January 25
Sojourner Truth addresses first Black Women’s Rights convention. – 1851.
At the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, a 3,106-carat diamond is discovered. It is the largest diamond ever found, to weigh in at 1.33 pounds and the estimated price in today’s market would be approximately $400 million. – 1905.
The first Winter Olympics begins at Chamonix in the French Alps. – 1924.
Approximately 16,000 textile workers strike in Passaic, N.J.. – 1926.
January 26
In what could be considered the first workers’ compensation agreement in America, pirate Henry Morgan pledges his underlings 600 pieces of eight or six slaves to compensate for a lost arm or leg. Part of the pirate’s code, reports Roger Newell: Shares of the booty were equal regardless of race or gender, and shipboard decisions were made collectively. – 1695.
Captain Arthur Phillip guides a fleet of 11 British ships carrying convicts to the colony of New South Wales and effectively founds Australia. – 1788.
Soviet troops enter Auschwitz, Poland to free the survivors of the network of concentration camps, and finally reveal to the world the depth of the horrors perpetrated there. Soviet soldiers encountered 648 corpses and more than 7,000 starving camp survivors. – 1945.
The Indian constitution takes effect, which makes the Republic of India the most populous democracy in the world. – 1950.
January 27
Mine explosion in Mount Pleasant, Pa. leaves more than 100 dead. – 1891.
The 8th U.S. Air Force bombers, dispatched from England, fly the first American bombing raid against Germany and make its target the Wilhelmshaven port. – 1943.
Soviet forces permanently break the Leningrad siege line to end the almost 900-day German-enforced containment of the city, which cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives. – 1944.
A group of Detroit African-American auto workers known as the Eldon Avenue Axle Plant Revolutionary Union Movement leads a wildcat strike against racism and bad working conditions. They are critical of both automakers and the UAW and condemn the seniority system and grievance procedures as racist. – 1969.
Muhammad Siyad Barre, the dictator of the Somali Democratic Republic since 1969, flees Mogadishu when rebels overrun his palace and capture the Somali capital. – 1991.
Explosions at a military depot in Lagos, Nigeria, trigger a stampede of fleeing individuals, during which more than 1,000 are killed. – 2002.
January 28
First U.S. unemployment compensation law enacted, in Wisconsin. – 1932.
The space shuttle Challenger lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and 73 seconds later the shuttle explodes. There were no survivors. An investigation determined that the explosion was caused by the failure of an “O-ring” seal in one of the two solid-fuel rockets. The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the explosion. – 1986.
January 29
Kansas is admitted to the Union as the 19th free state of the 34. – 1861
January 30
During a funeral service in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to honor the late U.S. representative Warren R. Davis of South Carolina, a man discharged two pistols in the direction of U.S. president Andrew Jackson. Both weapons misfired, and the shooter was promptly subdued and arrested. President Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, survived the first attempt against the life of a U.S. president. – 1835.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, is assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu fanatic. – 1948.
January 31
The U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolishes slavery in America. The amendment read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” – 1865.
Nearly 12,000 pecan shellers in San Antonio, Texas, mostly Latina women, walk off their jobs at 400 factories in what was to become a three-month strike against wage cuts. Strike leader Emma Tenayuca eventually was hounded out of the state. – 1938.
U.S. president Harry S Truman publicly announces his decision to support the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II. – 1950.