On This Day:
Sunday January 26, 2014 This is the 26th day of the year, with 339 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: State of Franklin The State of Franklin was set up in the westerly section of the colonial state of North Carolina from 1784 to 1788, but it was never officially admitted into the Union of the United States. Shortly after the War of Independence, North Carolina ceded the western section of the state to the United States Congress in order to help offset the huge debt of the war, but withdrew the offer before Congress could accept it. The citizens of this region, feeling that the North Carolina government was ignoring their interests, began a secessionist movement and made plans for statehood. Benjamin Franklin, the state's namesake, did not support the idea and offered no help. When Congress denied the petition for its statehood in 1785, the government of Franklin refused an offer to rejoin North Carolina, so a militia was brought in and North Carolina regained control of the region in 1788. The following year North Carolina ceded the region to the federal government, and in 1796 the area of Fr anklin became part of eastern Tennessee.
Holidays Australia: Australia Day.
India: Basant Pancami or Republic Day.
Feast day of St. Timothy, St. Margaret of Hungary, St. Alberic, St. Paula, St. Conan of Man, St. Titus, St. Eystein, and St. Thordgith or Theorigitha of Barking.
Dominican Republic: National Holiday (celebrating birth of Juan Pablo Duarte, one of the fathers of the republic).
Events 1654 - Approximately 150 Jewish families of Portuguese background fled the city of Recife, Brazil. By September, a number of these refugees had established the first community of Jews in the future United States. They were known as Sephardim (Jews of Spanish-Portuguese extraction).
1736 - Stanislaus I formally abdicated as King of Poland.
1788 - The first European settlers in Australia, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, landed in present-day Sydney.
1802 - Congress passed an act calling for a library to be established within the U.S. Capitol.
1827 - Peru seceded from Colombia in protest against Simón Bolívar's alleged tyranny.
1837 - Michigan became the 26th state.
1838 - The first Prohibition law in the United States was passed in Tennessee, making it a misdemeanor to sell alcoholic beverages in taverns and stores.
1841 - Hong Kong was proclaimed a British sovereign territory.
1861 - Louisiana seceded from the Union.
1870 - Virginia rejoined the Union.
1875 - A patent was granted to George F. Green of Kalamazoo, Michigan for the electric dentist's drill.
1905 - The world's largest diamond, 3106 carats, was discovered at the Premier mine in Pretoria, South Africa. It weighed 114 pounds.
1924 - Petrograd is renamed Leningrad. Petrograd (1914-24) became Leningrad from 1924-1991, and was then renamed St. Petersburg.
1939 - During the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona, the Republican capital of Spain, fell to the Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco, who was aided by Italy.
1950 - India officially proclaimed itself a republic, as its constitution went into effect. Mohandas Gandhi struggled through decades of passive resistance before Britain finally accepted Indian independence.
1965 - Hindi was made the official language of India.
1983 - The spreadsheet software Lotus 1-2-3 was released.
1988 - Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Phantom of the Opera" opened at Broadway's Majestic Theater.
1993 - Former Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel was elected president of the new Czech Republic.
2001 - A 7.7 earthquake in the state of Gujarat in India left more than 20,000 dead and severely damaged India's largest port, Kandla.
2004 - President Hamid Karzai signed the new constitution of Afghanistan.
2005 - Condoleezza Rice is sworn in as U.S. Secretary of State, becoming the first African American woman to hold the post.
2006 - A large fire breaks out on Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.
2006 - Western Union discontinues use of its telegram service.
Births 1880 - Douglas MacArthur, U.S. Army General and Commander of Allied Forces, World War II.
1925 - Paul Newman, American Academy Award-winning actor, food entrepreneur.
1928 - Roger Vadim, French film director.
1935 - Bob Uecker, a former Major League Baseball player.
1955 - Eddie Van Halen, a Dutch guitarist and a founding member of the rock band Van Halen.
1958 - Ellen DeGeneres, American actress, comedian, and talk show host.
1961 - Wayne Gretzky, Canadian-born hockey star.
Deaths 1973 - Edward G. Robinson, an American stage and film actor of Romanian origin.
1979 - Nelson Rockefeller, American statesman and 41st Vice President of the United States of America.
1984 - Paul William Bryant (nicknamed "bear"), coach of American football.
1992 - José Ferrer (born José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón), an actor and film director, born in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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