| January 5, 1914 | January 5, 1925 |
| • The Ford Motor Company rolls out a series of initiatives aimed at improving the lives of its workers. Ford doubled the minimum wage to a lofty $5 per day and cut the workday to eight hours. | • Nellie T. Ross succeeded her late husband as governor of Wyoming, becoming the first female governor in U.S. history. |
| January 6, 1838 | January 6, 1941 |
| • Samuel Morse publicly demostrated his telegraph for the first time, in Morristown, N.J. | • President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his "Four Freedoms" speech in which he outlined four goals: freedom of speech and expression; freedom of worship; freedom from want; freedom from fear. |
| January 7, 1789 | January 7, 1979 |
| • The first U.S. Presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president. | • Vietnamese troops seize the Cambodian capital of Phnon Penh, toppling the brutal regime of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. Much of the international community hoped that his captors would extradite him to stand trial for his crimes against humanity, but he died of apparently natural causes while under house arrest in 1998. |
| January 8, 1815 | January 8, 1918 |
| • Two weeks after the war of 1812 officially ended with the signing of the treaty of Ghent, U.S. General Andrew Jackson acheives the greatest American victory of the war at the Battle of New Orleans. It also marked the last armed engagement between the United States and Britian. | • In an address before a joint meeting of Congress, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson discusses the aims of the United States in World War I and outlines his "14 Points" for acheiving a lasting peace in Europe. |
| January 9, 1958 | January 9, 1968 |
| • The Toyota and Datsun (later Nissan) brand names make their first appearances in the United States at the Imported Motor Car Show in Los Angeles. Previously their cars had sold in America only under U.S. brand names, as part of joint ventures with Ford and GM. | • The Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface. |
| January 10, 1928 | January 10, 1943 |
| • The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky, A leader of the Russian Revolution who became commissar of foreign affairs and commissar of war, Mr. Trotsky lost out in a power struggle with Josef Stalin. | • U.S. Army troops launched a big offensive on Guadalcanal, supported by heavy artillery and aerial bombardment of Japanese forces. |
| January 11, 1937 | January 11, 1973 |
| • 12 days into a general sit down strike at the General Motors factory in Flint, Michigan, General Motors security forces and the Flint Police Department move in to evict the strikers. Strikers held off police and GM security with fire hoses and jury rigged slingshots, and the police responded with bullets and tear gas. The strike lasted 44 days. | • Owners of American League baseball teams adopted the designated hitter rule on a trial basis. |
| January 12, 1932 | January 12, 1945 |
| • Ophelia Wyatt Caraway, a Democrat from arkansas, becomes the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Caraway had been appointed to the Senate two months earlier to fill the vacancy left by her late husband, Thaddeus Horatio Caraway . | • During World War II, Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe. |
| January 13, 1733 | January 13, 1966 |
| • James Oglethorpe and some 130 English colonists arrived at Charleston, S.C., to settle in present day Georgia. | • Robert C. Weaver became the first black cabinet member when he was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Johnson |
| January 14, 1943 | January 14, 1954 |
| • During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill began a conference in Casablanca. | • 28 year old Marilyn Monroe born Norma Jean Baker, Marries baseball legend Joe DiMagggio, They divorced nine months later. |
| January 15, 1777 | January 15, 1967 |
| • The people of New Connecticutt declared their independence. (The tiny republic later became the state of Vermont) | • The Green Bay Packers of the National Football league defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football league 35-10 in the first Super Bowl. |
| January 16, 1920 | January 16, 1991 |
| • Prohibition began when the 18th Amendment to the U.S. constitution took effect. (It was later repealed by the 21st Amendment) | • The U.N. deadline for Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait expires and the Persian Gulf War begins as aircraft from the U.S. led military coalition begin bombing targets in and around Baghdad. |