TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, JAN. 15, the 15th day of 2016. There are 351 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1976, Sara Jane Moore was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Gerald R. Ford in San Francisco. (Moore was released on the last day of 2007.)

In 1862, the U.S. Senate confirmed President Abraham Lincoln’s choice of Edwin M. Stanton to be the new Secretary of War, replacing Simon Cameron.

In 1865, as the Civil War neared its end, Union forces captured Fort Fisher near Wilmington, N.C., depriving the Confederates of their last major seaport.

In 1929, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta.

In 1943, work was completed on the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of War (now Defense).

In 1947, the mutilated remains of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, who came to be known as the “Black Dahlia,” were found in a vacant Los Angeles lot; her slaying remains unsolved.

In 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League 35-10 in the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, known retroactively as Super Bowl I.

In 2001, President-elect George W. Bush marked the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday at an elementary school in Houston, where he promised black Americans: “My job will be to listen not only to the successful, but also to the suffering.” Wikipedia, a Web-based encyclopedia, made its debut.

In 2009, US Airways Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger ditched his Airbus A320 in the Hudson River after a flock of birds disabled both engines; all 155 people aboard survived.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actress Margaret O’Brien is 78. Actress Andrea Martin is 69. Actor-director Mario Van Peebles is 59. Actor Chad Lowe is 48. Alt-country singer Will Oldham (aka “Bonnie Prince Billy”) is 46. Actress Regina King is 45. Actor Eddie Cahill is 38. NFL quarterback Drew Brees is 37. Rapper/reggaeton artist Pitbull is 35. Actor Victor Rasuk is 31.