Today in History: January 21, first US case of COVID-19 confirmed

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 21, the 21st day of 2026. There are 344 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 21, 2020, the U.S. reported its first known case of the 2019 novel coronavirus circulating in China, saying a Washington state resident who had returned the previous week from the outbreak's epicenter was hospitalized near Seattle.

Also on this date:

In 1793, during the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason, was executed by guillotine.

In 1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, with a dramatic farewell speech, resigned his U.S. Senate seat after his state and others seceded from the Union. He would later be elected president of the Confederacy shortly before the Civil War began.

In 1924, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died at age 53, setting off a bloody power struggle that would lead to the rise of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

In 1960, the collapse of a mine in Coalbrook, South Africa, killed 437 miners.

In 1976, British Airways and Air France inaugurated scheduled passenger service on the supersonic Concorde jet.

In 1977, on his first full day in office, President Jimmy Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.

In 1985, Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 crashed in a field shortly after takeoff from Reno, Nevada, killing all but one of the 71 people aboard. The survivor was a 17-year-old boy who was thrown clear of the aircraft and found conscious and still in his seat.

In 2010, a deeply divided U.S. Supreme Court, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, vastly increased the influence of big business and labor unions by allowing unlimited contributions to political campaigns.

In 2023, a gunman opened fire and killed 11 people at a ballroom dance hall in Monterey Park, California, during the city's Lunar New Year festivities. The gunman killed himself as police closed in on him.