On this day …
January 18, 2015
- In 1535, Francisco Pizarro founded Lima, the capital of Peru.
- In 1778, James Cook was the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he named the Sandwich Islands.
- In 1911, Eugene B. Ely landed an airplane on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania, stationed in San Francisco Bay; it was the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
- In 1967, Albert DeSalvo, believed to be the “Boston Strangler,” was convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to life in prison.
- In 1977, scientists identified a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of Legionnaires’ disease.
- In 1983, the International Olympic Committee restored Jim Thorpe’s Olympic medals to his family.
- In 1990, Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry was arrested for drug possession in a sting conducted by the FBI.
- In 1993, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was officially observed for the first time in all 50 states.
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