On Jan. 14, 1784, the Continental Congress ratified the Second Treaty of Paris, thus bringing the Revolutionary War to an official end. In the treaty, known as the Second Treaty of Paris because the Treaty of Paris was also the name of the agreement that had ended the Seven Years’ War in 1763, Britain officially agreed to recognize the independence of its 13 former colonies as the new United States of America.
On Jan. 13, 1733, James Oglethorpe and 130 colonists arrived in what is today Charleston, South Carolina. Oglethorpe was a British general, member of Parliament, philanthropist, and founded of the colony of Georgia. As a social reformer, Oglethorpe hoped to resettle Britain’s poor, especially those in debtors’ prisons, in the New World.
On Jan. 12, 1904, Henry Ford set a land-speed record of 91.37 mph on the frozen surface of Lake St. Clair in Michigan, driving a four-wheel vehicle, dubbed the “999,” with a wooden chassis but no body or hood. Ford’s record was broken within a month, but the publicity from Ford’s achievement was valuable to the auto pioneer, who had incorporated the Ford Motor Company the previous year.
On Jan. 11, 2010, Miep Gies, who helped to hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis during World War II, died in the Netherlands. She was 100 years old. In July 1942, the Frank family went into hiding in an attic apartment behind Otto Frank’s business. Gies, along with her husband Jan, a Dutch social worker, and several of Otto Frank’s other employees risked their lives to smuggle food and supplies to the Franks and several other Jews in hiding. After the Franks were discovered in 1944 and sent to concentration camps, Gies rescued the notebooks that Anne Frank left behind describing her two years in hiding. These writings were later published as “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” which became one of the most widely read accounts of the Holocaust.
On Jan. 10, 2003, then-Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 prisoners on Illinois’ death row in the aftermath of a scandal involving Chicago detective Jon Burge, who was accused of torturing suspects into making confessions and later found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice.
On Jan. 10, 1738, Ethan Allen was born. Allen was a Revolutionary War hero, who led the Green Mountain Boys to capture Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775. Allen is also known as one fo the founders of the State of Vermont.
On Jan. 9, 1776, Thomas Paine published the pamphlet “Common Sense,” expounding his argument for American independence from Britain, though the work’s original attribution was simply “Written by an Englishman.” Born in England in 1737, Paine had immigrated to Philadelphia in 1774, just two years before his 47-page pamphlet sold some 500,000 copies, powerfully influencing American opinion.