The Week in History for Jan. 22-28

Jan. 22

1498: During his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus arrived at the present-day Caribbean island of St. Vincent.

1962: One of Hollywood's most famous, as well as tumultuous, romances bloomed as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton filmed their first scene together on the set of ''Cleopatra'' at the Cinecitta studios in Rome.

1984: The broadcast for Super Bowl XVIII on CBS-TV featured Apple Computer's famous ''1984'' ad introducing the Macintosh computer.

2002: Kmart Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (Kmart emerged from bankruptcy in 2003.)

2018: Northern State University officials asked the Aberdeen City Council to contribute $5 million toward improvements at Northern and the South Dakota School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

Jan. 23

1962: Jackie Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

1964: The 24th amendment to the Constitution, eliminating the poll tax in federal elections, was ratified.

1975: Steve Kaiser became the new Aberdeen anchor for KABY news at 6 and 10 p.m. Kaiser came to Aberdeen from KSFY in Sioux Falls, where he worked as a news reporter.

1987: Voters in Columbia approved the closing of the town's school at the end of the school year. The students would attend school in Groton the next year.

Jan. 24

1942: The Roberts Commission, which had looked into America's lack of preparedness for Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, publicly released its report placing much of the blame on Rear Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, the Navy and Army commanders.

1967: The most controversial issue in the state Legislature was the possible adoption of Daylight Savings Time. Opponents claimed it would disrupt entertainment schedules for families: Start times for sporting events and movies would be too late for children to attend.

1972: The Britton Braves were No. 1 in the South Dakota Associated Press basketball poll for another week.

1989: Confessed serial killer Ted Bundy was executed in Florida's electric chair.

2002: A House committee opened hearings into the collapse of energy giant Enron Corp.

Jan. 25

1915: Alexander Graham Bell inaugurated U.S. transcontinental telephone service between New York and San Francisco.

1967: Nationally known attorney F. Lee Bailey was to be the speaker for the 1967 Chamber Banquet in Aberdeen.

1971: Charles Manson and three women followers were convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate.

1979: South Dakota lawmakers were to vote on a bill to increase the state gasoline tax by 2 cents per gallon.

2002: A judge in Cambridge, Mass., sentenced Thomas Junta to six to 10 years in prison for beating another man to death at their sons' hockey practice. (Junta was released in August 2010 after serving eight years for involuntary manslaughter.)

Jan. 26

1911: The Richard Strauss opera ''Der Rosenkavalier'' ("The Cavalier of the Rose") premiered in Dresden, Germany.

1975: The Brown County Commission increased the wages of jailers from $2.42 to $2.60 an hour.

1987: A new family restaurant, RG's, opened in Aberdeen.

2004: The Bush administration retreated from its once-confident claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; Democrats swiftly sought to turn the about-face into an election-year issue.

2013: Thousands of people, many holding signs with names of gun violence victims, joined a rally in Washington, D.C. for gun control, marching from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.

Jan. 27

1880: Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

1945: Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

1967: Astronauts Virgil I. ''Gus'' Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft.

1979: Long Lake residents were busy planning for the town's 50th birthday celebration June 15-17. Columbia was planning to celebrate its centennial the same weekend.

1984: Singer Michael Jackson suffered serious burns to his scalp when pyrotechnics set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi-Cola TV commercial.

1987: Aberdeen's Cardinal Tool expected to finish its $250,000 expansion in about six weeks and offer 50 new jobs.

Jan. 28

1915: The U.S. Coast Guard was created as President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill merging the Life-Saving Service and Revenue Cutter Service.

1965: Work was set to begin in summer to transform U.S. Highway 12 from Aberdeen to Bath into a four-lane highway.

1973: A cease-fire officially went into effect in the Vietnam War.

1986: The space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.

2014: State Rep. Susan Wismer, D-Britton, announced her run for governor. Frank Farrar of Britton was governor from 1969 to 1971.

2014: Aberdeen native John Cacavas died at 83. The composer/conductor scored more than 400 one-hour TV shows (including “Kojak” and “Hawaii Five-O”), 50 TV movies and 15 feature films. Cacavas wrote the theme song for the video game “Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories” in 2005.

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Historical happenings for Jan. 22-28