A look at this week in years past
18 January
1644 Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America’s 1st UFO sighting
1919 WWI Peace Congress opens in Versailles, France
1943 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto begin resistance of Nazis
1951 1st use of lie detector in Netherlands
1962 US begins spraying foliage in Vietnam to reveal Viet Cong guerrillas
1973 John Cleese’s final episode on "Monty Python’s Flying Circus" on BBC
19 January
1419 French city of Rouen surrenders to Henry V in Hundred Years War
1825 Ezra Daggett & nephew Thomas Kensett patent food storage in tin cans
1903 New bicycle race "Tour de France" announced
1955 "Scrabble" debuts on board game market
1967 Herr Karl Tausch writes shortest will "Vse Zene" (All to wife)
20 January
1265 1st English Parliament called into session by Earl of Leicester
1921 Turkey declared in remnants of the Ottoman Empire
1942 Nazi officials hold notorious Wannsee conference in Berlin deciding on "final solution" calling for extermination of Europe’s Jews
1949 J Edgar Hoover gives Shirley Temple a tear gas fountain pen
1986 Chunnel announced (railroad tunnel under English Channel)
21 January
1189 Philip II, Henry II & Richard Lion-Hearted initiate 3rd Crusade
1903 Harry Houdini escapes police station Halvemaansteeg in Amsterdam
1919 Sinn Fein proclaims parliament of Free Ireland
1941 Australia & Britain attack Tobruk Libya
1976 Supersonic Concorde, 1st commercial flights, by Britain & France
22 January
1575 English queen Elizabeth I grants Thomas Tallis & William Byrd music press monopoly
1859 Brahms’ 1st piano concerto (in D minor) premieres, Hanover
1905 "Bloody Sunday"; Russian demonstrators fired on by tsarist troops
1939 Uranium atom 1st split, Columbia University
1971 John & Yoko record "Power to the People"
1973 Roe vs Wade US Supreme Court legalizes some abortions
1992 Princess Sarah Ferguson wears paper bag over her head on airline ride
23 January
1849 Mrs Elizabeth Blackwell becomes 1st woman physician in US
1932 El Salvador army kills 4,000 protesting farmers
1937 Karl Radek & 16 others go on trial in Stalin’s great purge
1962 British spy Kim Philby defects to USSR
1972 Entire population of Istanbul under 24 hour house arrest
24 January
1722 Czar Peter the Great begins civil system
1902 Denmark sells Virgin Islands to USA
1924 Russian city of St Petersburg renamed Leningrad
1962 28 refugees escape from East to West Germany
1984 Apple Computer Inc unveils its Macintosh personal computer
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