TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

Jan. 4, 1868

“The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins, considered by some the first full-length English detective novel, began to be serialized in Britain and the U.S. in All the Year Round and Harper’s Weekly.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1717

France, Britain and Holland formed a Triple Alliance against Spain.

1896

Utah was admitted as the 45th state.

1904

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Gonzalez v. Williams, ruled that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and could enter the United States freely; however, the court stopped short of declaring them citizens.

1935

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address, called for legislation to provide assistance for the jobless, elderly, impoverished children and the handicapped.

1943

For the second time, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin made the cover of TIME as the magazine’s 1942 “Man of the Year.”

1951

During the Korean War, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces recaptured the city of Seoul.

1960

Author and philosopher Albert Camus died in an automobile accident in Villeblevin, France, at age 46.

1965

President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his State of the Union address in which he outlined the goals of his “Great Society.”