ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: Trump inaugurated
In 1265, England’s Parliament, representing English districts, cities and boroughs, met for the first time.
In 1783, Britain and the United States signed an armistice, and fighting in the Revolutionary War ceased on Feb. 4.
In 1841, the island of Hong Kong was ceded by China to Great Britain. It returned to Chinese control in July 1997.
In 1850, Capt. Robert McClure sailed from Britain to search for survivors of the Franklin Expedition in the Canadian Arctic. He eventually discovered the Northwest Passage.
In 1887, the U.S. Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
In 1892, the first game of basketball was played in Springfield, Mass. It was invented by Canadianborn teacher James Naismith.
In 1904, the federal government disallowed a British Columbia act that restricted immigration.
In 1918, following the Bolshevik Revolution, all church property in Russia was confiscated and all religious instruction in schools abolished.
In 1937, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first chief executive to be inaugurated on Jan. 20th instead of March 4.
In 1942, Nazi officials held the notorious Wannsee Conference in the Berlin suburb of that name. The meeting discussed details of their planned extermination of European Jews.
In 1945, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn into office for an unprecedented fourth term. (In 1951, the 22nd Ammendment was ratified, limiting the president to two four-year terms.)
In 1966, promoter Bill Graham began his notorious three-day Trips Festival at the Longshoreman’s Hall in San Francisco.
In 1981, the American hostage crisis in Iran came to an end. The release came moments after the U.S. presidency passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. The 52 Americans had been held for 444 days. Radical Iranian students had seized the U.S. embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, demanding the U.S. extradite the deposed shah to stand trial in Iran.
In 1988, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Drifters, The Supremes and Bob Dylan became the third group of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Paul McCartney refused to attend the ceremony in New York because he didn’t want to take the stage with George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Beach Boy Mike Love hurled insults at McCartney, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger during The Beach Boys’ induction speech.
In 2003, Illinois-born Craig Kelly, a four-time overall world champion snowboarder, was among seven people killed in a massive avalanche near Revelstoke, B.C.
In 2004, Martha Stewart’s stock-trading trial formally began in New York. She ended up serving a fivemonth prison sentence for lying about a stock sale.
In 2009, Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States — the first African-American to become president in the history of the U.S.
In 2017, billionaire businessman and TV celebrity Donald Trump took the oath of office as the 45th President of the United States. Trump later claimed to have had the largest attendance ever for a presidential inauguration.