Associated Press

On Jan. 22, 1901, Britain’s Queen Victoria died at age 81 after a reign of 63 years; she was succeeded by her eldest son, Edward VII.

In 1938, Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town” was performed publicly for the first time in Princeton, New Jersey.

In 1953, the Arthur Miller drama “The Crucible” opened on Broadway.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade decision, declared a nationwide constitutional right to abortion.

In 1995, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy died at the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, at age 104.

In 1997, the Senate confirmed Madeleine Albright as the nation’s first female secretary of state.

In 2008, actor Heath Ledger was found dead of an accidental prescription overdose in a New York City apartment. He was 28.