ON JAN. 7 ...
In 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter’s moons.
In 1789 the first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation’s first president.
In 1800 the 13th U.S. president, Millard Fillmore, was born in Summerhill, N.Y.
In 1912 cartoonist Charles Addams was born in Westfield, N.J.
In 1927 commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London.
In 1953 President Harry Truman announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb.
In 1959 the United States recognized the new government of Cuba, six days after
Fidel Castro led the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.
In 1972 Lewis Powell Jr. and William Rehnquist were sworn in as the 99th and 100th members of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1979 Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.
In 1989 Emperor Hirohito of Japan died in Tokyo at age 87; he was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Akihito.
In 1990 former Bears running back Bronko Nagurski died in International Falls, Minn.; he was 81.
In 1996 a major blizzard paralyzed the Eastern United States. (More than 100 deaths were later blamed on the severe weather.)
In 1998 former White House intern Monica Lewinsky signed an affidavit denying she had an affair with President Bill Clinton.
In 1999 President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial began in the Senate.
In 2000 Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., subpoenaed Elian Gonzalez to testify before Congress in a bid to keep Elian in the United States for at least another month while courts decided whether the 6-year-old should be returned to Cuba. (Elian never testified.)
In 2003 President George W. Bush proposed legal status — at least temporarily — for millions of illegal immigrants working in the U.S.
In 2005 Rosemary Kennedy, the mentally disabled oldest sister of President John Kennedy and the inspiration for the Special Olympics, died in Fort Atkinson, Wis.; she was 86.
In 2008 the Pentagon reported an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. Navy convoy passing near Iranian waters, then vanished as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire. Also in 2008 second-ranked LSU defeated No. 1 Ohio State, 38-24, in the BCS championship game played in New Orleans.
In 2014 Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan signed a law that bans same-sex marriage and criminalizes homosexual associations, societies and meetings, with penalties of up to 14 years in jail.
In 2015 two Algerian-French brothers killed 10 editors, cartoonists and writers at the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and two French police officers, setting off a manhunt that gripped the nation.
In 2016 a man who later said he was acting in the name of Islam fired at least 13 shots from close range at a Philadelphia police officer sitting in his cruiser at an intersection; the severely wounded officer returned fire while giving chase, and both men survived the gun battle.