Today is Jan. 15. On this date:
1559
England’s Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
1777
The people of New Connecticut declared their independence. (The republic later became the state of Vermont.)
1892
The original rules of basketball, devised by James Naismith, were published for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts, where the game originated.
1919
In Boston, a tank containing an estimated 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst, sending the dark syrup coursing through the city’s North End, killing 21 people.
1929
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta.
Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:10 most popular from the civil rights leader
1942
Jawaharlal Nehru was named to succeed Mohandas K. Gandhi as head of India's Congress Party.
1943
Work was completed on the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of War (now Defense).
1947
The mutilated remains of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, who came to be known as the “Black Dahlia,” were found in a vacant Los Angeles lot; her slaying remains unsolved.
1961
A U.S. Air Force radar tower off the New Jersey coast collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean during a severe storm, killing all 28 men aboard.
1967
The first Super Bowl was held in Los Angeles with the NFL’s Green Bay Packers defeating the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs 35-10.
1976
Sara Jane Moore was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Gerald R. Ford in San Francisco. (Moore was released on the last day of 2007.)
1992
The Yugoslav federation, founded in 1918, effectively collapsed as the European Community recognized Croatia and Slovenia as independent countries.
2009
US Airways Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger ditched his Airbus 320 in the Hudson River after a flock of birds disabled both engines; all 155 people aboard survived.
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