Today in History in 1965 during the State of the Union Address, President Lyndon Johnson outlines his plan for "The Great Society".

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

January 4 is the fourth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 361 days remaining until the end of the year (362 in leap years).

EVENTS

46 BC – Julius Caesar defeats Titus Labienus in the Battle of Ruspina.

1490 – Anne of Brittany announces that all those who would ally (go on the same side) with the King of France will be guilty of the crime of lese–majesty.

1642 – Charles I of England sends soldiers in to arrest members of parliament.

1643 – Famous English scientist Isaac Newton is born. In the Julian calendar in use in England at the time, his date of birth was December 25, 1642.

1649 – The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial.

1717 – The Netherlands, Great Britain and France sign a triple alliance.

1762 – Great Britain declares war on Spain and Naples.

1798 – Constantine Hangerli arrives in Bucharest, then–part of Wallachia, as its new prince, invested by the Ottoman Empire.

1847 – Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the US Government.

1852 – British steamer RMS Amazon catches fire and explodes and sinks, killing 104 people.

1854 – The Subantarctic McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald.

1863 – The New Apostolic Church is created in Hamburg.

1865 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters on Wall Street.

1878 – The city of Sofia is freed from Ottoman Rule.

1880 – Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is first climbed by Edward Whymper.

1885 – Dr. William W. Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performs what is thought to be the first appendectomy.

1889 – The Oklahoma Land Run opens 2 million square acres of unused Oklahoma Territory to first–come, first–served settlers from April 22.

1896 – Utah becomes a state of the US.

1904 – In Gonzales v. Williams, the U.S. Supreme Court decides that citizens of Puerto Rico are not aliens and can enter the U.S. freely.

1912 – The Scout Association is officially created throughout the British Commonwealth of Nations by Royal Charter.

1935 – Dry Tortugas National Park in Mexico is created.

1944 – World War II: Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins.

1948 – Burma gained independence from the United Kingdom.

1950 – Israel declares Jerusalem to be its capital city.

1951 – The Communist forces of North Korea and China, seize the city of Seoul.

1958 – Sputnik 1 falls back to Earth.

1958 – Edmund Hillary reaches the South Pole, leading the first overland expedition there since Robert Falcon Scott.

1959 – Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the area near the Moon.

1964 – Pope Paul VI visits Israel.

1965 – During the State of the Union Address, President Lyndon Johnson outlines his plan for "The Great Society".

1966 – A coup occurs in Upper Volta (present–day Burkina Faso).

1967 – Donald Campbell is killed in an attempt to beat his own water speed record on Coniston Water.

1970 – An earthquake in Yunnan, China, kills around 10,000 people.

1972 – Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit on the Old Bailey in London.

1976 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force shoots dead six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh. On January 5, gunmen shoot dead 10 Protestant civilians nearby.

1981 – Peter Sutcliffe admits being the Yorkshire ripper.

1987 – An Amtrak train travelling from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, DC, collides with Conrail engines in Chase, Maryland, killing 16 people.

1990 – A train accident in Sangi, Pakistan, kills 350 people.

1998 – A massive ice storm in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States causes widespread disruption and power outages.

1999 – Former wrestler, Jesse Ventura, becomes Minnesota's governor.

1999 – The US Mint begins issuing the 50 state quarters.

2004 – Spirit, a NASA Mars Rover, lands successfully on Mars.

2004 – Mikheil Saakashvili becomes President of Georgia.

2006 – Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon suffers a stroke. His duties are transferred to Ehud Olmert.

2007 – Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

2010 – The Burj Khalifa is opened in Dubai, officially becoming the world's tallest building.

2016 – Zinedine Zidane becomes the manager of Real Madrid C.F.