http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Jan 21, 1793: King Louis XVI executed
One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris.
Louis ascended to the French throne in 1774 and from the start was unsuited to deal with the severe financial problems that he had inherited from his grandfather, King Louis XV. In 1789, in a last-ditch attempt to resolve his country's financial crisis, Louis assembled the States-General, a national assembly that represented the three "estates" of the French people--the nobles, the clergy, and the commons. The States-General had not been assembled since 1614, and the third estate--the commons--used the opportunity to declare itself the National Assembly, igniting the French Revolution. On July 14, 1789, violence erupted when Parisians stormed the Bastille--a state prison where they believed ammunition was stored.
Although outwardly accepting the revolution, Louis resisted the advice of constitutional monarchists who sought to reform the monarchy in order to save it; he also permitted the reactionary plotting of his unpopular queen, Marie Antoinette. In October 1789, a mob marched on Versailles and forced the royal couple to move to Tuileries; in June 1791, opposition to the royal pair had become so fierce that the two were forced to flee to Austria. During their trip, Marie and Louis were apprehended at Varennes, France, and carried back to Paris. There, Louis was forced to accept the constitution of 1791, which reduced him to a mere figurehead.
In August 1792, the royal couple was arrested by the sans-cullottes and imprisoned, and in September the monarchy was abolished by the National Convention (which had replaced the National Assembly). In November, evidence of Louis XVI's counterrevolutionary intrigues with Austria and other foreign nations was discovered, and he was put on trial for treason by the National Convention.
The next January, Louis was convicted and condemned to death by a narrow majority. On January 21, he walked steadfastly to the guillotine and was executed. Nine months later, Marie Antoinette was convicted of treason by a tribunal, and on October 16 she followed her husband to the guillotine.
Jan 21, 1924: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin dies
In Moscow on the evening of January 21, 1924, shock and near-hysterical grief greets the news that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the radical socialist Bolshevik movement that toppled the czarist regime in 1917 and head of the first government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), had died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
Influenced early on by Karl Marx s seminal text Das Kapital, Lenin was radicalized further by the execution of his older brother, Alexander, for conspiring to kill Czar Alexander III in 1887. The brooding, fiercely intellectual Lenin married the principles of Marxist thought to his own theory of organization and the reality of Russian demographics, envisioning a group of elite professional revolutionaries, or a "vanguard of the proletariat," who would first lead the agrarian masses of Russia to victory over the tyrannical czarist regime and eventually incite a worldwide revolution. He laid out this theory in his most famous treatise, What Is To Be Done?, in 1902. Lenin s insistence on the necessity of this vanguard led to a split in Russia s Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903 between his supporters?a small majority that was thereafter known as the Bolsheviks?and his opponents, the Mensheviks.
After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Lenin?then living in Switzerland?urged his Bolshevik supporters in Russia to turn the "imperialist" conflict into a civil war that would liberate the working classes from the yoke of the bourgeoisie and monarchy. With the success of the February Revolution and the abdication of Czar Nicholas II in March 1917, Lenin managed, with German help, to travel back to Russia, where he worked with his deputy, LÉon Trotsky, to orchestrate the Bolshevik seizure of power from the unsteady provisional government that November. Lenin declared an immediate armistice with the Central Powers and acted quickly to consolidate the power of the new Soviet state under his newly named Communist Party; to that end, in a brutal civil war, his supporters, the "Reds," had to combat "White" rebellions that sprung up all over Russia.
In his six years in power, Lenin struggled with the difficulty of implementing his utopian vision within the borders of the Soviet state as well as the failure of his predicted international revolution to materialize. Together, Lenin and his circle of advisers, or Politburo?which included Trotsky, his faithful henchman during the civil war, and Joseph Stalin, the general secretary of the Communist Party?worked to ruthlessly and systematically destroy all opposition to Communist policies within the new U.S.S.R., proclaimed in 1922. Instruments in this repression included a newly created secret police, the Cheka, and the first of the gulags, or concentration camps, that Stalin would later put to even more deadly use.
