History Today

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 21st. Amid recent news that aviation startup Boom Supersonic will test out its new faster-than-sound jet later this year, we look back to this day in 1976, when the world’s first supersonic passenger jet, the Concorde, took its first public flights. At their cruising speeds, the innovative Concordes flew well over the sound barrier at 1,350 miles an hour, cutting air travel time by more than half.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 20th. Today is Inauguration Day, when Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. January 20th was also Inauguration Day for Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Obama, Trump, and Franklin Roosevelt, who began his record fourth term on this day in 1944.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 19th. Just one day before Kamala Harris will be sworn in as America’s first woman vice president, we look back to this day in 1966, when Indira Gandhi became India’s first-ever female prime minister.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 18th. Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a federal holiday, when millions of Americans have the day off from work and school in honor of the civil rights hero. In 1986, King became the first modern private citizen to be honored with a federal holiday. For the many who admired his leadership of the civil rights movement, it made sense to celebrate him. But not everyone agreed.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 17th. It was almost the perfect crime: On this day in 1950, 11 men stole $2.7 million--more than $29 million today--from the Brinks Armored Car Depot in Boston.The men staked out the depot for more than 18 months to determine when it would hold the most money, stole plans for the building’s alarm system, and then entered the building wearing fake uniforms and Halloween masks.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 16th. The average American adult consumes more than 500 alcoholic drinks annually. So one can only imagine how we’d feel today about the news that greeted the nation on this day in 1919-- that the 18th amendment, banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of “intoxicating liquor” had become the law of the land.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 15th. Fiery hot molasses might have been the last thing Bostonians expected to see when they left their homes on this day in 1919. But that’s just what flooded the streets of the city’s North End when a 58-foot-high tank filled with 2.5 million gallons of crude molasses exploded.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 14th. These days, American presidents regularly log thousands of flight miles a year on Air Force One, but back on this day in 1943, air travel was still a rarity. That’s when Franklin Roosevelt flew on a Boeing 314 Flying Boat to a World War II strategy session with British prime minister Winston Churchill in Casablanca, becoming the first U.S. president to travel by plane for official business.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 13th. Most people only retire once. But basketball legend Michael Jordan is not most people. And on this day in 1999, Jordan announced his retirement from basketball, for the second time. His first retirement had come six years earlier after winning three consecutive NBA championships.

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Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on January 12th. It’s probably the most famous painting in the world, and more than 6 million people visit the Louvre museum each year to see the Mona Lisa for themselves. But for two years between the summer of 1911 and this day in 1913, almost no one saw it all. The painting went missing thanks to a group of thieves posing as museum janitors.

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