January 10 ...

In 49 BC Julius Caesar led his army across the Rubicon River, which separated his jurisdiction (Cisalpine Gaul) from that of the Senate (Italy), thus initiating a civil war. In 1776 Thomas Paine published his pamphlet Common Sense. In 1811 a slave rebellion was violently put down in New Orleans. In 1861 Florida seceded from the United States. In 1863 the first section of the London Underground Railway system opened, from Paddington to Farringdon Street. In 1864 George Washington Carver was born. In 1870 John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil. In 1901 oil was discovered at the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont, TX. In 1911 Major Jimmie Erickson took the first photograph from an airplane while flying over San Diego, CA. In 1918 the US House passed women's suffrage. In 1920 the League of Nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I with Germany; it then held its first meeting in Geneva. In 1923 the US withdrew its last troops from Germany, more than four years after WWI had ended. In 1926 Fritz Lang's film Metropolis was first shown, in Berlin. In 1928 the Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky. In 1943 the Soviet Union's offensive at Stalingrad began. Also on this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sailed from Miami, FL, to Trinidad thus becoming the first American President to visit a foreign country during wartime. In 1944 Congress passed the GI Bill of Rights. In 1946 the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place with 51 nations represented. Also on this day, the US Army sent the first radar signal to moon (from Belmar, New Jersey). In 1951 UN Headquarters opened in New York. In 1957 Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation Anthony Eden. In 1967 Sen. Edward W. Brooke III (R-MA) took his seat, becoming the first black senator elected by popular vote in US history. In 1969 the final issue of The Saturday Evening Post appeared after 147 years of publication. In 1971 Masterpiece Theatre premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke; the introduction drama series was The First Churchills. In 1978 the Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a rendezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory. In 1984 the United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century. In 1990 China lifted the martial law that was imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989. Also on this day, Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. completed a $14 billion merger; the new company, Time Warner, became the world's largest entertainment company. In 1994 Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan agreed to abolish trade tariffs and form a common market. In 2000 it was announced that Time-Warner had agreed to buy AOL. The largest-ever corporate merger, it was priced at $162 billion. In 2001 American Airlines agreed to acquire most of TWA's assets for about $500 million. The deal brought an end to the financially troubled TWA. In 2002 the US started flying hundreds of al Qaeda prisoners captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In 2003 North Korea announced that it was withdrawing from the global nuclear arms control treaty.