This Week in U.S. History

January 9

1776  In Philadelphia, Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense, a pamphlet that set the American colonies afire with a longing for independence.

1788  Connecticut becomes the fifth state to ratify the Constitution.

January 10

1753  Poor Richard predicts "wind and falling weather, then very cold" for the second week of January.  Other Franklin proverbs from Poor Richard's Almanac.... "Little strokes fell great oaks," "Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty soon overtakes him," and "Well done is better than well said."

1861  Florida secedes from the Union.

January 11

1785  Congress relocates from Trenton, New Jersey, to New York City, the nation's new temporary capital.

1861  Alabama secedes from the Union.

January 12

1773  The first public museum in America is established in Charleston, South Carolina.

1906  The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 100 for the first time.

January 13

1910  In an early radio demonstration, opera star Enrico Caruso is broadcast live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

1990  Douglas Wilder of Virginia is sworn in as the nation's first elected black governor.

January 14

1784  The Continental Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris, officially ending the Revolutionary War.

1914  Henry Ford introduces a moving assembly line for cars, reducing production time from more than 12  hours to about 90 minutes.

January 15

1892  The rules of basketball are first published in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1929  Martin Luther King, Jr., is born in Atlanta, Georgia.