January 21

1525 – The Swiss Anabaptist Movement is founded in Zurich, Switzerland when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and others baptize each other in the home of Manz’s mother.

1789 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth by William Hill Brown, is printed in Boston.

1861 – Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate.

1915 – Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit.

1950 – American lawyer and government official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury in connection with him being charged with spying for the Soviets since the 1930s.

1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by 1st Lady Mamie Eisenhower

1960 – Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, is launched from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board, testing the launch escape system.

1968 – US Marine Corps and Army troops defending the  Khe Sanh Combat Base in northwestern Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam are brought under siege by forces of the North Vietnam Army, while near Thule Air Base in  Greenland, a B-52 bomber crashes, contaminating the area after its payload of nuclear bombs rupture. One of the 4 bombs remains unaccounted for after the cleanup operation is complete.

1976 – Commercial service of the Concorde airliner begins with the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.

1985 – Galaxy Airlines Flight 203, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes near Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Reno, Nevada, killing 70 of the 71 passengers and crew aboard.

1997 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes 395–28 to reprimand Newt Gingrich for ethics violations, making him the first Speaker of the House to be so disciplined.