January 31, 1919 – Birthday of Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was the first African-American player in modern major league baseball. His debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947 ended approximately 60 years of baseball segregation. Robinson, the grandson of a slave and the son of a sharecropper, was not only a baseball [...]

January 31, 1950 – President Truman Approves Development of the H-Bomb

Many physicists who had worked on the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico as part of the “Manhattan Project” during World War II were opposed to doing any more work on a bigger bomb, or “Super” as the theoretical thermonuclear (or hydrogen) bomb was called. Although they found the physics of [...]

January 30, 1956 – Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Home was Bombed

On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white person on the bus she took on her regular ride home from the Montgomery Fair department store. The bus driver got the Montgomery police, who took took her to the station and booked, fingerprinted, and incarcerated her. She was [...]

The Supreme Russian Court Rejects Appeal to Reopen Investigation into Katyn Massacre

According to the Jurist Legal News and Research Website, “The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on Thursday rejected an appeal by relatives of victims of the 1940 Katyn Massacre to reopen investigations into the killings. The court reasoned that the Soviet-era criminal code to be applied to the killings places a ten year statute [...]

Who is Nasir al-Wuhayshi and Why is He Important to the United States?

Nasir al-Wuhayshi is the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen. Al-Wuhayshi is an ethnic Yemeni who spent time training in Afghanistan under Osama bin Laden. On January 20, 2009, he announced the formation of a single al Qaeda group for the entire Arabian Peninsula under his command. The announcement also mentioned that a Saudi national [...]

January 29, 1861 – Kansas Entered the Union as a Free State

The United States acquired Kansas in 1803 from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase. During its early years as a U.S. possession, the area was part of Indian Territory and was used by the federal government to relocate tribal peoples. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. The [...]

Obama Photoshopped as Other People

A great collection of transmogrified Obamas can be found on the Urlesque blog, here.

Why Didn’t Presidents Before Obama Use the Lincoln Bible?

President Obama was the first President to be sworn in using the Lincoln Bible since its first use in 1861. Why didn’t other president-elects use it? The History News Network gives the answer: “Because the Library of Congress didn’t offer it up. The Bible, which was given to Lincoln by the clerk of the Supreme [...]

Thomas Friedman’s Five-State Solution to the Mideast Crisis

In today’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman outlines a plan for peace and normalization of relations that would involve Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Steps, in brief, would include: 1. Israeli phased withdrawal from the West Bank and Arab districts of East Jerusalem. 2. Palestinians agree to a unified government. 3. Palestinians agree [...]

January 28, 1986 – Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger

On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. A few days after the explosion of the Challenger, physicist Richard Feynman was asked by the head of NASA to be on a presidential commission investigating the accident. (Richard Feynman, the [...]