January 19: What Happened on This Day in History (Elementary Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1840 - Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
2. 1883 - The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.
3. 1977 - Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snow has fallen. It also fell in the Bahamas.
4. 1983 - The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced.
5. 2006 - The New Horizons probe is launched by NASA on the first mission to Pluto.
6. Famous Birthdays: James Watt (Scottish engineer), Edgar Allan Poe (American author and poet), Henry Bessemer (English engineer and businessman), Alexander Woollcott (American actor, playwright, and critic), Leonid Kantorovich (Russian economist, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: January 18

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: January 20

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.