L.B.J. envisions a Great Society in his State of the Union address

On January 4, 1809, Louis Braille is born in Coupvray, France. He would go on to develop the writing system for visually impaired readers that bears his name: braille. Braille lost his sight in an accident at age three. As a student at the National Institute for Blind Children in Paris, Braille discovered a system […]

Angered over a card game dispute, 16-year-old John Wesley Hardin shoots Benjamin Bradley dead in the street, likely on January 4, 1870. Although less famous than Billy the Kid, Jesse James, or Wyatt Earp, John Wesley Hardin is believed to hold the gunslinger’s record for killing the most men in the shortest period. From the […]

German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, mastermind of an aggressive German military strategy that will soon be used, in modified form, at the start of the Great War, dies on this day in 1913 in Berlin. The son of a Prussian general, Schlieffen entered the army in 1854 and participated in both the Seven Weeks’ […]

Elected in 1964, Patsy T. Mink is sworn in on January 4, 1965, as the first Asian American woman and first woman of color to serve in the U.S. Congress. Throughout her career, the U.S. representative for Hawaii was a strong supporter of civil and women’s rights, as well as an advocate for children, labor […]

The 104th Congress begins, becoming the first held entirely under Republican control since the Eisenhower era. The previous November, Newt Gingrich and his “Contract with America” gave the Republican Party the electoral boost it needed to win majority control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

On January 4, 2007, John Boehner handed the speaker of the House gavel over to Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic Representative from California. With the passing of the gavel, she became the first woman to hold the Speaker of the House position, as well as the only woman to get that close the presidency. After the […]