January 15 ...

In 1559 England's Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey. In 1662 Moliere was born in Paris, France. In 1790 Fletcher Christian and eight fellow sailors landed on Pitcairn Island in the Pacific after their famous mutiny on the HMS Bounty. In 1823 Civil War photographer Mathew Brady was born in Warren County, NY. In 1833 HMS Beagle anchored at Goeree, Tierra del Fuego. In 1844 the University of Notre Dame was chartered. In 1861 Elisha G. Otis patented the steam elevator. In 1870 a cartoon by Thomas Nast titled "A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" appeared in Harper's Weekly, marking the first time a cartoon used the donkey to symbolize the Democratic Party. In 1880 the first telephone directory, containing 255 names, was published by the London Telephone Company. In 1896 Civil War photographer Matthew Brady died at age 72. In 1908 physicist Edward Teller was born in Budapest, Hungary. In 1909 jazz drummer Gene Krupa was born in Chicago, IL. In 1918 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was born in Alexandria, Egypt. In 1920 Prohibition began in the US. In 1926 Chuck Berry was born in St. Louis, MO. In 1929 Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia; also on this day, the US Senate ratified the Kellogg-Briand Act, which outlawed war. In 1942 Jawaharlal Nehru succeeded Mohandas K. Gandhi as head of India's National Congress Party. In 1943 construction of the Pentagon was completed. In 1944 General Dwight Eisenhower became Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force. In 1953 Harry S. Truman became the first US President to use radio and television to give his farewell as he left office. In 1965 Sir Winston Churchill suffered a severe stroke. In 1987 Ray Bolger, who played The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, died at age 82.