Associated Press

On Jan. 5, 1925, Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming took office as America’s first female governor.

In 1933, construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge.

In 1943, educator and scientist George Washington Carver, who was born into slavery, died in Tuskegee, Alabama.

In 1949, in his State of the Union address, President Harry S. Truman labeled his administration the Fair Deal.

In 1953, Samuel Beckett’s two-act tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot” premiered in Paris.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon announced that he had ordered development of the space shuttle.

In 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his armed forces to observe a unilateral 36-hour cease-fire in Ukraine for the Orthodox Christmas holiday, the first such truce move in the war.