TODAY IN HISTORY

FRIDAY JAN 20, 2023 1937

President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first chief executive to be inaugurated on Jan. 20instead of March 4.

1801

Secretary of State John Marshall was nominated by President John Adams to be chief justice of the United States.

1841

The island of Hong Kong was ceded by China to Great Britain.

1936

Britain’s King George V died after his physician injected the mortally ill monarch with morphine and cocaine to hasten his death; the king was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne 11 months later to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

1961

John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States.

1964

Capitol Records released the album “Meet the Beatles!”

1981

Iran released 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.

1986

The United States observed the first federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

2009

Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation’s 44th, as well as first African American, president.

2011

Federal authorities orchestrated one of the biggest Mafia takedowns in FBI history, charging 127suspected mobsters and associates in the Northeast with murders, extortion and other crimes spanning decades.

2017

Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, pledging emphatically to empower America’s “forgotten men and women.” Protesters registered their rage against the new president in a chaotic confrontation with police just blocks from the inaugural parade.

2020

Chinese government experts confirmed human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus, saying two people caught the virus from family members and that some health workers had tested positive.