On Jan. 19, 1736, James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, was born in Scotland.
In 1807 Robert E. Lee, the commander in chief of the Confederate armies, was born in Stratford, Va.
In 1809 author Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston.
In 1839 painter Paul Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence, France.
In 1861 Georgia seceded from the Union.
In 1938 700 people died as Gen. Francisco Franco’s nationalist air force bombed the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Valencia.
In 1944 the federal government relinquished control of the nation’s railroads following settlement of a wage dispute.
In 1945 Russian troops took Krakow, Poland.
In 1966 Indira Gandhi was elected prime minister of India.
In 1977 in one of his last acts of office, President Gerald Ford pardoned Iva Toguri D’Aquino, an American who had made wartime broadcasts for Japan.
In 1979 former Atty. Gen. John Mitchell was released from prison after serving 19 months for his Watergate conviction.
In 1981 the United States and Iran signed an agreement paving the way for the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months.
In 1995 Russian troops regained control of the presidential palace in Grozny, the capital of the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
In 1997 Yasser Arafat returned to Hebron for the first time in more than 30 years, joining 60,000 Palestinians in celebrating the handover of the last West Bank city in Israeli control.
In 1998 rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins died; he was 65.
In 2000 Michael Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy, was charged with bludgeoning to death 15-year-old Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Conn., in 1975, when he also was 15. Also in 2000 actress Hedy Lamarr was found dead in her Orlando home; she was 86.
In 2004 John Kerry won Iowa’s Democratic caucuses, while John Edwards placed second; Howard Dean, who finished third, delivered a fist-pumping, bellowing concession speech that was viewed as politically damaging.
In 2005 the American Cancer Society reported that cancer had passed heart disease as the top killer of Americans age 85 and younger.
In 2006 an unmanned NASA spacecraft blasted off on a 3 billion-mile journey to Pluto. Also in 2006 soul singer Wilson Pickett died; he was 64.