Lenin suffered a stroke in May 1922; a second one, more debilitating, came in March of the following year, leaving him mute and effectively ending his political career. At the time of his death, The New York Times reported that "it is the general opinion that Lenin's death will unify and strengthen the Communist Party as nothing else could do. No one who knows them both doubts that Trotsky and Stalin will bury the hatchet over his grave." This would not be the case: Stalin worked quickly to control the situation, encouraging the deification of Lenin?who before his death had called for Stalin s dismissal?while simultaneously working to discredit (and eventually destoy) Trotsky and the rest of his rivals in the Politburo. By 1930, Stalin stood alone at the head of the Soviet state, with all the terrifying machinery Lenin s revolution had created at his disposal.
Jan 21, 1977: President Carter pardons draft dodgers
On this day in 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter grants an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.
In total, some 100,000 young Americans went abroad in the late 1960s and early 70s to avoid serving in the war. Ninety percent went to Canada, where after some initial controversy they were eventually welcomed as immigrants. Still others hid inside the United States. In addition to those who avoided the draft, a relatively small number--about 1,000--of deserters from the U.S. armed forces also headed to Canada. While the Canadian government technically reserved the right to prosecute deserters, in practice they left them alone, even instructing border guards not to ask too many questions.
For its part, the U.S. government continued to prosecute draft evaders after the Vietnam War ended. A total of 209,517 men were formally accused of violating draft laws, while government officials estimate another 360,000 were never formally accused. If they returned home, those living in Canada or elsewhere faced prison sentences or forced military service. During his 1976 presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter promised to pardon draft dodgers as a way of putting the war and the bitter divisions it caused firmly in the past. After winning the election, Carter wasted no time in making good on his word. Though many transplanted Americans returned home, an estimated 50,000 settled permanently in Canada, greatly expanding the country's arts and academic scenes and pushing Canadian politics decidedly to the left.
Back in the U.S., Carter's decision generated a good deal of controversy. Heavily criticized by veterans' groups and others for allowing unpatriotic lawbreakers to get off scot-free, the pardon and companion relief plan came under fire from amnesty groups for not addressing deserters, soldiers who were dishonorably discharged or civilian anti-war demonstrators who had been prosecuted for their resistance.
Years later, Vietnam-era draft evasion still carries a powerful stigma. Though no prominent political figures have been found to have broken any draft laws, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and Vice-Presidents Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney--none of whom saw combat in Vietnam--have all been accused of being draft dodgers at one time or another. Although there is not currently a draft in the U.S., desertion and conscientious objection have remained pressing issues among the armed forces during the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1077 - German King Heinrich IV petitions Pope Gregory VII
for forgiveness
1189 - Philip II, Henry II & Richard Lion hearted
initiate 3rd Crusade
1276 - Pierre de Tarantaise elected Pope Innocence V
1287 - The treaty of San Agayz is signed. Minorca is
conquered by King Alfons III of Aragon.
1324 - Zen Buddhist religious debate between Tendai &
Shingon
1522 - Head inquisitor Adrian Florisz Boeyens elected pope
1525 - The Swiss Anabaptist Movement is born when Conrad
Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptize each
other in the home of Manz's mother in Zürich, breaking a thousand-year
tradition of church-state union.
1542 - Parliament passes bill of attainder against Queen
Katherine Howard
1604 - Tsar Ivan IV defeats False Dmitri, who claims to be
the true tsar
1664 - Count Miklos of Zrinyi sets out to battle Turkish
invasion army
1677 - 1st medical publication in America (pamphlet on smallpox),
Boston
1732 - Russia & Persia sign Treaty of Riascha
1749 - The Verona Philharmonic Theatre was destroyed by
fire. It was rebuilt in 1754.
