January 18, 1977 – The Center for Disease Control identifies the bacterium responsible for 182 people becoming ill while attending an American Legion convention in Boston during the summer of 1976, 29 of whom died. Now commonly called “Legionnaires’ Disease,” its cause was traced to contaminated water in the air conditioning system of the Bellevue-Stratford hotel and led to new guidelines related to air conditioning water temperature in public places.
January 20, 1944 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated to an unprecedented fourth term as President of the United States.
January 21, 1954 – The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear powered submarine, was launched at Groton, Connecticut. It shares its name with Captain Nemo’s ship in the 1870 Jules Verne classic “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”
January 24, 1848 – The California gold rush begins in the Sierra Nevada foothills with the accidental discovery of the precious metal during construction of a sawmill near the town of Coloma.