Lyndon B. Johnson says the United States should stay in South Vietnam (1966), and Security Council votes to let the PLO join a debate (1976). Born on this day: Jeff Bezos, Haruki Murakami and Jack London. Died: Agatha Christie, Pierre de Fermat and Maximilian I.
33 events, 83 births and 56 deaths on this date.
Johnson told the public that American forces should remain in South Vietnam until what he called Communist aggression there had ended. The statement signalled that his administration would not withdraw while the war continued, deepening American involvement in Vietnam.
Arnold Newman · Public domainThe Council voted 11 to 1 to let the Palestine Liberation Organization take part in a debate on the Middle East, though without a vote. The United States was the only member to oppose it, a sign of how contested the PLO's place in the UN still was.
Lawmakers in Washington approved American force to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, which Saddam Hussein's army had seized in 1990. The vote came three days before a UN deadline expired, ahead of the air campaign that began on 17 January.
Captain Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco set up the settlement on the Amazon delta for the Portuguese crown. It became the first European colony on the Amazon and is today the gateway to the river, also called the City of Mango Trees.
Born John Griffith Chaney, he went on to write The Call of the Wild and White Fang, adventure novels set in the Klondike Gold Rush. He became one of the first American writers with an international following and a large fortune from his books.
published by L C Page and Company Boston 1903 · Public domain
The House voted down a proposed constitutional amendment that would have forced every state to give women the vote. Votes for women across the country came later, through the Nineteenth Amendment.
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Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, starting with books sold online, and built it into the world's largest online retailer. He also started the space company Blue Origin and bought The Washington Post in 2013.
Seattle City Council from Seattle · CC BY 2.0
Murakami is a Japanese novelist known for magical realism in books such as Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore. His works have been translated into around 50 languages, and before his 1979 debut he ran a jazz venue.
Ministerio Cultura y Patrimonio from Quito, Ecuador · Public domain
Jack London was an American writer whose adventure novels, including The Call of the Wild and White Fang, drew on the Klondike Gold Rush. He was also a socialist campaigner whose work gained him wide fame and a large fortune.
published by L C Page and Company Boston 1903 · Public domain
Agatha Christie created Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, and her books have sold over two billion copies, making her the most widely read novelist ever. She wrote The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the world, which has run in London's West End since 1952.
Joop van Bilsen for Anefo · CC0
Pierre de Fermat was a French lawyer who did mathematics in his spare time. He is remembered for a margin note in a book about Diophantus, claiming a theorem he never wrote out in full.
Rolland Lefebvre · Public domain
Maximilian I ruled as Holy Roman Emperor without ever being crowned by the Pope, declaring himself emperor at Trento in 1508. He built Habsburg power across Europe, notably by securing Spain for his grandson Charles V, and was nicknamed the last knight.
Albrecht Dürer · Public domain
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