1789 - 1st American novel, WH Brown's "Power of
Sympathy," is published
1793 - Prussia & Russia sign partition treaty (Poland
divided)
1799 - Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccination is introduced
1813 - Pineapple introduced to Hawaii (or 01/111)
1818 - Keats writes his poem "On a Lock of Milton's
Hair"
1821 - Paramaribo Suriname catches fire, 4 die
1824 - Ashantees defeat British at Accra, West Africa
1827 - Freedom Journal, 1st Black paper, begins publishing
1830 - Portsmouth (Ohio) blacks forcibly deported
Novelist Charles DickensNovelist Charles Dickens 1846 - 1st
edition of Charles Dickens' "Daily News"
1853 - Envelope-folding machine patented by Russell Hawes,
Worcester, Mass
1861 - Jefferson Davis of Mississippi & 4 other southern
senators resign
1863 - City of Dublin leases part of Cattle Market for
100,000 years
1864 - The Tauranga Campaign starts during the Maori Wars in
New Zealand.
1874 - Franz Grillparzer's "Libussa," premieres in
Vienna
1879 - Henrik Ibsen's "Et Dukkehjem," premieres in
Copenhagen
1880 - 1st US sewage disposal system separate from storm
drains, Memphis
1887 - Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) forms
1887 - Brisbane receives a daily rainfall of 465 millimetres
(18.3 inches), a record for any Australian capital city.
1890 - 1st issue of Propria Cures, Amsterdam student-weekly
newspaper
1893 - The Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of
Matabeleland, was formally annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate which is
now Botswana.
1894 - Oscar Fredriksen skates world record 500m in 47.8 sec
1899 - Opel manufactured its first automobile.
1901 - Clyde Fitch's "Climbers," premieres in NYC
1903 - "Wizard of Oz," premieres in NYC
Magician & Escape Artist Harry HoudiniMagician &
Escape Artist Harry Houdini 1903 - Harry Houdini escapes police station
Halvemaansteeg in Amsterdam
1903 - International Theater (Majestic, Park) opens at 5
Columbus Circle NYC
1904 - Leos Janacek's opera "Jenufa," premieres in
Brno
1907 - Kenora Thistles sweep Mont Wanderers in 2 for Stanley
Cup
1908 - August Strindberg's "Spoksonaten,"
premieres in Stockholm
1908 - NYC regulation makes it illegal for a woman to smoke in
public
1910 - British-Russian military intervention in Persia
1913 - Aristide Briand forms French government
1915 - Kiwanis International founded in Detroit
1919 - Sinn Fein proclaims parliament of Free Ireland
1920 - 14th Davis Cup: Australasia beats Great Britain in
Sydney (4-1)
1921 - The Italian Communist Party was founded at Livorno.
1922 - 1st slalom ski race run, Murren, Switzerland
1925 - Albanian parliament announces itself a republic;
Ahmed Zogoe pres
1926 - Belgian parliament accepts Locarno treaties
1927 - 1st national opera broadcast from a US opera house
(Faust, Chicago)
1929 - Robert Sherriff's "Journey's End,"
premieres in London
1932 - USSR & Finland stop non-attack treaty
1935 - 12.0" (30.5 cm) of rain falls, Quinault RS, Wash
(state record)
1935 - WFI-AM in Philadelphia Penn merges with WLIT as WFIL
(now WEAZ)
1935 - Wilderness Society forms
1938 - Dutch government starts obligatory unemployment
insurance
Playwright Moss HartPlaywright Moss Hart 1939 - George
Kaufman & Moss Hart's "American Way," premieres in NYC
1939 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Joan
Tozzer
1939 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Robin Lee
1940 - Foreign correspondents in Netherlands under
