January 2 in History: Austria bans torture, Selma voting marches begin, WHO names ‘gaming disorder,’ those 11,180 votes, more

Check out This Day in History for January 2, in MainStream’s daily look at significant progressive, intersectional historical events.

1776: Austria bans torture under the rule of Empress Maria Theresa, the only female ruler of the 600-year  Habsburg Dynasty.

1800: Black men in Philadelphia, led by Episcopa priest Absalom Jones, petition the U.S. Congress to abolish slavery, and also abolish the Fugitive Slave Act, which empowered slave owners to receive compensation for slaves taken from them or killed. The petition is rejected by the U.S. House by a vote of 85-1  but triggers an increased awareness of the push for abolition.

From top left: a monument to Martin Luther King at Selma’s Brown Chapel; former Harvard President Claudia Gay; former Puerto Rico Gov. Sila Calderon; former Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; and former U.S. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer.

1811: Timothy Pickering, a Massachusetts senator who had also served as postmaster and many other key federal poitions, becomes the first U.S. Senator to be censured. Pickering had read a portion of a letter from France’s leader to Thomas Jefferson on the Senate floor that had not been cleared of executive privilege. 

1839: French artist and photographer Louis Daguerre takes the first-ever photo of the moon, using a technique with a shortened exposure time and then heat generated by mercury. Photos produced in this way would become known as daguerrotypes.

1890: Alice Sanger becomes the first female White House staffer when she becomes the assistant to President Benjamin Harrison. Until Sanger’s appointment, women in the White House were cooks and maidens only.

1920: As part of the Red Scare over communism, U.S. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer authorizes the Palmer raids in 33 cities across 23 states. An estimated 4,000 leftists and communist leaders are arrested within days. 

Watch this BBC report on “gaming disorder” being named a mental health condition by the World Health Organization.

1965: Martin Luther King Jr. kicks off a voting drive in Selma, Ala., where only 2 percent of registered voters are Black despite half of the city’s population being Black. The voting drives continues peacefully until February, when police and protesters begin to clash repeatedly.

1970: Clifton R. Wharton Jr., a former agricultural ecologist, becomes the first African-American to lead a majority white university when he takes the helm as president of Michigan State University.

2001: Sila Calderón becomes the first female Governor of Puerto Rico, after running a campaign based on fiscal responsibility, economic development, the needs of the underprivileged, clean government and job creation.

2018: “Gaming disorder” is listed as a mental health condition by the World Health Organization, described as “persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour so severe that it takes precedence over other life interests.” 

2021: “I just want to find 11,780 votes.”  U.S. President Donald Trump is recorded making this infamous comment to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in a desperate bid to reclaim the 202 election from Joe Biden. Trump is also recorded during the call referring to severael false voter fraud claims.

2024: Claudine Gay, Harvard University’s first Black president, resigns after several allegations of plagiarism and anti-semitism.

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons.