TODAY HISTORY IN

Today is Saturday, Jan. 18, the 18th day of 2020. There are 348 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Jan. 18, 1993, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was observed in all 50 states for the first time.

On this date:

■ In 1778, English navigator Captain James Cook reached the present-day Hawaiian Islands, which he named the “Sandwich Islands.”

■ In 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.

■ In 1936, Nobel Prize-winning author Rudyard Kipling, 70, died in London.

■ In 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. The Soviets announced they’d broken through the long Nazi siege of Leningrad (it was another year before the siege was fully lifted).

Today’s Birthdays: Comedian-singer-musician Brett Hudson is 67. Actor-director Kevin Costner is 65. Country singer-actor Mark Collie is 64. Actress Alison Arngrim (TV: “Little House on the Prairie”) is 58. Rapper DJ Quik is 50. Rock singer Jonathan Davis (Korn) is 49. Former NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous is 47. Actor Derek Richardson is 44. Country singer Kristy Lee Cook (TV: “American Idol”) is 36.

Thought for Today: “None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.” — John Milton, English poet (1608-1674).