Today in history:
ORLANDO, Fla. — On Jan. 18, 1958, Canadian Willie O’Ree became the first Black player in the National Hockey League as he made his debut with the Boston Bruins.
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In 1778, English navigator Captain James Cook reached the present-day Hawaiian Islands, which he dubbed the “Sandwich Islands.”
In 1911, the first landing of an aircraft on a ship took place as pilot Eugene B. Ely brought his Curtiss biplane in for a safe landing on the deck of the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Harbor.
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In 1977, scientists identified the bacteria responsible for the deadly form of atypical pneumonia known as Legionnaires’ disease.
In 1990, Washington D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was arrested after FBI agents caught him smoking crack cocaine in a D.C. hotel room in a videotaped sting operation.
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In 1993, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was observed in all 50 states for the first time.
In 2013, former Democratic New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was indicted on charges that he’d used his office for personal gain, accepting payoffs, free trips and gratuities from contractors while the city was struggling to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. (Nagin was later convicted and released from prison in 2020.)
In 2019, Jason Van Dyke, the white Chicago police officer who gunned down Black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison.
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