History for January 20

History for January 20 - On-This-Day.com:
George Burns 1896, Aristotle Onassis 1906, DeForest Kelley 1920 


Patricia Neal 1926, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin 1930, Edward "Fireball" Roberts 1931 


1801 - John Marshall was appointed chief justice of the United States. 


1885 - The roller coaster was patented by L.A. Thompson. 


1892 - The first official basketball game was played by students at the Springfield, MA, YMCA Training School. 


1942 - Nazi officials held the Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their "final solution" that called for exterminating Europe's Jews. 


1944 - The British RAF dropped 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin. 


1952 - In Juarez, Mexico, Patricia McCormick debuted as the first professional woman bullfighter from the United States. 


1954 - The National Negro Network was formed on this date. Forty radio stations were charter members of the network. 


1981 - Iran released 52 Americans that had been held hostage for 444 days. The hostages were flown to Algeria and then to a U.S. base in Wiesbaden, West Germany. The release occurred minutes after the U.S. presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.