On this date...

Bath Riots and Carmelita Torres

In 1777, John Burgoyne, poet, playwright, and British general, submitted an ill-fated plan to the British government to isolate New England from the other colonies.

In 1781, Major Benjamin Talmadge wrote to General Washington that he had received a letter from Benedict Arnold some 4 months after Arnold was discovered to be a traitor.

In 1791, Alexander Hamilton provided plans for the dollar currency and the US Mint.

In 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis named his three commissioners to negotiate for peace with the Union.

In 1858, John Brown organized a plan to raid the Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry.

In 1878, George Coy, Herrick Frost, and Walter Lewis opened the 1st telephone exchange at New Haven, Conn.

In 1901, professional baseball’s American League was founded in Milwaukee, reconstituting itself from a minor-league entity to a major-league one.

In 1909, the United States ended direct control over Cuba.

In 1915, the Modern US Coast Guard was founded. Congress created it by combining the Revenue Cutter Service with the U.S. Lifesaving Service.

In 1915, US President Woodrow Wilson refused to prohibit the immigration of illiterates.

In 1915, in the country’s first such action against American shipping interests on the high seas, the captain of a German cruiser orders the destruction of the William P. Frye, an American merchant ship.

In 1916, Louis D. Brandeis was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first Jewish member.

In 1917, a Mexican maid named Carmelita Torres refused to put up with the indignity she had been made to suffer every morning since she started working across the border in the United States. Torres’s objection to the noxious chemical delousing visited upon Mexicans upon crossing the Northern border sparked what became known as the Bath Riots, an oft-overlooked moment in Chicano history.

In 1917, American forces were recalled from Mexico after nearly 11 months of fruitless searching for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, who had led a bloody raid against Columbus, New Mexico.

In 1922, 98 people were killed when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C., collapsed under the weight of nearly two feet of snow.

In 1932, the 1st US state unemployment insurance act was enacted in Wisconsin.

In 1956, Elvis Presley made his first national TV appearance on “Stage Show,” a CBS program hosted by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey.

In 1958, Charles Starkweather, a 19-year-old high-school dropout from Lincoln, Nebraska, and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, killed a Lincoln businessman, his wife, and their maid, as part of a murderous crime spree that began a week earlier and would ultimately leave 11 people dead.

In 1964, the U.S. State Department angrily accused the Soviet Union of shooting down an American jet that strayed into East German airspace. Three U.S. officers aboard the plane were killed in the incident.

In 1976, New York drug lord Frank Lucas was sentenced to 40 years in prison and a $200,000 fine after being convicted on four drug charges.

In 1980, six U.S. diplomats who had avoided being taken hostage at their embassy in Tehran flew out of Iran with the help of Canadian diplomats; the events were dramatized in the film “Argo.”

In 1981, William J. Casey becomes 13th director of the CIA (until 1987).

In 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated after launch, killing all seven astronauts on board.

In 1999, Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, honoring a personal request for mercy from Pope John Paul II, spared a triple murderer from execution.

In 2003, President George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Africa. (The claim was later disputed by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been asked by the CIA to investigate.)

In 2003, in his State of the Union address, US President George W. Bush announces President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) - a plan will go on to save 25 million lives worldwide (as of Jan 2023) [1]

In 2009, in a swift victory for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House approved an $819 billion stimulus bill.

In 2010, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke won Senate confirmation for a second term.

In 2017, US President Donald Trump and Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull had a contentious phone call over a deal for the US to take 1,250 refugees.

In 2020, US President Donald Trump released his Middle East peace plan alongside Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

In 2021, Bernie Sanders mittens worn to the inauguration, raised $1.8 million for Vermont charities after images went viral.