27th history…

1820 - Russian Antarctic expedition led by von Bellingshausen and Lazarev discover the continent of Antarctica

1825 - US Congress approves Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for the forced relocation of the Eastern Indian tribes via the “Trail of Tears”

1888 - The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington DC for “the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge”

1924 - Lenin placed in Mausoleum in Red Square, Moscow (pictured)

1926 - Physicist Erwin Schrodinger publishes his theory of wave mechanics and presents what becomes known as the Schrodinger Equation in quantum mechanics

1944 - Siege of Leningrad lifted by the Soviets after 880 days and more than 2 million Russians killed

1945 - Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps 

2017 - US President Trump issues executive order banning travel to the US for 7 mostly Muslim countries and suspending admission for refugees