O LORD, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before Thee.

Psalm 88:1 

0316: Martyrdom of St. Blaise

0590: Election of Pope Gregory I, "the Great"

0619: Death of St. Laurence of Canterbury

1116: Death of Koloman, King of Hungary

1238: The Mongols take over Vladimir, Russia.

1347: John VI Cantacuzenus enters Constantinople - end of the Civil War

1376: Massacre of the city of Cesena, Italy by Sir John Hawkwood

1468: Death of Johann Gutenberg

1472: Reconsecration of York Cathedral

1518: Silence imposed on Augustine Monks by the Pope

1521: Magellan discovers Shark Island in the Pacific

1690: The first paper money in America was issued by the colony of Massachusetts. (The currency was used to pay soldiers fighting a war against Quebec.)

1783: Spain recognized US independence.

1809: The territory of Illinois was created.

1865: President Lincoln and Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens held a shipboard peace conference off the Virginia coast. (The talks deadlocked over the issue of Southern autonomy.)

1869: Actor Edwin Booth opened his new theater in New York City. The first production was Romeo and Juliet. Tickets sold for as much as $125.00 for this presentation.

1870: The 15th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. It granted that the right of citizens to vote shall not be denied on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

1876: Albert Spalding and his brother took $800 savings and started a sporting goods company. They manufactured the first official baseball, tennis ball, basketball, golf ball and football.

1904: Colombian troops clash with U.S. Marines in Panama.

1908: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that union-sponsored boycotts are illegal, and applies the Sherman Antitrust Act to labor as well as capital.

1912: New U.S. football rules are set: field shortened to 100 yds.; touchdown counts six points instead of five; four downs are allowed instead of three; and the kickoff is moved from midfield to the 40 yd. line.

1913: The 16th Amendment, allowing establishment of an income tax, became part of the U.S. Constitution after ratification by Wyoming.

1916: Canada's original Parliament Buildings, in Ottawa, burned down.

1917: The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany after a German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare.

1920: The Allies demand that 890 German military leaders stand trial for war crimes.

1924: The 28th president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, died in Washington at age 68.

1927: President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill into law that created the Federal Radio Commission "to bring order out of this terrible chaos."

1930: The chief justice of the United States, William Howard Taft, resigned for health reasons. President Hoover appointed Charles Evans Hughes as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1943: During World War Two, the U-S transport ship "Dorchester" sank after being hit by a torpedo. (Four Army chaplains gave their life belts to four other men, and went down with the ship.)

1944: The U.S. shell the Japanese homeland for the first time at Kurile Islands.

1945: The Allies drop 3,000 tons of bombs on Berlin.

1947: Percival Prattis of "Our World" in New York City became the first black, news correspondent admitted to the House and Senate press gallery in Washington, D.C.

1951: The Tennessee Williams play, "The Rose Tattoo," opened on Broadway in New York.

1954: Millions greet Queen Elizabeth in Sydney on her first royal trip to Australia.

1956: Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash recorded a two-and-one-half hours session in the Sun studios.

1959: A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, claimed the lives of rock-and-roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.

1962: President John F. Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba.

1966: Soviet Luna 9 achieves soft landing on the moon.

1969: The Endangered Species Act was signed into law by President Nixon.

1969: The Palestine National Congress appointed Yasser Arafat head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

1971: OPEC decides to set oil prices without consulting buyers.

1983: U.S. and Israeli officials agreed to a boundary separating their military forces in Beirut, Lebanon, following repeated confrontations between U.S. Marines and Israeli troops.

1984: The EPA orders a ban on the pesticide EDB for grain products.

1984: The space shuttle Challenger blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a problem-plagued mission that included the faulty deployment of two satellites and a target balloon.

1985: Pope John Paul II, on a visit to Peru, pleaded with leftist rebels to lay down their arms, saying, "The cruel logic of violence leads nowhere."

1986: President Reagan appointed a 12-member commission to investigate the failure of the Challenger, which broke apart 73 seconds after launch, claiming the lives of the entire crew.

