In 1592 Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor of India who built the Taj Mahal, was born in Lahore, India.
In 1779 Zebulon Montgomery Pike, the U.S. Army officer and explorer for whom Pike’s Peak in Colorado is named, was born in Lamberton, N.J.
In 1855 King Camp Gillette, an inventor who became the first manufacturer of the safety razor and blade, was born in Fond du Lac, Wis.
In 1895 French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, was publicly stripped of his rank. (He ultimately was vindicated.)
In 1896 the Austrian newspaper Wiener Presse reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as “X-rays.”
In 1914 Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, introduced a minimum wage scale of $5 per day.
In 1928 Walter Mondale, the former U.S. senator, vice president and 1984 Democratic presidential candidate, was born in Ceylon, Minn.
In 1943 educator and scientist George Washington Carver died in Tuskegee, Ala.; he was 81.
In 1946 actress Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles.
In 1949, in his State of the Union address, President Harry Truman labeled his administration the “Fair Deal.”
In 1957 President Dwight Eisenhower, in an address to Congress, proposed offering military assistance to Middle Eastern countries so they could resist communist aggression; this became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.
In 1972 President Richard Nixon ordered development of the space shuttle.
In 1975 “The Wiz,” a musical version of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” featuring an all-black cast, opened on Broadway.
In 1981 police in England arrested Peter Sutcliffe, a truck driver later convicted of the “Yorkshire Ripper” murders of 13 women.
In 1986 the Bears played host to their first playoff game since 1963, defeating the New York Giants, 21-0.
In 1993 the state of Washington executed Westley Allan Dodd, an admitted child sex killer, in America’s first legal hanging since 1965.
In 1994 Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, died in Boston; he was 81.
In 1998, Sonny Bono, the 1960’s pop star-turned-politician, was killed when he struck a tree while skiing in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.; he was 62.
In 2000, touching off angry protests by Cuban-Americans in Miami, the U.S. government decided to send 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba. (After a legal battle, and the seizure of Elian from the home of his U.S. relatives, the boy was returned to Cuba in June.)
In 2004, after 14 years of denials, Pete Rose publicly admitted that he’d bet on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
In 2006 televangelist Pat Robertson suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment for “dividing God’s land.” (Robertson later apologized.)
