A few of the great historical events that happened today in history, January 13th!
| 1794 | President George Washington approved a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the union. |
| 1808 | Salmon P. Chase, U.S. senator, secretary of the treasury and chief justice of the Supreme Court, was born in Cornish, N.H. |
| 1846 | President James Polk dispatches General Zachary Taylor and 4,000 troops to the Texas Border as war with Mexico looms. |
| 1862 | President Lincoln names Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War. |
| 1893 | Britain’s Independent Labor Party, a precursor to the Labor Party, first met. |
| 1898 | Novelist Emile Zola’s “J’accuse” – a defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew falsely convicted of treason – was published in a Paris newspaper. |
| 1900 | To combat Czech nationalism, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary decrees German the official language of the Imperial Army. |
| 1919 | California votes to ratify the prohibition amendment. |
| 1923 | Hitler denounces the Weimar Republic as 5,000 storm troopers demonstrate in Germany.  |
| 1927 | A woman takes a seat on the NY Stock Exchange breaking the all-male tradition. |
| 1931 | The bridge connecting New York and New Jersey is named the George Washington Memorial Bridge. |
| 1937 | The United States bars Americans from serving in the Civil War in Spain. |
| 1943 | General Leclerc’s Free French forces merge with the British under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery in Libya. |
| 1944 | Plants are destroyed and 64 U.S. aircraft are lost in an air attack in Germany. |
| 1945 | The Red Army opens an offensive in South Poland, crashing 25 miles through the German lines. |
| 1947 | British troops replace striking truck drivers. |
| 1955 | Chase National and the Bank of Manhattan agree to merge resulting in the second largest U.S. bank. |
| 1964 | Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, was appointed archbishop of Krakow, Poland, by Pope Paul VI.
 Karol-Wojtyla |
| 1965 | Two U.S. planes are shot down in Laos while on a combat mission. |
| 1966 | Robert C. Weaver became the first black Cabinet member as he was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Lyndon B. Johnson. |
| 1968 | U.S. reports shifting most air targets from North Vietnam to Laos. |
| 1968 | Country musician Johnny Cash recorded a live concert at Folsom Prison in California.
 Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison |
| 1976 | Argentina ousts a British envoy in dispute over the Falkland Islands. |
| 1978 | Former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey died in Waverly, Minn., at age 66. |
| 1980 | The United States offers Pakistan a two-year aid plan to counter the Soviet threat in Afghanistan. |
| 1982 | An Air Florida 737 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C., after takeoff and fell into the Potomac River, killing 78 people. |
| 1989 | New York City subway gunman Bernhard H. Goetz was sentenced to one year in prison for possessing an unlicensed gun that he used to shoot four youths he said were about to rob him. |
| 1990 | L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, the nation’s first elected black governor, took the oath of office in Richmond.
 L. Douglas Wilder |
| 2000 | Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stepped aside as chief executive. |
| 2002 | The off-Broadway musical “The Fantasticks” ended a run of nearly 42 years and 17,162 performances. |
Today in history facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, and HistoryOrb.com.
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