This Week in History – January 10-January 16

January 10, 1776 – Common Sense, a 50-page pamphlet by Thomas Paine advocating American independence, was published. It sold over 500,000 copies in America and Europe, influencing, among others, the authors of the Declaration of Independence.

January 10, 1925 – “The Arrowhead” is selected as the official moniker for northeastern Minnesota, the result of a nationwide contest.

January 10, 1945 – RCA introduces the 45 RPM record.

January 10, 1975 – A fierce, three-day blizzard strikes, bringing one to two feet of snow (with some drifts reaching 20 feet) and winds up to 80 mph, closing most Minnesota roads, stranding a train at Willmar, and killing 35 people and 15,000 head of livestock. Global warming?

January 10, 1984 – Under President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. and Vatican established full diplomatic relations after a break of 116 years.

January 11, 1755 – Alexander Hamilton was born in the British West Indies. He was a Founder who favored a strong central government and co-authored the Federalist Papers, a series of essays in defense of the new Constitution. He was selected by George Washington to be the first Secretary of the Treasury. He died from a gunshot wound received during a duel with Aaron Burr.

January 11, 1838 – First public demonstration of telegraph messages sent using dots and dashes at Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, NJ, by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail.

January 11, 1909 – Canada and the U.S. sign a treaty forming the International Joint Commission, a legislative body charged with preventing and settling disputes in the Boundary Waters region.

January 11, 1990 – In Lithuania, 200,000 persons demanded political independence from socialist-communist Soviet Russia after Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, publicly warned that separatism could lead to tragedy. Independence was achieved in September of 1991, three months before the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.

January 11, 2010 – Democrat President Obama issues Executive Order 13528 unlawfully subverting the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which prohibits using the military for civilian law enforcement.

January 12, 1588 – John Winthrop was born in Suffolk, England. In 1630, he joined a group of Puritans emigrating to America and became the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, establishing the Puritan colony on the peninsula of Shawmut, which became Boston.

January 12, 1737 – American merchant, statesman, prominent patriot, and Founding Father John Hancock was born in Braintree, MA. He was elected president of the Second Continental Congress in 1775, was the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, and went on to become the first elected governor of Massachusetts.

January 12, 1913 – After using other pseudonyms over the years, socialist megalomaniac Josef Dzhugashvili signs himself as Stalin (“man of steel”) in a letter to the newspaper Social Democrat.

January 12, 1999 – Democrat President Bill Clinton sent a check for $850,000 to Paula Jones officially ending the sexual harassment legal case that ultimately endangered his presidency. The lawsuit had exposed the president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and resulted in investigations by Independent Counsel Ken Starr that led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representatives and subsequent trial in the Senate for lying to Congress.

January 13, 1898 – French author Emile Zola published J’Accuse, a letter accusing the French government of a cover-up in the Alfred Dreyfus case. Dreyfus was convicted of treason for allegedly selling military secrets to the Germans and was sent to Devil’s Island. As a result of Zola’s letter and subsequent trial, Dreyfus was completely vindicated.

January 13, 1920 – New York Times editorial says rockets can never fly.

January 13, 1978 – Hubert H. Humphrey dies. Born in Wallace, SD on May 27, 1911, he was state campaign manager for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 and a founder of the anti-communist group, Americans for Democratic Action. Humphrey entered the national spotlight after delivering a rousing address on civil rights at the 1948 Democrat National Convention. He served in the Senate beginning in 1948 and was elected vice president under Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. He lost to Richard Nixon for the presidency in 1968 and in 1970 was reelected to the Senate, where he served until his death.

January 14, 1690 – Musical instrument, the clarinet, is invented in Nürnberg, Germany.

January 14, 1739 – George Whitefield, the preacher who sparked America’s first Great Awakening, is ordained to the Anglican ministry. Whitefield, famous for his open-air preaching after jealous ministers denied him the use of their pulpits, was perfectly suited to it—his booming voice could be heard a mile away.

January 14, 1741 – Benedict Arnold was born in Norwich, CT. He was the American Revolutionary War hero who turned traitor, sending information to the British in exchange for money. After obtaining command of West Point in 1780, he conspired to turn over the garrison to the British. But his plans were discovered and he fled to British headquarters in New York. After the war, he lived in England.

January 14, 1875 – Theologian, medical missionary, organist, musical historian, and winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize Albert Schweitzer is born. His Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) is considered a foundational work on that subject. He was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945, narrowly escaping execution when the camps were liberated.

January 14, 1892 – American film pioneer Hal Roach was born in Elmira, NY. His output included about 1,000 movies of all lengths, including the classic Laurel and Hardy comedies.

January 14, 1892 – German theologian, Lutheran pastor, and political activist Martin Niemoller, who was imprisoned by Hitler for his leadership role in the Confessing Church which opposed the Nazification of German Protestant churches, is born.

January 14, 2019 – The beginning of the end of the “Russian Collusion” hoax: President Donald Trump again denied he was a Russian agent after a series of cooked-up accusations from Democrats, fake news by the Democrat-controlled media, illegal wiretaps by the FBI ordered by the Obama administration, and multiple obstructions by Obama-holdovers within the Executive Branch dating back to 2016. Originally intended to divert attention from the Hillary Clinton email scandal, the hoax cost taxpayers multiple millions of dollars. The nearly 2-year probe by Special Counsel Robert Meuller alone cost $32 million and ended with Meuller admitting in March that he turned up nothing against Trump.

January 14, 2021 – In shades modus operandi in many Third World regimes, over 20,000 troops are authorized to guard Joe Biden’s inauguration in Washington D.C. after his highly disputed election victory—more troops than those stationed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia combined.

January 15, 588 B.C. – As warned by Jewish prophets for over 100 years, Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah’s reign, sending Israel into captivity for 70 years.

January 15, 1870 – The first use of a donkey to symbolize the Democrat Party appeared in a cartoon in Harper’s Weekly, criticizing former secretary of war Edwin Stanton with the caption, “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion.”

January 15, 1929 – Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, GA. As a Baptist minister and civil rights leader he spoke eloquently and stressed nonviolent methods to achieve equality. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He was assassinated in Memphis, TN, on April 4, 1968. In 1983, under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan, the third Monday in January was designated a legal holiday in the U.S. to celebrate his birthday. It was first observed in all 50 states in 1993.

January 15, 1943 – Minnesota North Stars forward Bill Masterton dies two days after suffering a head injury in a game against the Oakland Seals; the only death as a result of a game injury in NHL history.

January 16, 1604 – Puritan John Rainolds suggests that “there might be a new translation of the Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek.” England’s King James I granted his approval the following day, leading to the 1611 publication of the Authorized (King James) version of the Bible.

January 16, 1853 – French industrialist Andre Michelin was born in Paris. He started the Michelin Tire Company in 1888, pioneering the use of pneumatic tires on automobiles.

January 16, 1890 – Moody Bible Institute in Chicago is dedicated, 17 years after evangelist D.L. Moody and college administrator Emma Dryer first discussed the idea.

January 16, 1991 – The war against Iraq began as Allied aircraft conducted a major raid against Iraqi air defenses. The air raid on Baghdad was broadcast live to a global audience on TV as operation Desert Shield became Desert Storm.