JFK becomes first president to hold live television news conference

Scottish poet Robert Burns is born on January 25, 1759. The day is still celebrated by Burns fans across the English-speaking world, with high-spirited “Robert Burns Night” feasts, featuring haggis and other Scottish delicacies, as well as enthusiastic drinking, toasting and speechmaking.

On January 25, 1776, the Continental Congress authorizes the first national Revolutionary War memorial in honor of Brigadier General Richard Montgomery, who had been killed during an assault on Quebec on December 31, 1775.

On January 25, 1905, during a routine inspection of the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, a mine superintendent made a glittering discovery: a 3,106-carat diamond. (Some sources say the discovery occurred on January 26.) Weighing 1.33 pounds, and christened the “Cullinan,” it was the largest diamond ever found.

After an eight-day offensive that marked the beginning of a new, aggressive strategy in the region, Austro-Hungarian troops under commander in chief Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf take control of the Balkan state of Montenegro, which surrendered on January 25.

On January 25, 1919, in Paris, delegates to the peace conference formally approve the establishment of a commission on the League of Nations.

On January 25, 1924, the first Winter Olympics take off in style at Chamonix in the French Alps. Spectators were thrilled by the ski jump and bobsled as well as 12 other events involving a total of six sports. The “International Winter Sports Week,” as it was known, was a great success, and in 1928 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially designated the Winter Games, staged in St. Moritz, Switzerland, as the second Winter Olympics.

On January 25, 1942, Thailand, a Japanese puppet state, declares war on the Allies.

The first Emmy Awards ceremony is held on January 25, 1949 at the Hollywood Athletic Club. The awards recognize excellence in television (which in the 1940s was a novel medium).

On January 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to hold a live televised news conference.

On January 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to hold a live televised news conference.

The Israeli submarine Dakar, carrying 69 sailors, disappears on January 25, 1968. It would remain missing for some 30 years.

In Los Angeles, California, cult leader Charles Manson is convicted, along with followers Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkle, of the brutal 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

Paul McCartney’s arrival at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport on January 16, 1980, marks his first visit to Japan since the Beatles tour of 1966. The occasion was a planned 11-city concert tour by his band Wings. Instead, Paul’s visit was limited to a nine-day stint in the Tokyo Narcotics Detention Center, which ended on January 25, 1980.

Jiang Qing, the widow of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, is sentenced to death for her “counter-revolutionary crimes” during the Cultural Revolution.

On January 25, 1995, Russia’s early-warning defense radar detects an unexpected missile launch near Norway, and Russian military command estimates the missile to be just minutes from impact on Moscow. Moments later, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, his defense minister and his chief of staff are informed and the nuclear command systems switched to combat mode. This marks the first time in the history of the Soviet-made weapons system that the nuclear suitcases carried by the president and his top commander were ever activated.

On January 25, 2005, a Wichita, Kansas, television station receives a postcard from the BTK killer that leads police to discover a Post Toasties cereal box that had been altered to contain the letters BTK. This communication was one in a long line sent by the serial killer who terrorized Wichita for over 30 years, brutally murdering 10 people and taunting law enforcement and the local media. A month later, on February 25, Dennis Lynn Rader, a husband, father of two and compliance officer for Park City, Kansas, was taken into police custody and soon confessed to being the BTK killer.