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Today is Tuesday, January 21, the 21st day of 2025. There are 344 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On January 21, 2020, the US reported its first known case of the 2019 novel coronavirus circulating in China, saying a Washington state resident who had returned from the epicenter of the outbreak the week before had been hospitalized in near Seattle.
Also on this date:
In 1793, during the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, convicted of treason, was executed by guillotine.
In 1915, the first Kiwanis Club was founded in Detroit, dedicated to community service.
In 1924, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died at the age of 53.
In 1950, Alger Hiss, a former State Department official accused of being part of a communist spy ring, was found guilty in New York of lying to a grand jury. (Hiss, who proclaimed his innocence, served less than four years in prison.)
In 1976, British Airways and Air France started scheduled passenger service on the supersonic Concorde aircraft.
In 1977, on his first full day in office, President Jimmy Carter pardoned nearly all Vietnam War draft dodgers.
In 2010, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a deeply divided U.S. Supreme Court vastly expanded the influence of big corporations and labor unions by allowing unlimited contributions to political campaigns.
In 2017, one day after Donald Trump’s first presidential inauguration, an estimated 3 to 5 million people gathered at the Women’s March demonstrations across the US to support civil rights and protest Trump’s rhetoric and policies.
Today’s Birthdays:
- Golf Hall of Famer Jack Nicklaus is 85.
- Opera singer Plácido Domingo is 84.
- Singer-songwriter Billy Ocean is 75.
- Former US Attorney General Eric Holder is 74.
- Artist Jeff Koons is 70.
- Actor-director Robby Benson is 69.
- Actor Geena Davis is 69.
- Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., is 64.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon is 62.
- Singer Emma Bunton (Spice Girls) is 49.
- Actor Luke Grimes is 41.