Today is Friday, Jan. 2, the second day of 2026
with 363 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
On this date in history:
In 1788, Georgia ratified the Constitution, the fourth of the original 13 colonies to do so, and was admitted to the Union.
In 1811, Timothy Pickering, a Federalist from Massachusetts, became the first U.S. senator to be censured after being accused of publicly revealing secret presidential documents.
In 1935, Bruno Hauptmann, "The Most Hated Man in the World," went on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr., eldest son of famed aviator, Charles Lindbergh.
In 1942, Japanese forces occupied Manila, forcing U.S. and Philippine forces under U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula.
In 1959, the Soviet Union launched Luna 1, the first unmanned spacecraft to travel to the moon.
In 1967, Ronald Reagan was sworn in as 33rd governor of California.
In 1974, U.S. President Richard Nixon signed a bill requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph or lose federal highway funds.
In 1981, police in Britain arrested the so-called "Yorkshire Ripper," after five years on the run. Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven more.
In 1990, Britain's most-wanted terrorism suspect, Irish Republican Army gunman Patrick Sheehy, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the Republic of Ireland.
In 2006, 12 men were killed in a methane gas explosion in a coal mine in West Virginia's Upshur County. One man was found alive after 41 hours trapped underground.
In 2011, Prince Harry, grandson of England's Queen Elizabeth II, was sent home from military service in Afghanistan after a magazine revealed his presence in the war zone. He later returned to continue training as a gunship pilot.
In 2019, two Indian women entered the Hindu Sabarimala temple, the first to do so since the courts ended a longtime ban on women in 2018.
In 2024, Lee Jae-myung, the leader of South Korea's main opposition party, was stabbed in the neck during an appearance in Busan. Lee survived and a real estate worker was arrested and confessed to attempting to assassinate the politician.
