Today’s Highlight in History: On Jan. 21, 1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four other Southerners whose states had seceded from the Union resigned from the U.S. Senate.
On this date:
In 1793, during the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason, was executed on the guillotine.
In 1908, New York City’s Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance prohibiting women from smoking in public establishments (the measure was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr., but not before one woman, Katie Mulcahey, was jailed overnight for refusing to pay a fine).
In 1924, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died at age 53.