January 28 ...

In 1521 the Diet of Worms began, at which Protestant reformer Luther was declared an outlaw by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1547 England's King Henry VIII died at age 55. He was succeeded by his 9 year-old son, Edward VI. In 1561 the Edict of Orleans suspended the persecution of French Huguenots. In 1807 London's Pall Mall became the first street lit by gaslight. In 1851 Northwestern University was chartered. In 1855 the inventor of the first practical adding and listing machine, William Seward Burroughs, was born in Auburn, NY. In 1871 France surrendered in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1878 the first telephone switchboard was installed in New Haven, CT; the phone company that owned the switchboard had 21 subscribers. In 1887 Artur Rubinstein was born in Lodz, Poland. In 1912 abstract painter Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, WY. In 1916 Louis D. Brandeis was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Wilson; he was the Court's first Jewish member. In 1918 Leon Trotsky became leader of the Russian Communists. In 1932 the Japanese Navy bombed Shanghai, China, in response to protests over Japanese military action in Manchuria; the Japanese later occupied Manchuria. In 1935 Iceland became the first country to legalize abortion on medical-social grounds. In 1939 poet William Butler Yeats died in Menton, France. In 1958 Brooklyn Dodger's catcher Roy Campanella suffered a broken neck in an early morning auto accident on Long Island. In 1980 comedian Jimmy Durante died in New York City. In 1986 the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members: Flight Commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee; Pilot Michael J. Smith; Ronald E. McNair; Ellison S. Onizuka; Judith A. Resnik; Gregory B. Jarvis; and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. In 2004 NFL Hall of Famer Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch died of natural causes at age 80.