On Jan. 20, 1801, John Marshall was appointed chief justice of the United States.
In 1841 the island of Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain. (It returned to Chinese control in July 1997.)
In 1887 the U.S. Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
In 1894 Harold Gray, the artist who created the “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip, was born in Kankakee.
In 1896 comedian George Burns was born Nathan Birnbaum in New York.
In 1920 film director Federico Fellini was born in Rimini, Italy.
In 1930 astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin was born in Montclair, N.J.
In 1936 Britain’s King George V died in Sandringham, England.
In 1942 Nazi officials held the notorious Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their “final solution” that called for exterminating Jews.
In 1945 President Franklin Roosevelt was sworn in for an unprecedented fourth term.
In 1946 film director David Lynch was born in Missoula, Mont.
In 1981 Iran released 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.
In 1986 the United States observed the first federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Also in 1986 Britain and France announced plans to build the Channel Tunnel.
In 1987 Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite disappeared in Beirut while attempting to negotiate the release of Western hostages.
In 1993 actress Audrey Hepburn died in Tolochenaz, Switzerland; she was 63.
In 1996 hundreds of thousands of Palestinians turned out to vote in a festive first election, solidly endorsing Yasser Arafat and his peace policies.
In 2000 Census 2000 officially got under way as Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt knocked on the door of a small wood-frame house in Unalakleet, Alaska, to begin the nationwide head count. Also in 2000 the Clinton administration issued visas to the grandmothers of Elian Gonzalez, enabling them to visit the United States to make their case for the 6-year-old’s return to Cuba.
In 2001, after hundreds of thousands of protesters forced Philippine President Joseph Estrada to step down, Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was sworn in as president.
In 2003 caricaturist Al Hirschfeld died in New York; he was 99.
In 2004 the Salvation Army announced a donation likely to exceed $1.5 billion from the estate of Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc.
