ON JAN. 8 ...

In 1642, astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy; he was 77.

In 1790 President George Washington delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress in New York.

In 1815 U.S. forces led by Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans — the closing engagement of the War of 1812.

In 1935 rock legend Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Miss.

In 1942 theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford, England.

In 1947 rock singer-songwriter David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in London.

In 1959 Charles De Gaulle was inaugurated president of France’s Fifth Republic.

In 1965 the Star of India and other stolen gems were returned to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

In 1968 the Otis Redding single “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was released on the Volt label almost a month after the singer’s death in a plane crash.

In 1982 American Telephone and Telegraph settled the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.

In 1985 the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco of Joliet was kidnapped in Lebanon. (He was released 19 months later.)

In 1993 seven people were found shot to death at a Brown’s Chicken & Pasta restaurant in Palatine. (Juan Luna and James Degorski were later convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the crime.)

In 1998 Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993

World Trade Center bombing, was sentenced in New York to life in prison.

In 2003 a US Airways Express commuter plane crashed at the Charlotte, N.C., airport, killing all 21 people on board.

In 2011 a gunman allegedly attempting to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., during a meet-your-congressperson event outside a grocery store in Tucson critically wounded the lawmaker with a shot to the head, killed six people including federal Judge John M. Roll and a 9-year-old girl, and wounded 12 others. The suspect, Jared Loughner, was tackled by witnesses at the scene, arrested and later placed in federal custody charged with several felonies.

In 2014 former White Sox great Frank Thomas joined former Atlanta Braves pitchers Greg Maddux, a former Cub, and Tom Glavine in the 2014 Hall of Fame class elected by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

In 2015 the Chicago Bears hired Ryan Pace as the team’s new general manager.

In 2018 the Chicago Bears hired Matt Nagy as the team’s 16th head coach.