On January 26, 1950, India ratified its constitution, formally creating a republic. On the same day, Rajendra Prasad was inarguated as the republic’s first president. The anniversary is celebrated today as Republic Day in India.
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On January 26, 1838, Tennessee became the first US state to pass a law prohibiting the general sale of alcohol; fines paid by lawbreakers were put towards the support of public schools. Read more about the history of Prohibition.
On January 25, 1981 – Jiang Qing, the widow of Mao Zedong, was sentenced to death by a special court in China. The charges stemmed primarily from Jiang’s role in the Cultural Revolution. Saying “I was Chairman Mao’s dog. I bit whomever he asked me to bite,” Qing unsuccessfully argued that she was merely acting [...]
On January 25, 1971, Charles Manson and three women of his “family” were convicted of murder and conspiracy for the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate. Learn more about the trial of Charles Manson from Professor Douglas Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.
On January 24, 1993, retired US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had spent much of his life fighting and supporting civil rights causes, died in Bethesda, Maryland. Learn more about the life and legal career of Thurgood Marshall from biographer Juan Williams.
On January 24, 1996, Jozef Oleksy, the Premier of Poland, resigned after he was accused of spying for the Soviet Union. Former KGB officer Andrzej Milczanowski alleged that Oleksy had passed him classified information while serving as the Polish Minister of Internal Affairs. A military investigation was closed in April of 1996 for lack of [...]
On January 23, 1937, seventeen of Joseph Stalin’s political enemies went on trial in Moscow during the Soviet leader’s Great Purge. This trial of seventeen represented the second of the three “Moscow Trials” in which prominent Soviet leaders were accused and convicted of conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state under Article 58 of the RSFSR [...]
On January 23, 1964, the 24th Amendment to the US Constitution, eliminating the poll tax in federal elections, was ratified. Learn more about the 24th Amendment and poll taxes from the Library of Congress.
On January 22, 1973, the US Supreme Court handed down its split decision in Roe v. Wade, liberalizing abortion. Listen to the oral arguments from the Oyez Supreme Court multimedia project at Northwestern University and read the Justices’ Opinions.
On January 22, 1962, the Organization of American States (OAS) suspended Cuba from the group, following a communist revolution in the island nation. The OAS voted to reinstate Cuba on June 3, 2009, but the Cuban government rejected the offer almost immediately.
