TODAY IN HISTORY

1896: An Austrian newspaper, Wiener Presse, reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as X-rays.

1914: Auto industrialist Henry Ford announced he was going to pay workers $5 for an eight-hour day, as opposed to $2.34 for a nine-hour day. (Employees still worked six days a week; the five-day workweek was instituted in 1926.)

1925: Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming took office as America’s first female governor, succeeding her late husband, William, following a special election.

1933: Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge. (Work was completed four years later.)

1943: Educator and scientist George Washington Carver, who was born into slavery, died in Tuskegee, Ala., died at about age 80.

In his State of the Union address, President Harry S. Truman labeled his administration the Fair Deal.

1953: Samuel Beckett’s two-act tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot,” considered a classic of the Theater of the Absurd, premiered in Paris.

1957: President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed assistance to countries to help them resist communist aggression in what became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.

1972: President Richard Nixon announced that he had ordered development of the space shuttle.

1994: Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, former speaker of the House of Representatives, died in Boston at age 81.

1998: Sonny Bono, the 1960s pop star-turned-politician, was killed when he struck a tree while skiing at the Heavenly Ski Resort on the Nevada-California state line; he was 62.

2004: Foreigners arriving at U.S. airports were photographed and had their fingerprints scanned in the start of a government effort to keep terrorists out of the country.

2011: John Boehner was elected speaker as Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives on the first day of the new Congress.

2022: Australia denied entry to tennis star Novak Djokovic, who was seeking to play for a 10th Australian Open title later in the month; authorities canceled his visa because he failed to meet the requirements for an exemption to COVID-19 vaccination rules.

2023: Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his armed forces to observe a unilateral 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine for the Orthodox Christmas holiday, the first such sweeping truce move in the nearly 11-month-old war.