History Today

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 31st. With just days left until the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs face off in Super Bowl 55, we look back to this day in 1988, when quarterback Doug Williams led what is now known as the Washington Football Team to victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl 22. Williams, the first-ever Black quarterback to play in a Super Bowl, scored five touchdowns in the upset 42-10 victory.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 30th. Just 12 days after the nation celebrated Martin Luther King Day, we look back to this day in 1956, when the civil rights leader’s Montgomery, Alabama, home was bombed by an unidentified white supremacist terrorist. Although King’s wife Coretta was at home with the couple’s infant daughter Yolanda, neither was harmed.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 29th. It’s the state that produces more of the nation’s wheat and wheat flour than any other--on this day in 1861, Kansas became the 34th U.S. state. Kansas achieved statehood after a bitter--and violent--debate over whether or not slavery would be legal within its borders.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 28th. Thirty-five years ago today, the space shuttle Challenger, carrying 6 astronauts and teacher Christa McAuliffe, set to become the first ordinary citizen to travel into space, exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. Hundreds on the ground, including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle broke up in a forking plume of smoke and fire.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 27th. On this day in 1945, during World War II, Soviet troops liberated the survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camps, finally revealing to the world the depth of the horrors perpetrated there. 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz, and thousands were also used for medical experiments under the auspices of the camp doctor, Josef Mengele.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 26th. Today it’s home to 25 million mostly law-abiding citizens, but on this day in 1736, Great Britain’s first fleet arrived in Australia carrying 736 convicts that had been banished to Australia. Of course, Australia was already home to an estimated 1 million aboriginal people from 250 nations.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 25th. The next Winter Olympic Games are set to be held in Beijing, China, in February 2022. That contest will come 98 years after the very first Winter Olympics began in Chamonix, France, on this day in 1924. Those first games featured many of the same sports fans enjoy today, including hockey, skating, bobsled, skiing and, yes, curling. Norway led the medal count, bringing home 17. The U.S. tied for third.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 24th. World War II officially ended on September 2, 1945, but that came as news to a Japanese soldier found hiding on Guam on this day in 1972, 28 years after the Japanese surrender. The soldier had no idea the war was over. He had gone into hiding after the U.S. captured Guam from Japan in 1944, and spent the next three decades hiding rather than surrender.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 23rd. Studies show that women are now becoming doctors in greater numbers than men, but that was far from the case on this day in 1849, when Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman physician in the United States. Born in Great Britain, Blackwell attended what is now Hobart College, in New York state, and later became a professor of gynecology, a field of medicine she helped to establish.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 22nd. Queen Elizabeth II has reigned as England’s monarch for 68 years. That makes her the country’s longest-reigning monarch, having been on the throne about five years longer than her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria II, whose historic 63-year reign came to an end with her death on this day in 1901.

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