ON JAN. 22 ...

In 1498, during his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus arrived at the present-day Caribbean island of St. Vincent.

In 1901 Britain’s Queen Victoria died on the Isle of Wight; she was 82.

In 1905 thousands of demonstrating Russian workers were fired on by Imperial army troops in St. Petersburg on what became known as “Red Sunday” or “Bloody Sunday.” (According to the Old-Style Julian calendar still in effect in Russia at the time, the date was Jan. 9.)

In 1908 Katie Mulcahey became the first — and only — woman to run afoul of New York City’s just-passed ban on females smoking in public establishments. (Mulcahey served a night in jail after refusing to pay a $5 fine; the law, which did not specify any fines, ended up being vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr.)

In 1909 U Thant, the third secretary general of the United Nations, was born in Pantanaw in what is now Myanmar.

In 1917 President Woodrow

Wilson pleaded for an end to war in Europe, calling for “peace without victory.” (By April, however, America also was at war.)

In 1922 Pope Benedict XV died; he would be succeeded by Pius XI.

In 1938 Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town” was performed publicly for the first time, in Princeton, N.J.

In 1953 the Arthur Miller drama “The Crucible,” set during the Salem witch trials, opened on Broadway.

In 1957 suspected “Mad Bomber” George Metesky, accused of planting more than 30 explosive devices in the New York City area since 1940, was arrested in Waterbury, Conn. (He was later found mentally ill and committed to a mental hospital; he was released in 1973, and died in 1994 at age 90.)

In 1973 the Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion using a trimester approach. Also in 1973 former President Lyndon Johnson died in Texas; he was 64.

In 1987 Pennsylvania treasurer R. Budd Dwyer, convicted of defrauding the state, proclaimed his innocence at a news conference before pulling out a gun and shooting himself to death in front of horrified onlookers.

In 1995 Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy died at the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, Mass.; she was 104.

In 1997 the Senate confirmed Madeleine Albright as the nation’s first female secretary of state.

In 1998 Theodore Kaczynski pleaded guilty in Sacramento to being the

Unabomber in return for a life sentence in prison without parole.

In 2000 Elian Gonzalez’s grandmothers met privately with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno as they appealed for help in removing the boy from his Florida relatives and reuniting him with his father in Cuba. Also in 2000 food writer Craig Claiborne died in New York; he was 79.

In 2004 South Dakota politician Bill Janklow was sentenced to 100 days in jail for an auto accident that killed a motorcyclist and ended Janklow’s career in disgrace. Also in 2004 actress-dancer Ann Miller died in Los Angeles; she was 81.

In 2008 actor Heath Ledger was found dead in a New York City apartment of what was later ruled an accidental prescription drug overdose; he was 28.

In 2012 Joe Paterno, football coach at Penn State University since 1966, who was fired in November 2011 amid a scandal of alleged child sex abuse by one of his former assistants, died in State College, Pa.; he was 85.

In 2014 Texas executed Mexican national Edgar Tamayo, 46, for the 1994 killing of a Houston police officer, despite diplomatic pressure from the Mexican government and the U.S. State Department to halt the punishment.

In 2016 a gunman opened fire at a high school and a second location in an aboriginal community in northern Saskatchewan, leaving four dead and at least two injured. Also in 2016 three inmates awaiting trial for unrelated violent crimes, including a killing, escaped from the maximum security Orange County Men’s Central Jail.