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History

Local History

50 years ago: Halver Fodness was elected president of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church congregation.

10 years ago: The New Ulm City Council accepted a $100,000 grant offered by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to connect Riverside and Minnecon parks with a river-side trail.

5 years ago: Chris Doege, an adult re-entry manager for Amicus, spoke at the State Street Theater as part of the 2015 Life Living Series.

One year ago: After 40 years at a single location, the Clothing Depot moved to a new building at 101 N. Broadway.

And elsewhere…

Today is Monday, Jan. 20, the 20th day of 2020. There are 346 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight:

On Jan. 20, 2001, George Walker Bush became America’s 43rd president after one of the most turbulent elections in U.S. history.

On this date:

In 1649, King Charles I of England went on trial, accused of high treason (he was found guilty and executed by month’s end).

In 1801, Secretary of State John Marshall was nominated by President John Adams to be chief justice of the United States (he was sworn in on Feb. 4, 1801).

In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first chief executive to be inaugurated on Jan. 20 instead of March 4.

In 1942, Nazi officials held the notorious Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their “final solution” that called for exterminating Europe’s Jews.

In 1981, Iran released 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.

In 1986, the United States observed the first federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

In 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell, faced with stiff resistance and calls to go slow, bluntly told the Security Council that the U.N. “must not shrink” from its responsibility to disarm Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

In 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation’s 44th, as well as first African-American, president.

In 2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, pledging emphatically to empower America’s “forgotten men and women.”

Ten years ago: National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair conceded missteps in the government’s handling of the Christmas Day 2009 airline bombing attempt in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Five years ago: President Barack Obama, undaunted by the new Republican majority in Congress, issued a sweeping challenge in his State of the Union address to do more for the poor and middle class and to end the nasty partisan political fight that had characterized his six years in office.

One year ago: The Los Angeles Rams advanced to the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots after a 26-23 overtime victory over the New Orleans Saints in the NFC championship game; the outcome might not have been possible without what the NFL acknowledged was a mistake by officials who failed to call a penalty when a Rams player leveled a Saints receiver with a helmet-to-helmet hit in the final minutes of regulation.

Today’s Birthdays: Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin is 90. Movie director David Lynch is 74. Rock musician Paul Stanley (KISS) is 68. Comedian Bill Maher is 64. Country singer John Michael Montgomery is 55. Actor Rainn Wilson is 54. Actor Skeet Ulrich is 50. Rap musician ?uestlove (questlove) (The Roots) is 49. Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is 48. Singer-songwriter Bonnie McKee is 36. Country singer Brantley Gilbert is 35. Actor Evan Peters is 33.

Thought for Today: “Whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.” — Letitia Landon, English poet (1802-1838).

Copyright 2020, The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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