January 21: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1789 - The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts.
2. 1911 - The first Monte Carlo Rally takes place.
3. 1948 - The Flag of Quebec is adopted and flown for the first time over the National Assembly of Quebec. The day is marked annually as Quebec Flag Day.
4. 1954 - The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady of the United States.
5. 1960 - Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board.
6. 1976 - Commercial service of Concorde begins with the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rioroutes.
7. 1977 - President of the United States Jimmy Carter pardons nearly all American Vietnam War draft evaders, some of whom had emigrated to Canada.
8. 1981 - Production of the iconic DeLorean DMC-12 sports car begins in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland.
9. 2004 - NASA's MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The problem lies in the management of its flash memory and is fixed remotely from Earth on February 6.
10. 2008 - Black Monday in worldwide stock markets. FTSE 100 had its biggest ever one-day points fall, European stocks closed with their worst result since the September 11 attacksin 2001, and Asian stocks drop as much as 14%.
11. Famous Birthdays: Stonewall Jackson (American general), Pavel Florensky (Russian theologian and mathematician), Cristóbal Balenciaga (Spanish fashion designer, founded Balenciaga), Christian Dior (French fashion designer, founded Christian Dior S.A.), Konrad Emil Bloch (German-American biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate)

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

Click Here for Yesterday in History: January 20

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: January 22

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.