On this day, Jan. 18
1778 English navigator Captain James Cook reached the present-day Hawaiian Islands, which he named the “Sandwich Islands.”
1911 The first landing of an aircraft on a ship took place as pilot Eugene B. Ely brought his Curtiss biplane in for a safe landing on the deck of the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Harbor.
1943 During World War II, Jewish insurgents in the Warsaw Ghetto launched their initial armed resistance against Nazi troops, who eventually succeeded in crushing the rebellion.
1975 The situation comedy “The Jeffersons,” a spinoff from “All in the Family,” premiered on CBS-TV.
1990 A jury in Los Angeles acquitted former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, of 52 child molestation charges.
1991 Financially strapped Eastern Airlines shut down after more than six decades in business.
1993 The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was observed in all 50 states for the first time.
2005 The world’s largest commercial jet, the Airbus A380 “superjumbo” capable of flying up to 800 passengers, was unveiled in Toulouse, France.
2012 President Barack Obama rejected the Keystone XL project, a Canadian company’s plan to build a 1,700-mile pipeline to carry oil across six U.S. states to Texas refineries.
2013 Former Democratic New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was indicted on charges that he’d used his office for personal gain, accepting payoffs, free trips and gratuities from contractors while the city was struggling to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. (Nagin was later convicted and released from prison in 2020.)
2019 Jason Van Dyke, the white Chicago police officer who gunned down Black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison. Today’s birthdays: Movie director John Boorman, 90. Former Sen. Paul Kirk, DMass., 85. Singer-songwriter Bobby Goldsboro, 82. Comedian-singer-musician Brett Hudson, 70. Actor-director Kevin Costner, 68. Country singer-actor Mark Collie, 67. Actor Mark Rylance, 63. Actor Alison Arngrim (TV: “Little House on the Prairie”), 61. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, 60. Actor Jane Horrocks, 59. Comedian Dave Attell, 58. Actor Jesse L. Martin, 54. Rapper DJ Quik, 53. Rock singer Jonathan Davis (Korn), 52. Former NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous, 50. Singer Christian Burns (BBMak), 49. Actor Derek Richardson, 47. Actor Jason Segel, 43. Actor Samantha Mumba, 40. Country singer Kristy Lee Cook (TV: “American Idol”), 39. Actor Devin Kelley, 37. Actor Ashleigh Murray (TV: “Riverdale”), 35. Tennis player Angelique Kerber, 35. Actor Mateus Ward, 24.