In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted.


Psalm 72:2 

1254: William of Rubrick records the use of oracles among the Mongols

1562: Jean Ribault leaves France to establish a Huguenot colony in Florida

1587: Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

1601: The Earl of Essex rebels against Elizabeth I of England

1693: A charter was granted for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The 2nd college in US.

1786: Operas by Mozart and Salieri were premiered together in Vienna. "The Impresario" by Mozart was followed by Salieri's opera "First the Music and Then the Words."

1802: Simon Willard patented the banjo clock.

1807: At Eylau, Napoleon’s Marshal Pierre Agureau attacks Russian forces in a heavy snowstorm.1837 The only time in history, the Senate selected the vice president of the United States, choosing Richard Mentor Johnson after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.

1861: Delegates from seceded states adopt a provisional Confederate Constitution.

1862: Battle of Roanoke Island, N.C.

1873: The Tchaikovsky's Second, which premiered, is an especially good symphony, with infectious rhythms worthy of Beethoven's Seventh.

1883: Louis Waterman begins experiments that invent the fountain pen.

1887: Congress passes the Dawes Act, which gives citizenship to Indians living apart from their tribe.

1887: The Aurora Ski Club of Red Wing, Minnesota, became the first ski club in the United States.

1896: The Western Conference was formed by representatives of Midwestern universities. Later, the group changed its name to the Big 10 Conference.

1900: General Buller is beaten at Ladysmith; the British flee over the Tugela River.

1904: In a surprise attack at Port Arthur, Korea, the Japanese disable seven Russian warships with that the Russo-Japanese War begins.

1907: Revolution breaks out in Argentina.

1910: The United States became the 12th nation to join the international scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated by William D. Boyce of Chicago, Illinois.

1915: D.W. Griffith's motion picture epic about the Civil War, "The Birth of a Nation," premiered at Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles. (The film caused a sensation with its innovative techniques, but was also denounced for racial stereotyping.)

1916: Demonstrators protest against food shortages in Berlin.

1918: "The Stars and Stripes," the weekly newspaper of the American Expeditionary Forces, was published for the first time.

1922: President Harding had a radio installed in the White House.

1924: The first execution by gas in the United States took place at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. Gee Jon was put to death for murder.

1936: The first National Football League draft was held. Jay Berwanger was the first to be selected. He went to the Philadelphia Eagles.

1940: Nazis shot every 10th person in two Polish villages near Warsaw in reprisal for the deaths of two German soldiers.

1942: The Japanese land on Singapore.

1943: British General Wingate leads a guerrilla force of "Chindits" against the Japanese in Burma.

1956: U.S. bans the launching of weather balloons because of Soviet complaints.

1960: Congress began investigating the influence of payola in the radio and record industries. Alan Freed and "American Bandstand" host, Dick Clark, among others, were called to testify.

1962: The U.S. Defense Department reports the creation of the Military Assistance Command in South Vietnam.

1963: Lamar Hunt, owner of the American Football League franchise in Dallas, Texas, moved the operation to Kansas City. He named the new team, the "Chiefs."

1964: A speech by Rep. Martha Griffiths in Congress on sex discrimination resulted in civil rights protection for women being added to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

1965: South Vietnamese bomb the North Vietnamese communications center at Vinh Linh.

1968: George Wallace enters the presidential race.

1968: Robert F. Kennedy says that the U.S. cannot win the Vietnam War.

1968: Three college students were killed in a confrontation with highway patrolmen in Orangeburg, South Carolina, during a civil rights protest against a whites-only bowling alley.

1969: The Boeing 747, largest commercial plane, makes its first flight.

1969: The last issue of the "Saturday Evening Post" was published, ending a magazine tradition that began in 1821.

1973: Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal, including the chairman, Democrat Sam J. Ervin Junior of North Carolina.

1974: Three American Skylab astronauts (Lt. Carr, Dr. Bison and Lt. Pogue) ended an 84-day orbital flight.

1978: Deliberations of the US Senate were broadcast on radio for the first time as members opened debate on the Panama Canal treaties.

