TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Friday, Jan. 1, the first day of 2021. There are 364 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states shall be “forever free.” On this date:

In 1660, Englishman Samuel Pepys (peeps) began keeping his famous diary.

In 1892, the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.

In 1953, country singer Hank Williams Sr., 29, was discovered dead in the back seat of his car during a stop in Oak Hill, West Virginia, while he was being driven to a concert date in Canton, Ohio.

In 1954, NBC broadcast the first coast-to- coast color TV program as it presented live coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.

In 1959, Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries overthrew Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.

In 1975, a jury in Washington found Nixon administration officials John N. Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and Robert C. Mardian guilty of charges related to the Watergate coverup (Mardian’s conviction for conspiracy was later overturned on appeal).

In 1979, the United States and China held celebrations in Washington and Beijing to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In 1984, the breakup of AT&T took place as the telecommunications giant was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.

In 1992, Boutros BoutrosGhali succeeded Javier Perez de Cuellar (hah-vee-EHR’ PEHR’-ehs day KWAY’-yahr) as secretary-general of the United Nations.

In 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

In 2005, desperate, homeless villagers on the tsunamiravaged island of Sumatra mobbed American helicopters carrying aid as the U.S. military launched its largest operation in the region since the Vietnam War. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, died near Daytona Beach, Florida, at age 80.

In 2014, the nation’s first legal recreational pot shops opened in Colorado at 8 a.m. Mountain time.