censorship
1941 - 1st anti-Jewish measures in Bulgaria
1941 - 1st commercial extraction of magnesium from seawater,
Freeport, TX
1941 - Australia & Britain attack Tobruk Libya
1941 - British communist newspaper "Daily Worker"
banned
1942 - Bronx magistrate rules all pinball machines illegal
1942 - Count Basie records "One O'Clock Jump"
1942 - Japanese air raid on Rabaul New Britain
1942 - Tito's partisans occupy Foca
1943 - Soviet forces reconquer Worosjilowsk
1943 - Soviet forces reconquer Gumrak airport near Stalingrad
1943 - Vice-admiral Cunningham appointed Brit adm of fleet
1944 - 447 German bombers attack London
1944 - 649 British bombers attack Magdeburg
1945 - British troops land on Ramree, near coast of Burma
1946 - "Nellie Bly" opens at Adelphi Theater NYC
for 16 performances
1947 - "Sweethearts" opens at Shubert Theater NYC
for 288 performances
1947 - Arthur Honegger's 4th Symphony premieres in Basel
1948 - W Indies v England, Test debut Walcott, Weekes &
Jim Laker
1949 - 1st inaugural parade televised (Harry Truman)
1950 - "Lend an Ear" closes at National Theater
NYC after 460 performances
1950 - NY jury finds former State Dept official Alger Hiss
guilty of perjury
Poet, Author and Nobel Laureate T. S. EliotPoet, Author and
Nobel Laureate T. S. Eliot 1950 - T. S. Eliot's "Cocktail Party,"
premieres in NYC
1951 - Babe Didrikson-Zaharias wins LPGA Tampa Women's Golf
Open
1952 - Nehru's Congress party wins general election in India
1953 - John Foster Dulles appointed as Secretary of State
1954 - 1st gas turbine automobile exhibited (NYC)
1956 - "Comedy in Music (Victor Borge)" closes at
Golden NYC after 849 perfs
1956 - William Shawn succeeds Harold Ross as editor of New
Yorker
1957 - KSAT TV channel 12 in San Antonio, TX (ABC) begins
broadcasting
1958 - KMOT TV channel 10 in Minot, ND (NBC) begins
broadcasting
1958 - Phillies agree to televise 78 games into NYC (doesn't
happen)
1960 - Little Joe 4 suborbital Mercury test reaches 16 km
1960 - Rock falls traps 437 at Coalbrook South Africa, 417
die of methane poisoning
1961 - "Conquering Hero" closes at ANTA Theater
NYC after 8 performances
1961 - KIFI TV channel 8 in Idaho Falls, ID (NBC) begins
broadcasting
1961 - Portuguese rebels seize cruise ship Santa Maria
1962 - JFK arrives in Uruguay
1962 - Mickey Wright wins LPGA Sea Island Women's Golf
Invitational
1962 - Snow falls in SF
1964 - Carl T Rowan named director of US Information Agency
1965 - Persians premier Ali Mansoer injured
1967 - AFL Pro Bowl: East beats West 30-23
1967 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Peggy
Fleming
1967 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Gary
Visconti
1968 - AFL Pro Bowl: East beats West 25-24
1968 - NFL Pro Bowl: West beats East 38-20
1968 - US B-52 bombers with nuclear bomb crashes in
Greenland
1968 - Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh - One of the most
publicized and controversial battles of the war begins.
1969 - 22nd NHL All-Star Game: West beat East 3-3 at
Montreal
1970 - Panama Boeing 747 1st flight NY-London
1971 - "Alias Smith & Jones" premieres on ABC
TV
1972 - Assam's North East Frontier Agency becomes Arunachal
Pradesh terr
1972 - Belgium government of Eyskens-Cools forms
1972 - Manipur, Meghalaya & Tripura become separate
states of Indian union
1972 - Mizoram, formerly part of Assam, creates an Indian
union territory
1972 - Tripura becomes a full-fledged state in India.