1978: Debate on the Panama Canal Treaties became the first deliberations of the U.S. Senate to be broadcast on radio.

1980: President Carter unveiled plans to reintroduce draft registration.

1983: An Israeli commission which had investigated the 1982 Beirut massacre of Palestinian refugees issued a report calling for the ouster of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, accusing him of "blunders" that set the stage for the killings.

1984: The XIV Olympic Winter Games officially opened in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia,(now Sarajevo,
Bosnia-Herzegovina) with the lighting of the Olympic flame after 1,500 athletes representing 49 countries marched into Kosevo Stadium.

1985: South Korean opposition leader Kim Dae-jung was roughed up by authorities upon his return to his homeland after more than two years exile in the United States.

1985: "The Dukes of Hazzard" ended its 6-1/2 year run on CBS television. The series was credited with using more stunt men than any other TV series in history. The show would use as many as eight cars per episode when the crash sequences got complicated. Waylon Jennings did the theme song, "The Dukes of Hazzard." My dad still watches the reruns nearly every weekday.

1986: Billy Olson broke an indoor pole vault record for the seventh time in four months. He
vaulted 19 feet, 5-1/2 inches.

1987: In Lebanon, the kidnappers of American professor Alann Steen released a videotape in which Steen said he and three other men abducted with him would be killed if Israel failed to release 400 Arab prisoners.

1988: Bob Dole won a convincing victory in Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses, while among Democrats, Dick Gephardt came in first.

1988: Historians who examined the conduct of Austrian President Kurt Waldheim during World War Two said Waldheim had been aware of Nazi atrocities, but left open the question of his personal guilt.

1989: 144 people were killed when an American-chartered Boeing 707 filled with Italian tourists crashed in the Azores.

1990: CBS News suspended resident humorist Andy Rooney for racial comments he'd supposedly made to a gay magazine, comments Rooney denied making.

1991: Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell met with American pilots in Saudi Arabia. Powell drew cheers as he described how allied troops would deal with the Iraqi force in Kuwait: "We'll cut it off and kill it." 

1992: The 16th Olympic Winter Games opened in Albertville, France.

1993: General Motors sued NBC, alleging that the "Dateline NBC" program had rigged two car-truck crashes to show that 1973-to-87 GM pickups were prone to fires in side impact crashes. (NBC settled the lawsuit the following day.)

1994: President Clinton's health care proposal suffered a blow as the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis saying that the plan would not shrink federal deficits, but instead drive them higher.

1995: The U.N. Security Council approved sending 7,000 peacekeepers to Angola to cement an accord ending 19 years of civil war. 

1995: Surgeon General nominee Henry Foster said in an ABC interview he'd performed 39 abortions — more than three times as many as previously stated.

1996: In a ceremony at the Library of Congress, President Clinton signed legislation revamping the telecommunications industry, saying it would "bring the future to our doorstep."

1997: President Clinton announced in his weekly radio address that he was releasing the first of a $200 million program of grants to provide schools with computers and Internet training.

1998: Olga Danilova of Russia won the first gold medal of the Nagano Winter Games in 15-kilometer classical cross-country skiing.

1998: A man enraged by a fight in a Brooklyn bar drove his truck into 10 people on the sidewalk. The victims ranging in ages from 18 to 24, were taken to four area hospitals and were in stable condition by the following morning.

1998: William Lambert, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter whose 1969 Life magazine story led to the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, died of respiratory failure. He was 78.

1999: The Senate heard closing arguments at President Clinton's impeachment trial, with House prosecutors challenging senators to "cleanse the office" and the president's attorney dismissing the case as one of partisan retribution.

1999: Jordan's King Hussein was laid to rest during a five-hour funeral in Amman attended by dignitaries from all over the world, including President Clinton and former presidents Bush, Carter and Ford.

2000: Internet vandals continued an unprecedented campaign of electronic assaults against the biggest names in cyberspace, disrupting access for consumers to popular Web sites including eBay, Amazon.com and CNN.com. 

2000: Republican George W. Bush won the Delaware presidential primary.