January 26 in History: roots of Australia grow, black officers form the 54th infantry, Clinton lies on-air over affair, Rice makes history, more

1788: Botany Bay is founded by exiled convicts from Great Britain, and grows into one of the six British colonies that will become Australia more than a century later. Over the next 80 years, 160,000 exiled convicts from Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Wales will be relocated to become Australia, one reason that 20 percent of Australians today are descended from former convicts. Now known as “Australia Day,” Jan. 26 is a day of celebration for many Australians, but a day of mourning over colonization for many indigenous people.

Left: activist David Kato Kisule; former President Bill Clinton, and former presidential physician Janet Travell, Center, a rendition of the 54th Infantry. Right, Bishop Libby Lane and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

1838: The country’s first-ever prohibition law is passed in Tennessee, almost 80 years before alcohol would be prohibited nationwide for a 13-year period. Tennessee made it a misdemeanor to sell alcohol in taverns and stores, with penalties going toward a fund for education. Tennessee’s law was largely influenced by the American Temperance Society, a 1.5-million member group seeking prohibition throughout the country. 

1863: The famed 54th infantry, the all-Black Union militia chronicled in the 1989 film “Glory,” is called up to battle, just weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation that was supposed to end slavery. Most members of the 54th would die in their first battle, helping to weaken Fort Wagner in South Carolina to pave the way for Union victory over the Confederacy later that year.

1915: President Woodrow Wilson signs an order creating the Rocky Mountain National Park, 415 square miles of mountain wilderness in Colorado and the country’s 10th national park. The move will lead to the creation of the National Park Service to care for the country’s growing collection of national parks, which now number 63.

1961: Janet Travell becomes the first-ever female Physician to the President, serving under President John F. Kennedy. Travell had been Kennedy’s personal physician and treated him for severe back pain that some said later was related to Addison’s. Only one other Presidential physician has been a woman since Travell: E. Connie Mariano, who served as presidential physician to both Bushes, and to Bill Clinton.

1971: Gay men going to church, being domestic and hanging out in the park transformed America’s debate over gay marriage, when Minneapolis activists Jack Baker and Mike McConnell appear on the cover of “Look” magazine under the headline “The American Family.” The two would go on that year to become the first-ever gay male couple to receive a marriage license.

Monica Lewinsky, now 52, shares reflections in 2025 on her experience in 1998 as the 22-year-old intern “thrown under the bus” by former President Bill Clinton after he had an affair with her while in office.

1998: President Bill Clinton lies to the country on national television when he announces, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” Clinton would be impeached over the lie and the 18-month affair he had with intern Monica Lewinsky, 27 years his junior. Lewinsky has since become a movie producer, podcaster and inspirational speaker focusing on overcoming adversity and public shame.

2004: MyDoom becomes the fastest-spreading email worm in history, infecting computers and self-replicating through an attachment on an “undeliverable” message. The “worm” at one point accounted for 25 percent of all email traffic and helped raise awareness of the dangers of email viruses and social engineering, and still circulates today.

2005:  Condoleezza Rice becomes the first black female Secretary of State, appointed by conservative Republican president George W. Bush. Rice, a classical pianist, would become known for “transformational diplomacy,” a policy that focused American outreach on countries struggling with disease, drug smuggling and human trafficking.

2011: The leader of resistance aganst Uganda’s anti-gay laws, David Kato Kisule, is found murdered in his apartment. Kisule, a teacher and activist, had just won a lawsuit against a local magazine that had called for the death of Kisule and other openly gay people in Uganda. Kisule was standing up against the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, which imposed the death penalty for certain homosexual acts and prison for others. The law was proposed in 2009, passed in 2013, repealed in 2014, then passed again in 2023 and still in effect today. A local gardener eventually confessed to attacking Kisule and is serving a 30-year prison term.

2015: Libby Lane, a former school governor and hospital chaplain, becomes the first female bishop of the Church of England in its 500-year history. Today, Lane is among 25 females among the church’s 42 diocesan bishops.

2024: Israel is ordered by an international court to provide “basic services and humanitarian assistance” and to prevent incitements to starve and kill civilians in Gaza. The International Court of Justice issues the order in response to a civil lawsuit filed by South Africa on behalf of Palestinians living in Gaza, the target of persistent Israeli bombing and restriction of aid since the October 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas that claimed 1,400 Israelis.

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Danny Trip and Christine Hawes contributed to this report.