TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, Jan. 2, the second day of 2022. There are 363 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 2, 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts launched his successful bid for the presidency.
On this date:
■ In 1900, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay announced the “Open Door Policy” to facilitate trade with China.
■ In 1788, Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
■ In 1811, Sen. Timothy Pickering, a Federalist from Massachusetts, became the first member of the U.S. Senate to be censured after he’d improperly revealed the contents of an executive document.
■ In 1929, the United States and Canada reached agreement on joint action to preserve Niagara Falls.
■ In 1942, the Philippine capital of Manila was captured by Japanese forces during World War II.
■ In 1967, Republican Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as the new governor of California in a ceremony that took place in Sacramento shortly just after midnight.
■ In 1971, 66 people were killed in a pileup of spectators leaving a soccer match at Ibrox (EYE’-brox) Stadium in Glasgow, Scotland.
■ In 1974, President Richard Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 miles an hour as a way of conserving gasoline in the face of an OPEC oil embargo. (The 55 mph limit was effectively phased out in 1987; federal speed limits were abolished in 1995.)
■ In 2007, the state funeral for former President Gerald R. Ford began with an elaborate service at Washington National Cathedral, then moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan.
■ In 2015, California began issuing driver’s licenses to immigrants who were in the country illegally. Little Jimmy Dickens, a diminutive singer-songwriter who was the oldest cast member of the Grand Ole Opry, died at age 94.
In 2016, a heavily armed group led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, beginning a 41-day standoff to protest the imprisonment of two ranchers convicted of setting fires on public land and to demand the federal government turn over public lands to local control.
■ In 2018, Sen. Al Franken formally resigned from the Senate a month after the Minnesota Democrat announced his plan to leave Congress amid a series of sexual misconduct allegations. NBC News announced that Hoda Kotb (HOH’-duh KAHT’bee) would be the co-anchor of the first two hours of the “Today” show, replacing Matt Lauer following his firing due to sexual misconduct allegations.
Ten years ago: Gordon Hirabayashi, a Japanese-American sociologist who spent 90 days in jail for refusing to be interned during World War II, died in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada at age 93. (Hirabayashi’s conviction was overturned in 1987 by a U.S. court which concluded that the U.S. government’s internment policies had been based on political expediency, and not on any risk to national security.)