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Ted Kaczynski pleads guilty to bombings

Born on This Day

George Balanchine

1904 - 1983

Russian-born dancer and choreographer whose works in "Serenade" and "The Nutcracker" shaped modern ballet.

Piper Laurie

1932 - 2023

Actress best known for her work on "Carrie," "Children of a Lesser God" and "Twin Peaks."

Guy Fieri

1968 -

Chef and TV host known for his bold personality on shows "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and "Guy's Grocery Games."

George BalanchineGetty Images

Piper LaurieGetty Images

Guy FieriGetty Images for Extra

1968

JAN22

Zany, satirical and brimming with countercultural energy, "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" sketch comedy TV show premieres on NBC, launching the careers of Lily Tomlin and Goldie Hawn and immortalizing the phrase "Sock it to me!"

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on January 22nd

Claudius Smith, “Cowboy of the Ramapos,” hangs

Famed Tory outlaw Claudius Smith meets his end on the gallows on January 22, 1779 in Goshen, New York. In the wake of his death, patriot civilians during the American Revolution hope for relief from guerrilla warfare in upstate New York. Born in Brookhaven, New York, in 1736, Smith moved with his family to Orange […]

English poet Lord Byron is born

Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, is born this day in Aberdeen, Scotland. Despite his later fortune and title, Byron grew up in poverty and was burdened by a clubfoot. At age 10, he inherited his great uncle’s title and became Lord Byron. He attended Harrow, then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he ran up enormous […]

British colonists reach New Zealand

On January 22, 1840, colonists aboard The New Zealand Company’s ship, the Aurora, become the first European settlers to arrive at Petone to found the settlement that would become Wellington. In 1642, Dutch navigator Abel Tasman became the first European to discover the South Pacific island group that later became known as New Zealand. While attempting […]

Chief Dull Knife makes last fight for freedom

Cheyenne chief Dull Knife (also anglicized as “Morning Star”) and his people are defeated by U.S. army soldiers after one of their “outbreaks” from reservation confinement. In doing so, the so-called Dull Knife Outbreak came to an end. A leading chief of the Northern Cheyenne, Dull Knife had long urged peace with the powerful soldiers invading […]

Queen Victoria dies

The death of Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901, ends an era in which most of her British subjects know no other monarch. Her 63-year reign saw the growth of an empire on which the sun never set. Victoria restored dignity to the English monarchy and ensured its survival as a ceremonial political institution. Born […]

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Bloody Sunday Massacre in Russia

Well on its way to losing a war against Japan in the Far East, czarist Russia is wracked with internal discontent that finally explodes into violence in St. Petersburg in what will become known as the Bloody Sunday Massacre. Under the weak-willed Romanov Czar Nicholas II, who ascended to the throne in 1894, Russia had […]

Ukraine declares its independence

Soon after the Bolsheviks seized control in immense, troubled Russia in November 1917 and moved toward negotiating peace with the Central Powers, the former Russian state of Ukraine declares its total independence. One of pre-war Russia’s most prosperous areas, the vast, flat Ukraine (the name can be translated as at the border or borderland) was […]

Netherlands refuses to extradite Kaiser Wilhelm to the Allies

On January 22, 1920, the Dutch government refuses demands by the Allies for the extradition of Wilhelm II, the former kaiser of Germany, who had been living in exile in the Netherlands since November 1918. By early November 1918, things were looking dismal for the Central Powers on all fronts of the Great War. The […]

Roe v. Wade is decided

Roe v. Wade was a landmark legal decision issued on January 22, 1973, in which the Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute banning abortion, effectively legalizing abortion across the United States.

Lyndon Baines Johnson dies in Texas

On January 22, 1973, former President Lyndon Baines Johnson dies in Johnson City, Texas, at the age of 64. After leaving the White House in 1968, L.B.J. returned to his beloved home state, Texas, with his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, and immersed himself in the activity dearest to him: ranching. Although ostensibly retired, L.B.J. kept […]

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Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov arrested in Moscow

In Moscow, Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov, the Soviet physicist who helped build the USSR’s first hydrogen bomb, is arrested after criticizing the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. He was subsequently stripped of his numerous scientific honors and banished to remote Gorky. Born in Moscow in 1921, Sakharov studied physics at Moscow University and in June 1948 […]

Final portrait of John and Yoko appears on the cover of “Rolling Stone”

A month and a half after the shocking assassination of John Lennon, on January 22, 1981, Rolling Stone magazine’s John Lennon tribute issue hits newsstands, featuring a cover photograph of a naked Lennon curled up in a fetal embrace of his fully-clothed wife Yoko Ono. The iconic Annie Leibovitz portrait would become the definitive image […]

Apple’s iconic “1984” commercial airs during Super Bowl XVIII

During a break in the action of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22nd, 1984, audiences first see a commercial that is now widely agreed to be one of the most powerful and effective of all time. Apple’s “1984” spot, featuring a young woman throwing a sledgehammer through a screen on which a Big Brother-like figure […]

Hispanics are officially declared the largest minority group in the U.S.

On January 22, 2003, the U.S. Census Bureau releases detailed statistics on race and ethnicity, the first time such numbers had been released since the 2000 census. The numbers showed that the Hispanic population of the United States had increased by 4.7 percent since the last count, officially making Hispanics the largest minority group in […]

Heath Ledger dies of accidental prescription drug overdose

On January 22, 2008, Hollywood mourns a talented young actor’s life cut tragically short, after the body of 28-year-old Heath Ledger is found by his masseuse and housekeeper on the floor of his rented apartment in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. Best known for his Academy Award-nominated turn as the closeted gay cowboy […]

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