Today is Tuesday, Jan. 20, the 20th day of 2026
with 345 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mercury and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus.
On this date in history:
In 1265, Britain's House of Commons, which became a model for parliamentary bodies, met for the first time.
In 1778, James Cook became the first European to step foot on the Hawaiian Islands. He called them the Sandwich Islands.
In 1783, U.S. and British representatives signed a preliminary "Cessation of Hostilities," which ended the fighting in the Revolutionary War.
In 1801, John Marshall was appointed chief justice of the United States.
In 1892, the first officially recognized basketball game was played at the YMCA gym in Springfield, Mass.
In 1936, Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, was formally proclaimed King Edward VIII.
In 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the oath of office for his second term as president. It was the first Inauguration Day held on January 20, a result of the 20th Amendment.
In 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to four terms in office, was inaugurated to his final term. FDR died three months later and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman.
In 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy began his presidency with inauguration ceremonies on the newly renovated east front of the Capitol.
In 1981, 52 American hostages were released by Iran after 444 days in captivity.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan took the oath of office to become the 40th president of the United States.
In 1989, George H.W. Bush took the oath of office to become the 41st president of the United States.
In 1991, Iraq launched missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and paraded on television what Iraqi officials identified as seven captured allied airmen, including three Americans.
In 1993, Oscar-winning actress Audrey Hepburn died of cancer at her home in Switzerland. She was 63.
In 1993, Bill Clinton took the oath of office to become the 42nd president of the United States.
In 1996, Yasser Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Authority with 88 percent of the vote.
In 2001, George W. Bush took the oath of office to become the 43rd president of the United States.
In 2006, Lawrence Franklin, a former U.S. State Department analyst and Iran expert, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for passing classified information to Israel and two pro-Israeli lobbyists. The sentence was later reduced to probation and 10 months of home confinement.
In 2007, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., became the first former first lady to seek the U.S. presidency when she entered the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
In 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the United States' 44th president and the nation's first Black chief executive.
In 2010, senior Hamas Commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was assassinated in his hotel room while on a visit to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
In 2011, U.S. and local law officers arrested more than 100 suspected mobsters among seven families in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island on a variety of charges, including murder, racketeering and extortion.
In 2017, Donald Trump took the oath of office to become the 45th president of the United States, the first person to hold the title without prior military or political experience.
In 2021, Joe Biden took the oath of office to become the 46th president of the United States, while Kamala Harris became the first woman to be sworn in as vice president.
In 2025, Donald Trump took the oath of office for the second time, becoming the 47th president of the United States. After Grover Cleveland, he was the second U.S. president to have non-consecutive terms in the White House.
