December 31
Nearly 60,000 unemployed workers rally at a Pittsburgh stadium. – 1931.
The United States, in accordance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, officially hands over control of the Panama Canal, to put the strategic waterway into Panamanian hands for the first time. Crowds of Panamanians celebrated the transfer of the 50-mile canal, which links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. – 1999.
January 1
With the Great Depression in full force, the year 1932 opens with 14 Million unemployed, National income is down by 50% and breadlines include former shopkeepers, businessmen, and middle-class housewives. Charity is overwhelmed: Only one-quarter of America’s unemployed are receiving any help at all. – 1932.
Workers begin to acquire credits toward Social Security pension benefits. Employers and employees became subject to a tax of one percent of wages on up to $3,000 a year. – 1937.
Facing a popular revolution spearheaded by Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista flees the island nation. Amid celebration and chaos in the Cuban capitol of Havana, the U.S. debated how best to deal with the radical Castro and the ominous rumblings of anti-Americanism in Cuba. – 1959.
The federal minimum wage increases to $2.65 per hour. – 1978.
January 2
Georgia votes to ratify the U.S. Constitution to become the fourth state in the modern United States, and was one of the original 13 colonies. – 1788.
Albert Fall, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior, resigns in response to public outrage over the Teapot Dome scandal. Fall’s resignation illuminated a deeply corrupt relationship between western developers and the federal government. – 1923.
An underground explosion at Sago Mine in Tallmansville, W. Va., traps 12 miners and cuts power to the mine. Eleven men die, mostly by asphyxiation. The mine had been cited 273 times for safety violations over the prior 23 months. – 2006.
January 3
In an event that heralds the birth of modern Japan, patriotic samurai from Japan’s outlying domains join with anti-shogunate nobles in restoring the emperor to power after 700 years. The young emperor, Meiji, and his ministers, move the royal court from Kyoto to Tokyo, dismantle feudalism, and enact widespread reforms along Western models. The newly-unified Japanese government sets off on a path of rapid industrialization and militarization, and builds Japan into a major world power by the early 20th Century. – 1867.
U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower signs a special proclamation to admit the territory of Alaska into the Union as the 49th and largest geographical state. – 1959.
January 4
Six years after Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon Church, issued his Manifesto reforming political, religious, and economic life in Utah, the territory is admitted into the Union as the 45th state. – 1896.
For the first time since Charlemagne’s reign in the 9th Century, Europe is united with a common currency when the “euro” makes its debut as a financial unit in corporate and investment markets. – 1999.
January 5
Ford Motor Company, led by Henry Ford, raises wages from $2.40 for a nine-hour day to $5 for an eight-hour day in effort to keep the unions out and give workers money to buy Ford products. – 1914.
U.S. president Richard Nixon signs a bill authorizing $5.5 Million in funding to develop a space shuttle. – 1972.
January 6
Samuel Morse’s telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, N.J.. The telegraph, a device which used electric impulses to transmit encoded messages over a wire, eventually would revolutionize long-distance communication, and reach the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s. – 1838.
New Mexico is admitted into the United States as the 47th state. – 1912.
Some 8,000 workers strike at Youngstown Sheet & Tube. The following day the strikers’ wives and other family members join in the protest. Company guards use tear gas bombs and fire into the crowd; three strikers are killed, 25 wounded. – 1916.
Snow begins to fall in Washington, D.C., and up the Eastern seaboard to begin a blizzard that kills 154 persons and causes more than $1 Billion in damages before it ends. – 1996.