Today in History:
On Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
On this date:
In 1547, England’s King Henry VIII died; he was succeeded by his 9-year-old son, Edward VI.
In 1813, the novel “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen was first published anonymously in London.
In 1915, the United States Coast Guard was created as President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill merging the Life-Saving Service and Revenue Cutter Service.
In 1916, Louis D. Brandeis was nominated by President Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming the court’s first Jewish member.
In 1922, 98 people were killed when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C., collapsed under the weight of nearly two feet of snow.
In 1945, during World War II, Allied supplies began reaching China over the newly reopened Burma Road.
In 1956, Elvis Presley made his first national TV appearance on “Stage Show,” a CBS program hosted by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey.
In 1973, a cease-fire officially went into effect in the Vietnam War, a day after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords by the United States, North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
In 1980, six U.S. diplomats who had avoided being taken hostage at their embassy in Tehran flew out of Iran with the help of Canadian diplomats.
In 1982, Italian anti-terrorism forces rescued U.S. Brig. Gen. James L. Dozier, 42 days after he had been kidnapped by the Red Brigades.
In 2011, chaos engulfed Egypt as protesters seized the streets of Cairo, battling police, burning down the ruling party’s headquarters and defying a military curfew.
In 2013, Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboard player Billy Powell, who survived the 1977 plane crash that killed three band members, died in Orange Park, Fla., at age 56.
In 2017, Serena Williams won her record 23rd Grand Slam singles title, defeating her sister Venus for what would be her final major championship.
In 2018, Bruno Mars won all six Grammy awards for which he was nominated, including album of the year for “24K Magic.”
In 2021, Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actor who gained an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in “Sounder” and touched TV viewers’ hearts in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” died at age 96.