Jan 8, 2018 2 min read

Today is Monday, Jan. 8, the eighth day of 2018. There are 357 days left in the year.

On Jan. 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson outlined his Fourteen Points for lasting peace after World War I. Mississippi became the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which established Prohibition.

In 1642, astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.

In 1790, President George Washington delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress in New York.

In 1815, the last major engagement of the War of 1812 came to an end as U.S. forces defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, not having gotten word of the signing of a peace treaty.

In 1867, the U.S. House of Representatives joined the Senate in overriding President Andrew Johnson’s veto of the District of Columbia Suffrage Bill, giving black men in the nation’s capital the right to vote.

In 1935, Rock ‘n’ Roll legend Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Miss.

In 1959, Charles de Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France’s Fifth Republic.

In 1968, the Otis Redding single “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was released on the Volt label almost a month after the singer’s death in a plane crash.

In 1976, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, 77, died in Beijing.

In 1982, American Telephone and Telegraph settled the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.

“The devil is easy to identify. He appears when you’re terribly tired and makes a very reasonable request which you know you shouldn’t grant.”