Republican Party takes control of Congress for first time in 40 years

On January 4, 1847, Samuel Colt rescues the future of his faltering gun company by winning a contract to provide the U.S. government with 1,000 of his .44 caliber revolvers. Before Colt began mass-producing his popular revolvers in 1847, handguns had not played a significant role in the history of either the American West or […]

Six years after Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon church, issued his Manifesto reforming political, religious, and economic life in Utah, the territory is admitted into the Union as the 45th state. In 1823, Vermont-born Joseph Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni visited him and told him about an ancient Hebrew text that had […]

Mary Sullivan is raped and strangled to death in her Boston apartment. The killer left a card reading “Happy New Year” leaning against her foot. Sullivan would turn out to be the last woman killed by the notorious Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, who had terrorized the city between 1962 and 1964, raping and killing 13 […]

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 […]

On January 4, 1996, General Motors announces at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show it will build an electric car, dubbed the EV1, to be launched in the fall of that year. The EV1 wasn’t an entirely new concept, as electric vehicles had been around since the auto industry’s nascent days. In the early 20th […]