1894 – First US steel sailing vessel, Dingo, launched at Bath, Maine.
1913 – 16th Amendment to the US Constitution: Federal income tax ratified.
1917 – US ocean liner Housatonic is sunk by a German submarine on the same day that President Woodrow Wilson breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany.
1924 – Canada beats United States 6-1 to retain the Olympic ice hockey gold medal won at 1920 Summer Games. Canadian left wing Harry Watson top scorers with 46 points at the Chamonix Games.
1933 – First interstate legislative conference in the United States opens in Washington, D.C.
1941 – Supreme Court upholds Federal Wage and Hour law, sets minimum wages and maximum hours.
1944 – World War II: United States troops capture the Marshall Islands.
1951 – Tennessee Williams’ play “The Rose Tattoo” premieres in New York City.
1959 – “The Day the Music Died” plane crash kills musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), and the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa.
1962 – President John F. Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba except for food and drugs.
1966 – First operational weather station, ESSA-1, launched in the United States.
1972 – XI Winter Olympic Games opens in Sapporo, Japan. It’s the first Olympics in Asia.
1980 – 30th NBA All-Star Game, Capital Centre, Landover, Maryland: East beats West 144-136 in overtime. Most Valuable Player is George Gervin of the San Antonio Spurs.
1984 – 10th NASA Space Shuttle Mission (41B): Challenger 4 launches.
1990 – Jockey Bill Shoemaker, 58, retires after 40,350 horse races.
2002 – Super Bowl XXXVI, Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, LA: New England Patriots beat St. Louis Rams 20-17. Most Valuable Player is New England quarterback Tom Brady.
2009 – Eric Holder becomes 82nd and first African American US Attorney General, succeeding Michael Mukasey.
2020 – Cruise ship Diamond Princess, with 3,700 passengers on board, quarantined in port in Yokohama, Japan after cases of COVID-19 found on board.
2023 – Coldest wind chill likely ever recorded in the United States of minus-108 degrees, taken at Mount Washington Observatory, New Hampshire.
2023 – Train carrying toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, derails in East Palestine, Ohio, starting a fire and leading to an intentional burn-off of chemicals to stop a possible explosion.
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