TODAY IN HISTORY

1793: During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason, was executed on the guillotine.

1924: Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died at age 53.

1942: Pinball machines were banned in New York City after a court ruled they were gambling devices that relied on chance rather than skill (the ban was lifted in 1976).

1954: The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Conn. (However, the Nautilus did not make its first nuclear-powered run until nearly a year later).

1976: British Airways and Air France inaugurated scheduled passenger service on the supersonic Concorde jet.

1977: On his first full day in office, President Jimmy Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.

1997: Speaker Newt Gingrich was reprimanded and fined as the House voted for the first time in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct.

2003: The Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed blacks as America’s largest minority group.

2007: Lovie Smith became the first Black head coach to make it to the Super Bowl when his Chicago Bears won the NFC championship, beating the New Orleans Saints 39-14; Tony Dungy became the second when his Indianapolis Colts took the AFC title over the New England Patriots, 38-34.

2011: Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, seriously wounded in a shooting rampage, was transferred from the University Medical Center trauma center in Tucson to Texas Medical Center in Houston to undergo months of therapy.

2016: The Obama administration tightened restrictions on European and other travelers who had visited Iran, Iraq, Syria or Sudan in the previous five years.

2020: The U.S. reported its first known case of the new virus circulating in China, saying a Washington state resident who had returned the previous week from the outbreak’s epicenter was hospitalized near Seattle; U.S. officials stressed that they believed the overall risk of the virus to the American public remained low.