| On this date in: |
| 1783 |
Gen. George Washington issued his farewell address to the Army near Princeton, N.J. |
| 1795 |
James K. Polk, the 11th president of the United States, was born in Mecklenburg County, N.C. |
| 1865 |
Warren G. Harding, the 29th president of the United States, was born near Corsica, Ohio. |
| 1889 |
North Dakota and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th states. |
| 1917 |
British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour expressed support for a national home for the Jews of Palestine in what became known as the Balfour Declaration. |
| 1947 |
Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden airplane, the Spruce Goose, on its only flight, which lasted about a minute over Long Beach Harbor in California. |
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| AP Photo |
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| 1959 |
Charles Van Doren admitted to a House subcommittee that he had the questions and answers in advance of his appearances on the TV game show “Twenty-One.” |
| 1963 |
South Vietnamese President Ngo Dihn Diem was assassinated in a military coup. |
| 1976 |
Former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter defeated Republican incumbent Gerald R. Ford, becoming the first U.S. president from the Deep South since the Civil War. |
| 1983 |
President Ronald Reagan signed a bill establishing a federal holiday on the third Monday of January in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. |
| 2004 |
President George W. Bush was elected to a second term. |
| 2006 |
The Rev. Ted Haggard resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after a man said they had had sexual trysts together. |
| 2009 |
Afghanistan’s election commission proclaimed President Hamid Karzai the victor of the country’s tumultuous ballot, canceling a planned runoff. |
| 2010 |
Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, picking up 63 seats in midterm elections, while Democrats retained a majority in the Senate; Republican governors outnumbered Democrats after gaining six states. |
| 2010 |
Californians rejected a ballot measure that would have made their state the first to legalize marijuana for recreational use. |
