Today’s highlight in history
On Jan. 6, 1974, year-round daylight saving time began in the United States on a trial basis as a fuel-saving measure in response to the OPEC oil embargo.
On this date
In 1759, George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis were married in New Kent County, Va.
In 1838, Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail gave the first successful public demonstration of their telegraph in Morristown, N.J.
In 1919, the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at age 60.
In 1950, Britain recognized the Communist government of China.
In 1987, the U.S. Senate voted 88-4 to establish an 11-member panel to hold public hearings on the Iran-Contra affair.
In 1994, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the leg by an assailant at Detroit’s Cobo Arena; four men, including the ex-husband of Kerrigan’s rival, Tonya Harding, went to prison for their roles in the attack. (Harding denied knowing about plans for the attack.)
In 2001, with Vice President Al Gore presiding in his capacity as president of the Senate, Congress formally certified George W. Bush the winner of the bitterly contested 2000 presidential election.
Ten years ago: At a Baptist church in Fort Worth, Texas, the Denver Broncos filed past the open casket of Darrent Williams, the promising cornerback who had been gunned down in a drive-by shooting on New Year’s Day.
Five years ago: The Obama administration expanded the FBI’s more than eight-decades-old definition of rape to count men as victims for the first time and to drop the requirement that victims physically resisted their attackers.
One year ago: North Korea said it had conducted a powerful hydrogen bomb test, a claim greeted with widespread skepticism.