TODAY IN HISTORY
On Jan. 12, 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. founded Motown Records (originally Tamla Records) in Detroit.
Also on this date In 1828,
the United States and Mexico signed a Treaty of Limits defining the boundary between the two countries to be the same as the one established by an 1819 treaty between the U.S. and Spain.
In 1932,
Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate after initially being appointed to serve out the remainder of the term of her late husband, Thaddeus.
In 1948,
the U.S. Supreme Court, in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, unanimously ruled that state law schools could not discriminate against applicants on the basis of race.
In 1966,
President Lyndon B. Johnson said in his State of the Union address that the U.S. military should stay in Vietnam until Communist aggression there was stopped.
In 1971,
the groundbreaking situation comedy “All in the Family” premiered on CBS television.
In 2000,
in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Illinois v. Wardlow, gave police broad authority to stop and question people who run at the sight of an officer.
In 2010,
Haiti was struck by a magnitude-7 earthquake; the Haitian government said 316,000 people were killed, while a report prepared for the U.S. Agency for International Development suggested the death toll may have been between 46,000 and 85,000.
Ten years ago:
Pentagon leaders scrambled to contain damage from an internet video purporting to show four Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. (The Marine Corps announced in August 2012 that three Marines had received administrative punishments in connection with this incident.)
Five years ago:
In yet another aftershock from the chaotic presidential campaign, the Justice Department inspector general opened an investigation into department and FBI actions before the election, including whether FBI Director James Comey followed established policies in the email investigation of Hillary Clinton.
One year ago:
Amid worry about renewed violence on Inauguration Day, the military’s top leaders issued a written reminder to service members that the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol was an anti-democratic, criminal act, and that the right to free speech gives no one the right to commit violence.