TODAY IN HISTORY

January 8 is the eighth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 357 days remaining until the end of the year. This day is a remarkable date in the calendar, as many notable events took place in history on this day.

1642 - Astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.

1656 - Oldest surviving commercial newspaper established (Haarlem, Netherlands).

1675 - The first corporation was chartered in the United States. The company was the New York Fishing Company.

1790 - The first US President George Washington delivers first state of the union address.

1835 - The United States national debt was zero for the first and only time.

1902 - Flirting in public became illegal in New York.

1912 - Chiefs, representatives of people's and church organizations, and other prominent individuals form the African National Congress and declare its aim to bring all Africans together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms.

1916 - WWI: ANZAC forces withdraw from the Gallipoli Peninsula after Ottoman forces successfully defend access to Constantinople.

1918 - US President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points as the basis for peace upon the end of World War I.

1926 - Abdulaziz Ibn Saud becomes King of Nejd and Hejaz; forerunner of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1982 - North Korean supreme leader Kim Jongun was born but there is much dispute over whether he was born in 1982 or 1983.

2009 - In Egypt, archaeologists entered a 4,300 year old pyramid and discovered the mummy of Queen Sesheshet.