January 16
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” is ratified on this day in 1919 and becomes the law of the land. – 1919.
Faced with an army mutiny and violent demonstrations against his rule, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the leader of Iran since 1941, is forced to flee the country. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran. – 1979.
At midnight in Iraq, the United Nations deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait expires, and the Pentagon prepares to commence offensive operations to forcibly eject Iraq from its five-month occupation of its oil-rich neighbor. All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire in television footage transmitted live by way of satellite from Baghdad and elsewhere. – 1991.
January 17
On the Hawaiian Islands, a group of American sugar planters under Sanford Ballard Dole overthrows Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, and establishes a new provincial government with Dole as president. The coup occurred with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, and 300 U.S. Marines from the U.S. cruiser Boston were called to Hawaii, allegedly to protect American lives. – 1893.
In his farewell address to the Nation, U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower warns the American people to keep a careful eye on what he calls the military-industrial complex that has developed in the post-World War II years. – 1961.
An earthquake rocks Los Angeles, Calif. and kills 54 persons and causes $20 billion in damages. The Northridge quake, named after the San Fernando Valley community near the epicenter, was one of the most damaging in U.S. history. – 1994.
January 18
For the first time since joining the World Court in 1946, the United States walks out of a case. The case that caused the dramatic walkout concerned U.S. paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government. – 1985.
January 19
Some 3,000 members of the Filipino Federation of Labor strike the plantations of Oahu, Hawaii. Their ranks swell to 8,300 when they are joined by members of the Japanese Federation of Labor. – 1920.
Following the death of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi becomes head of the Congress Party and thus prime minister of India. She was India’s first female head of government and by the time of her assassination in 1984 was one of its most controversial. – 1966.
A 35-year-old man, presented to an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Wash., with a four-day history of cough and subjective fever, is the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States. – 2020
January 20
During the First Opium War, China cedes the island of Hong Kong to the British with the signing of the Chuenpi Convention, an agreement seeking an end to the first Anglo-Chinese conflict. – 1841.
U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to four terms in office, is inaugurated to his fourth term. – 1945.
January 21
Approximately 750,000 steelworkers walk out in 30 states, largest strike in U.S. history to that time. – 1946.
U.S. president Jimmy Carter grants an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War. – 1977.
On the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency, hundreds of thousands of individuals crowd into the U.S. capital for the Women’s March on Washington, a massive protest in the Nation’s capital aimed largely at the Donald Trump administration and the perceived threat it represented to reproductive, civil and human rights. More than three million individuals in cities across the country held simultaneous protests. – 2017.
January 22
The U.S. Supreme Court decriminalizes abortion by handing down its decision in the case of Roe v. Wade. Despite opponents’ characterization of the decision, it was not the first time that abortion became a legal procedure in the United States. For most of the country’s first 100 years, abortion was not a criminal offense and not considered immoral. – 1973.
A plane returning Muslim pilgrims from Mecca crashes in Kano, Nigeria and kills 176 persons. It was the deadliest air disaster of its time. – 1973.