Today’s Highlight

On Jan. 21, 2020, the U.S. reported its first known case of the 2019 novel coronavirus circulating in China, saying a Washington state resident who had returned the previous week from the outbreak’s epicenter was hospitalized near Seattle.

On this date

1793: During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason, was executed by guillotine.

1924: Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died at age 53.

1950: Former State Department official Alger Hiss, accused of being part of a Communist spy ring, was found guilty in New York of lying to a grand jury. (Hiss, who proclaimed his innocence, served less than four years in prison.)

1977: On his first full day in office, President Jimmy Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.

2010: A deeply divided U.S. Supreme Court, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, vastly increased the influence of big business and labor unions by allowing unlimited contributions to political campaigns.

2017: A day after Donald Trump’s first presidential inauguration, an estimated 3 million to 5 million people rallied at Women’s March demonstrations across the U.S. to support civil rights and to protest Trump’s rhetoric and policies.

Today’s birthdays

Golf Hall of Famer Jack Nicklaus is 85. Opera singer Plácido Domingo is 84. Singer-songwriter Billy Ocean is 75. Artist Jeff Koons is 70. Actor Geena Davis is 69. Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon is 62. Singer Emma Bunton is 49.