TODAY IN HISTORY - JANUARY 29TH

1737 – Thomas Paine, English-American author, activist, and theorist (d. 1809) is born.

1834 – US President Andrew Jackson orders first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labor dispute.

1843 – William McKinley, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 25th President of the United States (d. 1901) is born.

1845 – "The Raven" is published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe

1850 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.

1861 – Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.

1863 – The Bear River Massacre: A detachment of California Volunteers led by Colonel Patrick Edward Connor engage the Shoshone at Bear River, Washington Territory, killing hundreds of men women and children.

1874 – John D. Rockefeller, Jr., American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1960) is born.

1886 – Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.

1900 – The American League is organized in Philadelphia with eight founding teams; they were the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Americans, Chicago White Stockings, Cleveland Blues, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Athletics & Washington Senators.

1901 – Allen B. DuMont, American engineer and broadcaster; founded the DuMont Television Network (d. 1965) is born.

1907 – Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator.

1916 – World War I: Paris is first bombed by German zeppelins.

1936 – The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced; they were Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth & Honus Wagner.

1954 – Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host, actress, media entrepreneur and producer; founded Harpo Productions is born.

1963 – Robert Frost, American poet and playwright (b. 1874) dies.

1963 – The first inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame are announced; they were Sammy Baugh, Bert Bell, Joseph Carr, Dutch Clark & Harold "Red" Grange.

1967 – The "ultimate high" of the hippie era, the Mantra-Rock Dance, takes place in San Francisco and features Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg.

1998 – In Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic, killing one and severely wounding another. Serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph is suspected as the culprit.

2002 – In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush describes "regimes that sponsor terror" as an Axis of evil, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

2008 – Raymond Jacobs, American marine, member of the Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (b. 1925) dies.

2009 – Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is removed from office following his conviction of several corruption charges, including the alleged solicitation of personal benefit in exchange for an appointment to the United States Senate as a replacement for then-U.S. president-elect Barack Obama.