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.