January 4: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1642 - King Charles I of England sends soldiers to arrest members of Parliament, commencing England's slide into civil war.
2. 1847 - Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.
3. 1865 - The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street in New York, New York.
4. 1896 - Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.
5. 1958 - Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from orbit.
6. 1959 - Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.
7. 1965 - United States President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaims his "Great Society" during hisState of the Union address.
8. 1974 - United States President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over materials subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
9. 2004 - Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.
10. 2007 - The 110th United States Congress convenes, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history.
11. Famous Birthdays: Louis Braille (French educator, invented Braille), Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (American pulp writer and publisher, founder of DC Comics), André Masson (French painter), James Bond (American ornithologist), Brian David Josephson (Welsh physicist, Nobel Prize laureate)

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

Click Here for Yesterday in History: January 3

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: January 5

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.