On January 29, 1886, a German engineer named Karl Benz quietly filed a patent that would help remake the modern world. The document, submitted to the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin, described a “vehicle powered by a gas engine.” It carried little fanfare at…
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Charles Curtis made history on January 29, 1907, becoming the first Native American to serve in the United States Senate. A member of the Kaw Nation, Curtis’s extraordinary career was marked by his dedication to public service, his advocacy for Native American issues, and…
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On January 27, 1820, at the outer edge of the known world, a Russian naval expedition pressed south through ice-choked seas and altered humanity’s map of the planet. Commanded by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, the voyage approached what is now…
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In the bleak aftermath of the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Union Army stood stunned—not merely by defeat, but by the scale and clarity of it. On January 26, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln formally relieved Ambrose Burnside of command of the Army of the Potomac,…
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On January 25, 1971, one of the most infamous crime sprees in American history reached its legal conclusion. Charles Manson and four members of his so-called “Family” were found guilty for their roles in the brutal Tate–LaBianca murders, a verdict that brought a grim…
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On January 24, 1848, a carpenter named James W. Marshall bent down along the American River and unknowingly altered the trajectory of a continent. What he found glittering in the cold water near Sutter’s Mill was not merely a fleck of metal, but the…
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On a cold January morning in 1570, a single gunshot echoed through the streets of Linlithgow and across Scottish history. James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray—regent of Scotland and guardian of the infant king—slumped from his horse, mortally wounded. With that shot, fired from…
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On January 22, 1970, a new era of flight quietly but decisively began as a Boeing 747 lifted off from John F. Kennedy International Airport, bound for London Heathrow Airport. Operated by its launch customer, Pan American World Airways, the world’s first “jumbo jet”…
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On January 21, 1789, as the United States stood on the cusp of constitutional government, a modest book rolled off a Boston press that would later claim an unexpected distinction. Titled The Power of Sympathy; or, The Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, the…
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On January 20, 1265, in the mid-thirteenth century, a quiet but enduring revolution in English governance took place inside the great halls of what is now known as the Palace of Westminster. For the first time, an English Parliament convened that included not only…
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