Today in History

1649		Charles I of England is beheaded at Whitehall by the executioner Richard Brandon.
1844		Richard Theodore Greener becomes the first African American to graduate from Harvard University.
1862		The USS Monitor is launched at Greenpoint, Long Island.
1901		Women Prohibitionists smash 12 saloons in Kansas.
1912		The British House of Lords opposes the House of Commons by rejecting home rule for Ireland.
1931		The United States awards civil government to the Virgin Islands.
1933		Adolf Hitler is named Chancellor by President Paul Hindenburg.
1936		Governor Harold Hoffman orders a new inquiry into the Lindbergh kidnapping.
1943		Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrenders himself and his staff to Red Army troops in Stalingrad.
1945		The Allies launch a drive on the Siegfried line in Germany.
1949		In India, 100,000 people pray at the site of Gandhi's assassination on the first anniversary of his death.
1953		President Dwight Eisenhower announces that he will pull the Seventh Fleet out of Formosa to permit the Nationalists to attack Communist China.
1964		The Ranger spacecraft, equipped with six TV cameras, is launched to the moon from Cape Canaveral.
1972		British troops shoot dead 14 Irish civilians in Derry, Ireland. The day is forever remembered in Ireland as 'Bloody Sunday.'
1976		The U.S. Supreme Court bans spending limits in campaigns, equating funds with freedom of speech.
1980		The first-ever Chinese Olympic team arrives in New York for the Winter Games at Lake Placid.