1973 - 3rd NFL Pro Bowl: AFC beats NFC 33-28
1973 - Leslie Nielson appears on M*A*S*H in
"Ringbanger"
1974 - Gold hits record $161.31/silver hits record $3.97 an
ounce in London
1975 - 28th NHL All-Star Game: Wales beat Campbell 7-1 at
Montreal
1976 - Supersonic Concorde, 1st commercial flights, by
Britain & France
1977 - Italy legalizes abortion
1977 - Pres Jimmy Carter pardons almost all Vietnam War
draft evaders
1978 - Bee Gees' "Saturday Night Fever" album goes
#1 for 24 weeks
1979 - Neptune becomes outermost planet (Pluto moves closer)
1979 - Price of gold increases to record $875 troy oz
1979 - Super Bowl XIII: Pittsburgh Steelers beat Dallas
Cowboys, 35-31 in Miami Super Bowl MVP: Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh, QB
1980 - Gold hits record $850 an ounce
1980 - Les Henson, Virginia Tech, makes 89' 3"
basketball field goal
1981 - "Shakespeare's Cabaret" opens at Bijou
Theater NYC for 54 performances
1981 - Bernhard Goetz is assault for 1st time on a NY subway
train
1982 - "Little Me" opens at Eugene O'Neill Theater
NYC for 36 performances
1982 - NY Islanders begin then NHL record 15 game winning
streak
1983 - Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Anthony E Hecht
US President & Actor Ronald ReaganUS President &
Actor Ronald Reagan 1983 - President Reagan certifies El Salvador human-rights
abuses have decreased making country eligible for US military aid
1984 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Scott
Hamilton
1985 - -19°F (-28°C), Caesar's Head, South Carolina (state
record)
1985 - -34°F (-37°C), Mt Mitchell, North Carolina (state
record)
1985 - Bomb attack on Borobudur temple in Java
1985 - Dennis Potvin ties Bobby Orr's career record of 270
NHL goals
1986 - 100 participate in Nude Olympics race in 38°F (3°C),
Indiana
1986 - Allison J Brown, 17, of Oklahoma, crowned 4th Miss
Teen USA
1986 - Bomb attack in East-Beirut, 27 killed
1987 - BB King donates his 7,000 record collection to U of
Mississippi
1988 - US accept immigration of 30,000 US-Vietnamese
children
1989 - A woman is assaulted & raped in room of an
Oklahoma football player
1989 - Wayne Gretzky passes Marcel Dionne to become NHL's
2nd all time scorer
1990 - 41st NHL All-Star Game: Wales beat Campbell 12-7 at
Pittsburgh
1990 - Bob Goodenow succeeds Alan Eagleson as NHL players
association exec director
Tennis Player John McEnroeTennis Player John McEnroe 1990 -
John McEnroe becomes 1st ever player to be expelled from the Australian Open
1990 - Patty Sheehan wins LPGA Jamaica Golf Classic
1991 - CBS News correspondant Bob Simon captured by Iraqis
in Persian Gulf
1993 - Johan Koss skates world record 5 km in 6:38.77
1993 - Nigerian singer Fela Kuti arrested on suspicion of
murder
1994 - Dow Jones passes 3900 (record 3,914.20)
1994 - Lorena Bobbitt found temporarily insane of chopping
off spouse's penis
1995 - 52th Golden Globes: Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks, Jessica
Lange
1996 - 53th Golden Globes: Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, John
Travolta
1996 - Karrie Webb wins LPGA HealthSouth Inaugural Golf
Tournament
1996 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Rudy Galindo
1998 - Pope John Paul II visits Cuba
1999 - War on Drugs: In one of the largest drug busts in
American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over
4,300 kg (9,500 lb) of cocaine on board.
2002 - The Canadian Dollar sets all-time low against the US
Dollar (US$0.6179).
2004 - Canada: The residence of reporter Juliet O'Neill is
searched by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigating leaks
concerning the deportation of Maher Arar.
Actress Nicole KidmanActress Nicole Kidman 2004 - NASA's
MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The
problem lies with Flash Memory management and is fixed remotely from Earth on
February 6.
2005 - In Belmopan, Belize, the unrest over the government's
new taxes erupts into riots.
2007 - Awashima Marine Park in Japan catches a video tape of
the rare frilled shark.
2008 - Black Monday in worldwide stock markets. FTSE 100 had
its biggest ever one-day points fall, European stocks closed with their worst
result since 9/11, and Asian stocks drop as much as 15%.
2008 - The Eyak language in Alaska becomes extinct as its
last native speaker dies.
