26th January: Today In History

Today is January,  the 26th day of 2016. There are 331,days left in the year.
Today's Highlight In History;

Birthdays;
1715 Claude Helvétius, French philosopher
1826 Julia Dent Grant, wife of Ulysses S. Grant
1880 Douglas MacArthur, U.S. general in World War I, World War II and Korea
1893 Bessie Coleman, pioneer aviator
1944 Angela Davis, American activist

Events;
1699 The Treaty of Karlowitz ends the war between Austria and the Turks
1720 Guilio Alberoni is ordered out of Spain after his abortive attempt to restore his country’s empire
1788 A fleet of ships carrying convicts from England lands at Sydney Cove in Australia. The day is since known as Australia’s national day
1861 Louisiana secedes from the Union
1863 President Lincoln names General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac
1875 Pinkerton agents, huntingJesse James, kill his 18-year-old half-brother and seriously injure his mother with a bomb.
1885 General “Chinese” Gordon is killed on the palace steps in Khartoum by Sudanese Mahdists in Africa.
1924 Petrograd is renamed Leningrad.
1934 Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance system.
1942 American Expeditionary Force lands in Northern Ireland.
1943 The first OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent parachutes behind Japanese lines in Burma
1964 Eighty-four people are arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta
1969 California is declared a disaster area after two days of flooding and mud slides
2005 Condoleezza Rice is appointed to the post of secretary of state. The post makes her the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in an U.S. presidential cabinet