Chicago Daily Tribune

ON JANUARY 24 ...

In A.D. 41 Roman Emperor Caligula, 28, was assassinated by members of the Praetorian Guard after a reign of nearly four years; he was succeeded by his uncle Claudius.

In 1742 Charles VII was elected Holy Roman Emperor during the War of the Austrian Succession.

In 1848, James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter’s Mill in northern California, a discovery that led to the gold rush of ’49.

In 1908 the first Boy Scout troop was organized in England by Robert BadenPowell.

In 1924 the Russian city of St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad in honor of the late revolutionary leader. (It has since reverted to the name St. Petersburg).

In 1941 singer Neil Diamond was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

In 1965 Winston Churchill died in London; he was 90.

In 1978 a nuclear-powered Soviet satellite plunged through Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated, scattering radioactive debris over parts of northern Canada.

In 1985 the space shuttle Discovery was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on the first secret, allmilitary shuttle mission.

In 1986 the Voyager II space probe swept past Uranus, coming within 50,679 miles of the seventh planet of the solar system.

In 1987 gunmen in Lebanon kidnapped educators Alann Steen, Jesse Turner and Robert Polhill and Mitheleshwar Singh. (All were later released.)

In 1989 confessed serial killer Theodore Bundy was put to death in Florida’s electric chair.

In 1993 retired Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall died in Bethesda, Md.; he was 84.

In 1996 the FDA approved

Olestra, the nation’s first zero-calorie artificial fat.

In 2000 Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore posted victories in the Iowa caucuses.

In 2003 the new Department of Homeland Security officially opened as its head, Tom Ridge, was sworn in.

In 2004 NASA’s Opportunity rover landed on Mars, arriving at the Red Planet exactly three weeks after its identical twin’s landing.

In 2005 the United Nations broke with years of protocol and commemorated the 60-year anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, directly linking its own founding with the end of the Holocaust in some of the strongest language ever.

In 2013 New Orleans Hornets owner Tom Benson announced he was changing his team’s nickname to the Pelicans for the start of next season.

In 2016 one of the fiercest blizzards to strike the eastern U.S. in decades left a trail of record snowfalls in major cities, heavy flooding up and down the coast and at least 30 people dead.

In 2017 President Donald Trump tweeted about Chicago’s violence, saying he would “send in the Feds!”, a vague missive that prompted days of debate.

In 2018 former White Sox slugger Jim Thome joined Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, and Trevor Hoffman in the 2018 Hall of Fame class elected by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Also in 2018 Larry Nassar, the former sports doctor who admitted molesting some of the nation’s top gymnasts for years under the guise of medical treatment, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison.