Tag: January 06

U.S. Capitol riot

On the afternoon of January 6, 2021, a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters descend on the U.S. Capitol, attempting to interfere with the certification of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.

The rioters assaulted the Capitol police force and ransacked the complex, destroying property and sending members of Congress and their staff into hiding in officers and bunkers. Five people, including a Capitol police officer and a protester who was shot by police, died in the attack, and more than 100 members of the police were injured.

At noon on January 6, at a rally on the Ellipse one mile from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Trump claimed election fraud and called on Vice President Pence to overturn the 2020 election results by refusing to certify certain electoral votes. Trump told his assembled supporters, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol” and “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Near the conclusion of his speech, several thousand attendees began marching towards the U.S. Capitol, where a crowd had assembled and was clashing with police. By 2 p.m., the rioters broke through the police barricades. The mob then entered the Capitol building, with some rioters smashing through windows and doors. Soon after, both the Senate and House of Representatives—which were in the middle of debating a Republican objection to Arizona’s electoral votes—adjourned. Vice President Pence and his family were immediately evacuated from the Senate chambers. Some members of Congress were escorted to an underground bunker while others barricaded themselves in offices or sheltered in place in the House chamber.

For several hours, rioters looted and ransacked congressional offices, including the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; invaded the Senate chamber; and posed for pictures.

At around 2 p.m., Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller called up 1,100 members of the D.C. National Guard, according to a statement from the National Guard. Guard members eventually secured the perimeter, allowing law enforcement and FBI to clear the chambers and offices of the U.S. Capitol. Around 4 p.m., President Trump, who was in the White House, posted a video message on social media in which he repeated his false claims of election fraud, but told his supporters to “go home in peace.”

By 8 p.m., the Capitol complex was declared free of rioters, and Vice President Pence called the Senate back into session. At 9 p.m., Speaker Pelosi did the same in the House. Congress voted to confirm Joe Biden‘s electoral college win at 3:24 a.m. the following morning.

One week later, on January 13, President Trump was impeached for incitement of insurrection. Unlike his first impeachment, 10 House Republicans joined Democrats in voting in favor of impeachment. Trump was found not guilty in the Senate trial, though seven Republican senators joined Democrats in voting to convict. In July of 2021, Speaker Pelosi formed a bipartisan House select committee, modeled after the commission formed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, to investigate the January 6 riot.

As of the one-year anniversary of the attack, more than 700 individuals have been charged with crimes, making it the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history. 

Source

“Wheel of Fortune” premieres


Publish date:
Year
1975
Month Day
January 06

Wheel of Fortune, the longest-running syndicated game show in American television, premieres on NBC on January 6, 1975. Created by television legend Merv Griffin and hosted since the early 1980s by Pat Sajak and Vanna White, Wheel is one of the most popular television shows in the world.

Griffin, who had already created another iconic game show, Jeopardy!, conceived of Wheel as a combination between Hangman and roulette. Contestants guess letters as they attempt to solve a Hangman-like puzzle, spinning the wheel to determine how much money they will earn for a correct guess, with the ultimate goal being to solve the puzzle and accumulate as much money as possible. Since the show’s inception, the price of a vowel has stood at $250 and has not been adjusted for inflation. The phrases “I’d like to buy a vowel” and “I’d like to solve the puzzle” have entered the American cultural lexicon. 

Sajak and White, who joined in 1981 and 82, respectively, have become some of the most famous hosts in game show history. White, who operates the board and reveals letters as they are guessed, often contributes her own puzzles to the show. In over 6,5000 episodes, she has never worn the same gown twice. The show’s producers claim that over 1 million people have auditioned to be contestants and the show has paid out a total of more than $200 million. Painfully awkward or incorrect guesses by contestants have also been comedic fodder for generations of Americans.

Source

Joan of Arc is born


Publish date:
Year
1412
Month Day
January 06

Joan of Arc, the “Maid of Orléans,” is born on January 6, 1412. She lived only 19 years, but she would become a Roman Catholic saint and a national hero of France for her pivotal role in the Hundred Years’ War.

Joan was born to Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romée in a small town in northeastern France. At the time of her birth, the English and their allies controlled much of France, including Paris, Bordeaux, and Reims. In addition to the English threat, a faction loyal to the Duke of Burgundy challenged the right of the Dauphin (heir apparent), Charles of Orléans, to the French throne. Joan claimed that she first received divine instruction at the age of 13, in her father’s garden, when Saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret told her to drive the English from the country. At age 16, she correctly predicted the outcome of a battle to a French commander, who then agreed to take her to Charles.

READ MORE: How Long Was the Hundred Years’ War?

The illiterate farm girl made a strong impression on the Dauphin, enough that she began to travel with him and advise French military leaders. It is unclear what exactly her role was in the subsequent campaign, but it is clear that it was more than merely symbolic. She carried a banner rather than a weapon, and later testified that she never killed an enemy soldier, but French leaders credited her as a major factor in lifting the siege at Orléans. The liberation of the city shocked the English and put the French on the offensive for the first time in years. With Joan’s advice, foresight, and charisma aiding his advance, Charles’ forces expelled the English and Burgundians from the Loire Valley. The French re-took Troyes and liberated Reims, the traditional coronation site for French monarchs, where the Dauphin took his crown.

A short time later, Joan was captured in battle with the Burgundians. She was put on trial by the English, who were determined to prove that her inspiration had come from the devil. Accounts of the trial feature prominently in her mythos, as she evaded English attempts to trick her into admitting heresy. In one such attempt, Joan was asked if she knew she was in God’s grace. According to doctrine, answering “yes” would have been heresy because no one could truly know the answer, but saying “no” would be an admission of heresy. Joan replied, “‘If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me,” avoiding the trap. The court eventually convicted her anyway, and she was burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431.

A posthumous “nullification trial” ordered by Pope Callixtus III exonerated Joan of the heresy charges in 1455. By that time, the tide of the war had turned decisively against the English, and the Maid of Orléans had become the major figure associated with the victory. She was declared a national symbol of France by Napoleon in 1830 and canonized by the Catholic Church in 1920. Scholars also suggest that her story had a profound effect on French society—the end of the Hundred Years’ War is often recognized as the last gasp of feudalism. Over the next several centuries, the old societal order gave way to new ideas about nation-states and the dignity of the common man, and for the French Joan of Arc was a natural symbol of both.

READ MORE: Why Was Joan of Arc Burned at the Stake?

Source

Theodore Roosevelt dies


Updated:
Original:
Year
1919
Month Day
January 06

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, dies at Sagamore Hill, his estate overlooking New York’s Long Island Sound.

A dynamic and energetic politician, Theodore Roosevelt is credited with creating the modern presidency. As a young Republican, Roosevelt held a number of political posts in New York in the 1880s and ’90s and was a leader of reform Republicans in the state. In 1898, as assistant secretary to the U.S. Navy, Roosevelt vehemently advocated war with Spain. When the Spanish-American War began, he formed the “Rough Riders,” a volunteer cavalry that became famous for its contribution to the United States victory at the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba. The publicity-minded Roosevelt rode his military fame to the New York governor’s seat in 1898 and to the vice presidency in 1900.

In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated, and Roosevelt, 43 years old, became the youngest president ever to assume the office. He stamped the presidency with a vitality that delighted most Americans and was elected to a second term in 1904. As an American expansionist, Roosevelt asserted his executive powers to defend U.S. interests throughout the Americas as he sought to balance the interests of farmers, workers, and the business class at home. He insisted on a strong navy, encouraged the independence of Panama and the construction of the Panama Canal, promoted the regulation of trusts and monopolies, and set aside land for may of America’s national parks and monuments. In 1906, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in the negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War.

In 1912, three years after finishing his second term, Roosevelt ran for president again as the new Progressive Party candidate. Challenging his former vice president, President William Howard Taft, he campaigned on his “Square Deal” platform of social reform. In November, the divided Republican Party was defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

In the last few years of his life, Roosevelt became a vocal advocate of the U.S. entrance into World War I and even sought to win a commission to lead a U.S. Army division in Europe. President Wilson declined, and after the war Roosevelt was a vocal opponent of his League of Nations. In 1919, Roosevelt died at his home in New York. The tropical diseases he had contracted during his travels likely caught up with him, and he died at the age of 60.

Source

New Mexico joins the Union


Updated:
Original:
Year
1912
Month Day
January 06

On January 6, 1912, New Mexico is admitted into the United States as the 47th state.

Spanish explorers passed through the area that would become New Mexico in the early 16th century, encountering the well-preserved remains of a 13th-century Pueblo civilization. Exaggerated rumors about the hidden riches of these Pueblo cities encouraged the first full-scale Spanish expedition into New Mexico, led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1540. Instead of encountering the long-departed Pueblo people, the Spanish explorers met other indigenous groups, like the Apaches, who were fiercely resistant to the early Spanish missions and ranches in the area.

In 1609, Pedro de Peralta was made governor of the “Kingdom and Provinces of New Mexico,” and a year later he founded its capital at Santa Fe. In the late 17th century, Apache opposition to Spain’s colonial efforts briefly drove the Spanish out of New Mexico, but within a few decades they had returned. During the 18th century, the colonists expanded their ranching efforts and made attempts at farming and mining in the region.

When Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in 1821, New Mexico became a province of Mexico, and trade was opened with the United States. In the next year, American settlers began arriving in New Mexico via the Santa Fe Trail. In 1846, the Mexican-American War erupted, and U.S. General Stephen W. Kearny captured and occupied Santa Fe without significant Mexican opposition. Two years later, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded New Mexico to the United States, and in 1853 the territory was expanded to its present size through the Gadsden Purchase.

The Apache and the Navaho resisted the colonial efforts of the U.S. as they had those of Spain and Mexico, and after three decades of bloodshed, Indian resistance finally ended with the surrender of Geronimo, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, in 1886. After the suppression of New Mexico’s natives, the population of New Mexico expanded considerably, and many came to participate in the ranching boom brought on by the opening of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1879. In 1912, New Mexico was granted statehood.

Source

Harold II crowned king of England


Updated:
Original:
Year
1066
Month Day
January 06

Following the death of Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwineson, head of the most powerful noble family in England, is crowned King Harold II. On his deathbed, Edward supposedly designated Harold the royal heir, but this claim was disputed by William, duke of Normandy and cousin of the late king. In addition, King Harald III Hardraade of Norway had designs on England, as did Tostig, brother of Harold.

King Harold rallied his forces for an expected invasion by William, but Tostig launched a series of raids instead, forcing the king to leave the English Channel unprotected. In September, Tostig joined forces with King Harald III and invaded England from Scotland. On September 25, Harold met them at Stamford Bridge and defeated and killed them both. Three days later, William landed in England at Pevensey.

On October 14, 1066, Harold met William at the Battle of Hastings, and the king was killed and his forces defeated. According to legend, he was shot through the eye with an arrow. On Christmas Day, William the Conqueror was crowned the first Norman king of England.

Source

Congress certifies George W. Bush winner of 2000 elections


Updated:
Original:
Year
2001
Month Day
January 06

After a bitterly contested election, Vice President Al Gore presides over a joint session of Congress that certifies George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 election. In one of the closest Presidential elections in U.S. history, George W. Bush was finally declared the winner more then five weeks after the election due to the disputed Florida ballots.

Gore became the third Presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to halt Florida’s manual recount. The ruling in effect gave Florida’s 25 electoral votes to Bush giving him 271 to Gore’s 266—where 270 is needed to win the election. George W. Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001, to become the 43rd President of the United States.

Four years later, Bush was re-elected, beating out Democratic Senator John Kerry.

Source

Samuel Morse demonstrates the telegraph


Updated:
Original:
Year
1838
Month Day
January 06

On January 6, 1838, Samuel Morse’s telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph, a device which used electric impulses to transmit encoded messages over a wire, would eventually revolutionize long-distance communication, reaching the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born April 27, 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University, where he was interested in art, as well as electricity, still in its infancy at the time. After college, Morse became a painter. In 1832, while sailing home from Europe, he heard about the newly discovered electromagnet and came up with an idea for an electric telegraph. He had no idea that other inventors were already at work on the concept.

Morse spent the next several years developing a prototype and took on two partners, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, to help him. In 1838, he demonstrated his invention using Morse code, in which dots and dashes represented letters and numbers. In 1843, Morse finally convinced a skeptical Congress to fund the construction of the first telegraph line in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram over the line, with the message: “What hath God wrought!”

Over the next few years, private companies, using Morse’s patent, set up telegraph lines around the Northeast. In 1851, the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company was founded; it would later change its name to Western Union. In 1861, Western Union finished the first transcontinental line across the United States. Five years later, the first successful permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean was constructed and by the end of the century telegraph systems were in place in Africa, Asia and Australia.

Because telegraph companies typically charged by the word, telegrams became known for their succinct prose–whether they contained happy or sad news. The word “stop,” which was free, was used in place of a period, for which there was a charge. In 1933, Western Union introduced singing telegrams. During World War II, Americans came to dread the sight of Western Union couriers because the military used telegrams to inform families about soldiers’ deaths.

Over the course of the 20th century, telegraph messages were largely replaced by cheap long-distance phone service, faxes and email. Western Union delivered its final telegram in January 2006.

Samuel Morse died wealthy and famous in New York City on April 2, 1872, at age 80.

Source

Army drops charges of My Lai cover-up


Updated:
Original:
Year
1971
Month Day
January 06

The Army drops charges of an alleged cover-up in the My Lai massacre against four officers. After the charges were dropped, a total of 11 people had been cleared of responsibility during the My Lai trials.

The trials were a result of action that occurred in March 1968. During the incident, 1st Lt. William Calley, a platoon leader in the 23rd (Americal) Division, allegedly led his men to massacre innocent Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, in a cluster of hamlets in Son Tinh District in the coastal south of Chu Lai.

By 1971, charges were pending only against Lt. Calley, Capt. Ernest Medina, and Capt. Eugene Kotouc. On March 29, 1971, a Fort Benning court-martial jury found Calley guilty of the premeditated murder of at least 22 South Vietnamese civilians and sentenced him to life in prison. Kotouc was cleared by a court-martial on April 29, and Medina was acquitted on September 22.

On May 19, the Army disciplined two generals for failing to conduct an adequate investigation of My Lai, demoting Maj. Gen. Samuel W. Koster from two-star to one-star rank. At the same time, both Koster and Brig. Gen. George W. Young Jr., his assistant divisional commander at the time of the massacre, were stripped of their Distinguished Service Medals, and letters of censure were placed in their personnel files. The trials ended on December 17, when Col. Oren K. Henderson was acquitted of cover-up charges. He was the highest-ranking officer to be tried.

Of those originally charged, only Calley was convicted. Many believed that Calley was a scapegoat, and the widespread public outcry against his life sentence moved President Nixon to intervene on April 3, 1971. He had Calley removed from the Fort Benning stockade and ordered him confined to quarters pending review of his case. On August 20, Calley’s life term was reduced to 20 years. In November 1974, a Federal Court judge ruled that Calley was convicted unjustly, citing “prejudicial publicity.” Although the Army disputed this ruling, Calley was paroled for good behavior after serving 40 months, 35 of which were spent in his own home.

Source

Two future presidents marry respective sweethearts


Updated:
Original:
Year
1759
Month Day
January 06

January 6 is a wedding anniversary for two presidents: George Washington and George H.W. Bush.

In 1759, a 26-year-old George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis. The recently widowed, Virginia-born Martha was an educated mother of two. George Washington–then a rising young officer in the colonial British army–moved his new bride and family to his estate at Mount Vernon. Washington soon adopted Martha’s two young children, Jack and Patsy. The couple was married until his death in 1799, a 40-year union.

Historical documents have since revealed that Martha may not have been the great love of Washington’s life. A year before his marriage to Martha and again in his later years, Washington wrote cryptic yet passionate love letters to Sally Fairfax, the wife of his friend George Fairfax. Nevertheless, he resigned his British military commission to marry Martha. Forsaking passion for propriety, Washington settled down to a gentile aristocratic lifestyle with his new wife. Although they had no offspring of their own, he doted on his adopted children and respected Martha’s parenting decisions. For her part, Martha was a devoted spouse, often accompanying Washington to headquarters during the Revolutionary War. The historical record of George and Martha’s marriage is scant since Martha burned all of the couple’s letters after George’s death, in accordance with his wishes.

Almost two hundred years later, in 1945, George Herbert Walker Bush, already a decorated WWII hero, married his 18-year-old sweetheart, Barbara Pierce. Shortly after the honeymoon, Bush returned to combat duty. After the war, Bush completed his studies at Yale and embarked on an illustrious business and political career, which culminated in his election to the presidency in 1988. He died in 2018. 

In addition to supporting her husband’s political career, Barbara Bush raised five children, including one future president, George Walker Bush, and one future governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. According to her biography, she coordinated no less than 29 family moves in 44 years of marriage. Barbara, whose name became synonymous with down-to-earth, old-fashioned American values, was popular with the American public both during and after her husband’s presidency.

Source