January 9
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Featured Event
© G. Dagli Orti—DeAgostini/Getty Images
Nineteen-year-old “Joan the Maid,” as she was referred to in court records, was put on trial in France on this day in 1431. She faced more than 70 accusations, including murder and heresy, and she eventually confessed, resulting in a life sentence that was later escalated to execution. [Read today’s edition of Today in History >>]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
© Gianni Ferrari—Cover/Getty Images
North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.
Born this day in 1913 was Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States (1969–74), who held office during the Vietnam War and became, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the only U.S. president to resign.
Famous Birthdays
More on January 9
© Rıza Ozel—dia images/Getty Images
2005
Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority.
© Tada Images/stock.adobe.com
Kirsty Wigglesworth/Getty Images
1982
Catherine Middleton, who married Prince William in 2011, was born in Reading, Berkshire, England. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about English royalty.]
Shutterstock.com
1960
Construction began on the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. Upon completion in 1970 it generated enormous amounts of electric power and allowed for the control of the annual Nile flood. [Take our quiz about Egypt since the pharaohs.]
Rowland Scherman/NARA
1941
Singer and political activist Joan Baez, who was at the forefront of the 1960s folk music revival, was born in Staten Island, New York. [Test your knowledge of musicians.]
© Focus On Sport/Getty Images
1934
Quarterback Bart Starr, who led the Green Bay Packers to victory in the first two Super Bowls, was born in Montgomery, Alabama. [How much do you know about the Super Bowl?]
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1908
Simone de Beauvoir, a writer and feminist who gave a literary transcription to the themes of existentialism, was born in Paris. [Test your knowledge of French writers.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1861
Mississippi became the second U.S. state (after South Carolina) to secede from the Union in the run-up to the American Civil War. [Read our timeline about the American Civil War.]
Collection de la Société Francaiçe de Photographie, Paris
1839
Louis Daguerre proclaimed his invention of the daguerreotype, the first commercially successful form of photography. [Take our quiz about famous photographers.]