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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On January 19, 1915, a quiet but consequential patent filing helped tilt the modern city toward light. Georges Claude, a French engineer and industrial chemist, secured legal protection for the neon discharge tube as a device for advertising—transforming an obscure laboratory phenomenon into one…
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On January 19, 1953, nearly three-quarters of all television sets in the United States—an estimated 44 million viewers—were tuned to a single half hour of programming. What they watched was not a presidential address or a breaking national emergency, but an episode of I…
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On January 18, 1967, Albert DeSalvo was sentenced to life imprisonment in Massachusetts, closing one chapter of the most terrifying murder spree Boston had ever known—and opening a far more unsettling debate about guilt, justice, and the limits of certainty in criminal law. By…
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On January 18, 1943, armed Jewish resistance erupted inside the Warsaw Ghetto, marking the first organized uprising by Jews against Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Though smaller and less well-known than the April revolt that would follow, the January uprising fundamentally altered the moral…
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On January 17, 1961—just three days before leaving office—Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a televised farewell address that would outlast nearly every other valedictory speech in American history. Calm in delivery but sober in judgment, the address reflected the perspective of a career soldier turned…
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On January 16, 27 BC, the Roman Senate conferred upon Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus the honorific title Augustus—a moment that has come to symbolize the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire. The significance of the act lay not…
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On January 15, 1777, in the depths of the American Revolutionary War, a rugged, contested frontier known as New Connecticut—today’s Vermont—took a step few dared: it declared itself an independent polity. The declaration did not pledge allegiance to Britain, nor did it seek immediate…
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