Jan 4, 2018 2 min read

Today is Thursday, Jan. 4, the fourth day of 2018. There are 361 days left in the year.

On Jan. 4, 1868, “The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins, considered by some the first full-length English detective novel, began to be serialized in Britain and the United States in All the Year Round and Harper’s Weekly (it was published in book form in July 1868).

In 1896, Utah was admitted as the 45th state.

In 1904, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Gonzalez v. Williams, ruled Puerto Ricans were not aliens and could enter the United States freely; however, the court stopped short of declaring them citizens. (Puerto Ricans received U.S. citizenship in March 1917.)

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address, called for legislation to provide assistance for the jobless, elderly, impoverished children and the handicapped.

In 1943, for the second time, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin made the cover of TIME as the magazine’s 1942 “Man of the Year.”

In 1951, during the Korean War, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces recaptured the city of Seoul.

In 1960, author and philosopher Albert Camus died in an automobile accident in Villeblevin, France, at 46.

In 1967, “The Doors,” the self-titled debut album of the rock group featuring the song “Light My Fire,” was released by Elektra Records.

In 1974, President Richard Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.

In 1995, the 104th Congress convened, the first entirely under Republican control since the Eisenhower era.

“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.”

– Charlotte Bronte, English author (1816-1855)