On January 18, 1919, the World War I Paris Peace Conference began in Versailles, France. The negotiations lasted six months before producing the Treaty of Versailles, which redrew the borders of Europe and created the League of Nations.
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On January 17, 1998, President Bill Clinton answered questions posed by lawyers for sexual harassment plaintiff Paula Jones, becoming the first American president to testify as a defendant in a lawsuit. Review the full text of President Clinton's deposition.
On January 17, 1946, the United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.
On January 16, 1581, the English Parliament banned Roman Catholicism throughout the country during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. From that time on, Catholicism declined in England until the Catholic Emancipation of the late 18th century. Read the history of the Roman Catholic Church in England.
On January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution came into effect as scheduled one year after ratification, marking the beginning of Prohibition. Learn more about Temperance and Prohibition from Professor K. Austin Kerr of the Ohio State University Department of History.
On January 15, 1929, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University and read King’s 1963 ‘I Have a Dream‘ speech made at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
On January 15, 1991, the deadline issued by United Nations for Iraq to withdraw its troops from of Kuwait expired. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 678, giving Iraq until January 15, 1991 to leave.
On January 14, 1986, the current constitution of Guatemala took effect. Read the Spanish-language text of the constitution, as amended in 1993.
On January 14, 1639, the first written governmental constitution in modern history was adopted in the Colony of Connecticut. The Fundamental Orders represented the first time that a government was based upon a written constitution anywhere in the world. Along with the Mayflower Compact, the Fundamental Orders served as bases for the United States Constitution [...]
On January 13, 1990, Lawrence Douglas Wilder was sworn in as the governor of Virginia by former US Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. Wilder was the first African-American to be elected governor of a U.S. state. He would also serve as Mayor of Richmond, the state’s capital city, from 2005 through 2009. Learn more about [...]