2013 - 30 people are killed in a car bombing in Salamiyeh,
Syria
2013 - 41 people are injured after two trains collide in
Vienna, Austria
2013 - 18 people are killed and 24 are injured after a bus
falls down a ravine in Yungas, Bolivia
2013 - 1 person is killed and 15 are injured by a magnitude
5.9 earthquake in Indonesia
2013 - Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Netherlands’ Minister of
Finance, becomes the President of the Euro Group
1789 - W.H. Brown's "Power of Sympathy" was published. It was the first American novel to be published. The novel is also known as the "Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth". 1793 - During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI was executed on the guillotine. He had been condemned for treason. 1812 - The Y-bridge in Zanesville, OH, was approved for construction. 1846 - The first issue of the "Daily News," edited by Charles Dickens, was published. 1853 - Dr. Russell L. Hawes patented the envelope folding machine. 1861 - The future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, resigned from the U.S. Senate. Four other Southerners also resigned. 1865 - An oil well was drilled by torpedoes for the first time. 1900 - Canadian troops set sail to fight in South Africa. The Boers had attacked Ladysmith on January 8, 1900. 1908 - The Sullivan Ordinance was passed in New York City making smoking by women illegal. The measure was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. 1911 - The first Monte Carlo car rally was held. Seven days later it was won by Henri Rougier. 1915 - The first Kiwanis club was formed in Detroit, MI. 1924 - Soviet leader Vladimir Llyich Lenin died. Joseph Stalin began a purge of his rivals for the leadership of the Soviet Union. 1927 - The first opera broadcast over a national radio network was presented in Chicago, IL. The opera was "Faust". 1941 - The British communist newspaper, the "Daily Worker," was banned due to wartime restrictions. 1946 - "The Fat Man" debuted on ABC radio. 1954 - The Nautilus was launched in Groton, CT. It was the first atomic-powered submarine. U.S. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower broke the traditional bottle of champagne across the bow. 1954 - The gas turbine automobile was introduced in New York City. 1970 - The Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight from New York to London for Pan American. 1970 - ABC-TV presented "The Johnny Cash Show" in prime time. 1976 - The French Concorde SST aircraft began regular commercial service for Air France and British Airways. 1977 - U.S. President Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders. 1980 - Gold was valued at $850 an ounce. 1986 - Former major-league player, Randy Bass, became the highest-paid baseball player in Japanese history. Bass signed a three-year contract for $3.25 million. He played for the Hanshin Tigers. 1994 - A jury in Manassas, VA, acquitted Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding (severing his penis) her husband John. She accused him of sexually assaulting her. 1997 - Newt Gingrich was fined as the U.S. House of Representatvies voted for first time in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct. 1998 - A former White House intern said on tape that she had an affair with U.S. President Clinton. 1999 - The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a ship headed for Houston, TX, that had over 9,500 pounds of cocaine aboard. It was one of the largest drug busts in U.S. history. 2002 - In Goma, Congo, about fifty people were killed when lava flow ignited a gas station. The people killed were trying to steal fuel from elevated tanks. The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo began on January 17, 2002. 2002 - In London, a 17th century book by Capt. John Smith, founder of the English settlement at Jamestown, was sold at auction for $48,800. "The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles" was published in 1632. 2003 - It was announced by the U.S. Census Bureau that estimates showed that the Hispanic population had passed the black population for the first time.
1793 King Louis XVI was guillotined for treason. 1915 The first Kiwanis Club was founded in Detroit. 1924 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died in Moscow. 1950 Former State department official Alger Hiss found guilty of perjury. 1950 George Orwell died in London. 1954 USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine was launched. 1977 President Carter pardoned most Vietnam War draft evaders. 2003 The U.S. Census Bureau reported that Hispanics had surpassed Blacks as the largest minority group. 2010 In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the government cannot restrict the spending of corporations for political campaigns, maintaining that it's their First Amendment right to support candidates as they choose. This decision upsets two previous precedents on the free-speech rights of corporations.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/jan21.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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