1987: The San Diego Yacht Club celebrated the victory of skipper Dennis Conner and the "Stars and Stripes" over Australia's "Kookaburra Three" to sweep the America's Cup series.

1988: The US House of Representatives handed President Reagan a major defeat, rejecting his request for at least $36.25 million in aid to the Nicaraguan Contras by a vote of 219-to-211.

1988: The US Senate voted unanimously to confirm Anthony M. Kennedy to the US Supreme Court.

1989: Alfredo Stroessner, president of Paraguay for more than three decades, was overthrown in a military coup.

1990: The parliament of Bulgaria elected economist Andrei Lukanov to replace a hard-line Communist as premier.

1991: U.S. military officials confirmed that seven of 11 Marines who were killed in combat on January 30 died from "friendly fire.""

1991: The rate for a first-class postage stamp rose to 29 cents.

1992: Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa sparked controversy by saying American workers were losing the drive "to live by the sweat of their brow."

1993: Marge Schott was suspended as Cincinnati Reds owner for one year for her repeated use of racial and ethnic slurs (the suspension was lifted after eight months).

1993: The federal trial of four police officers charged with civil rights violations in the videotaped beating of Rodney King began in Los Angeles.

1993: Violinist Chee-Yun and pianist Akira Eguchi recorded sonatas by Saint-Saens, Faure and Debussy for the Denon label.

1994: President Clinton lifted the 19-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam.

1994: The space shuttle Discovery lifted off, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a U.S. spacecraft.

1994: Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan dismissed his aide, Khalid Abdul Muhammas, for making anti-Semitic remarks.

1994: The Senate confirmed William Perry to be defense secretary.

1995: The space shuttle Discovery blasted off with a woman, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Eileen Collins, in the pilot's seat for the first time in NASA history. 1

1995: At the O.J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles, prosecution witness Denise Brown wept on the stand as she described the humiliation and abuse of her sister, Nicole Brown Simpson, at the hands of the former football star.

1996: Sergeant First Class Donald A. Dugan, 38, became the first U-S soldier killed while on duty in Bosnia when a piece of ammunition exploded in his hands.

1996: An earthquake measuring 7.0 rocked southwestern China, killing at least 302 people and injuring 15,000.

1996: Actress Audrey Meadows died in Los Angeles at the age of 71.

1997: The Army announced that a retired female sergeant major had accused Sergeant Major of the Army Gene McKinney of sexual assault and harassment. (McKinney, who ended up being accused of sexual misconduct by six women, is scheduled to face court-martial beginning February third.)

1998: The state of Texas executed Karla Faye Tucker for the pickax killings of two people in 1983; she was the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.

1998: A US military plane sliced through the cable of a ski gondola in Italy, sending the car plunging hundreds of feet, killing all 20 people inside.

1998: A former teacher just released from jail on child rape charges was arrested after being caught with the 14-year-old father of her baby in violation of her parole, authorities said. Mary Kay LeTourneau, 36, was arrested about 3 a.m. when police searching a south Seattle neighborhood for a stolen car came across a "suspicious vehicle" with steamed-up windows and discovered the couple inside, Seattle police spokeswoman Christie-Lynne Bonner said. Officers recognized LeTourneau and arrested her for violating conditions of her release, which required her to have no contact with the boy.

1998: Stamps commemorating Princess Diana went on sale across Britain with the Post Office guaranteeing a minimum donation US$9.9 million to her favorite charities. The set of five stamps showed both formal and informal poses of the princess taken by famous British photographers and have a purple border as a mark of respect. " The profits went to the Memorial Fund, to benefit charities ranging from AIDS to the homeless and anti-landmine campaigns.

1999: The Clinton administration told Congress a NATO-led peacekeeping force could be needed in Kosovo for three to five years and might include up to 4,000 American troops.

2000: The Senate voted 89-to-four to confirm Alan Greenspan for a fourth term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. 

2000: The flight data recorder from Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was recovered from the Pacific Ocean off California. 

2000: Richard Kleindienst, who had served as U-S attorney general during the Nixon administration and resigned during the Watergate scandal, died in Prescott, Arizona, at age 76.