TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 12, the 12th day of 2021. There are 353 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History: On Jan. 12, 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.
On this date:
• In 1773, the first public museum in America was organized in Charleston, South Carolina.
• 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 1910, at a White House dinner hosted by President William Howard Taft, Baroness Rosen, wife of the Russian ambassador, caused a stir by requesting and smoking a cigarette — it was, apparently, the first time a woman had smoked openly during a public function in the executive mansion. (Some of the other women present who had brought their own cigarettes began lighting up in turn.)
• In 1915, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected, 204174, a proposed constitutional amendment to give women nationwide the right to vote.
• 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 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. founded Motown Records (originally Tamla Records) in Detroit.
• In 1969, the New York Jets of the American Football League upset the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League
16-7 in Super Bowl III, played at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
• In 1971, the groundbreaking situation comedy “All in the Family” premiered on CBS television.
• In 1976, mystery writer Dame Agatha Christie died in Wallingford, England, at age 85.
• 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.
One year ago: President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sparred ahead of Trump’s impeachment trial, with Pelosi saying senators would “pay a price” for blocking new witnesses, and Trump labeling the House impeachment vote a “totally partisan hoax.” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he had seen no hard evidence that four American embassies had been under a possible threat, as Trump had claimed, when the president authorized the drone strike that killed Iran’s top military commander.
Today’s Birthdays: The Amazing Kreskin is 86. Country singer William Lee Golden (The Oak Ridge Boys) is 82. Actor Anthony Andrews is 73. Movie director Wayne Wang is 72. Actor Kirstie Alley is 70. Political commentator Rush Limbaugh is 70. Legal affairs blogger Ann Althouse is 70. Writer Walter Mosley is 69. Country singer Ricky Van Shelton is 69. Radio-TV personality Howard Stern is 67. Writer-producerdirector John Lasseter is 64. Broadcast journalist Christiane Amanpour is 63. Actor Oliver Platt is 61. Basketball Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins is 61. Entrepreneur Jeff Bezos is 57. Rock singer Rob Zombie is 56. Actor Olivier Martinez is 55. Rapper Raekwon ( Wu Tang Clan) is 51. Actor Zabryna Guevara is 49. Singer Dan Haseltine (Jars of Clay) is 48. Singer Melanie Chisholm (Spice Girls) is 47. Contemporary Christian singer Jeremy Camp is 43. Actor Cynthia Addai-Robinson is 41. Rhythm-and-blues singer Amerie is 41. Actor Issa Rae is 36. Actor Will Rothhaar is 34. Actor Andrew Lawrence is 33. Rock singer ZAYN is 28. Pop/ soul singer Ella Henderson (TV: “The X Factor”) is 25.