TODAY IN HISTORY

FRIDAY JAN 13, 2023

2021

President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House over the violent Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol, becoming the only president to be twice impeached; ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting to impeach Trump on a charge of “incitement of insurrection.”

1733

James Oglethorpe and some 120English colonists arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, while en route to settle in present-day Georgia.

1794

President George Washington approved a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the Union.

1898

Emile Zola’s famous defense of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, “J’accuse,”, was published in Paris.

1941

A new law went into effect granting Puerto Ricans U.S. birthright citizenship. Novelist and poet James Joyce died in Zurich, Switzerland, less than a month before his 59th birthday.

1964

Roman Catholic Bishop Karol Wojtyla was appointed Archbishop of Krakow, Poland, by Pope Paul VI.

1982

An Air Florida 737 crashed into Washington, D.C.’S 14th Street Bridge and fell into the Potomac River while trying to take off during a snowstorm, killing a total of 78 people, including four motorists on the bridge; four passengers and a flight attendant survived.

1987

West German police arrested Mohammed Ali Hamadi, a suspect in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and the killing of a U.S. Navy diver who was on board.

1990

L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the nation’s first elected Black governor as he took the oath of office in Richmond.

1992

Japan apologized for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for its soldiers during World War II, citing newly uncovered documents that showed the Japanese army had had a role in abducting the socalled “comfort women.”

2000

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stepped aside as chief executive and promoted company president Steve Ballmer to the position.

2001

An earthquake estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey at magnitude 7.7 struck El Salvador; more than 840 people were killed.