January 29 ...

In 1737 Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, England. In 1820 King George III of England died at Windsor Castle at age 81, ending a reign that began in 1760, one including both the American and French revolutions. In 1839 Charles Darwin married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. In 1843 25th president of the US William McKinley was born in Niles, OH. In 1845 the New York Evening Mirror published Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven. In 1850 Senator Henry Clay introduced in the US Senate what would come to be known the Compromise of 1850, which included the admission of California into the Union as a free state. In 1860 short story writer and playwright Anton Chekhov was born in Taganrog, Russia. In 1861 Kansas became the 34th state in the Union. In 1863 General Ulysses S Grant was named the Union's Commander of the Army of the West. In 1880 W.C. Fields was born in Darby, PA. In 1936 the first members of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame were inducted, including Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner. In 1956 H. L. Mencken died in Baltimore, MD. In 1963 poet Robert Frost died in Boston at age 88. In 2002 President Bush made his first State of the Union address, declaring that the "war against terror is only beginning." Bush also singled out Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an "axis of evil."