The first General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising
51 nations, convened at Westminster Central Hall in London,
England on this day in 1946.

One week later, the U.N. Security Council met for the first time
and established its rules of procedure.

Then, on January 24, the General Assembly adopted its first
resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic
energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of
mass destruction.

On January 10, 1967, during his State of the Union speech,
President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress for more
money to support the Vietnam War.

Lyndon’s War, a war he actually inherited from President
John F. Kennedy, had achieved nothing by 1967. The North
Vietnamese use of guerrilla warfare tactics resulted in
approximately 14,000 American troops killed in action by
early 1967.

Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973)

On January 10, 1901, a drilling derrick at Spindletop Hill near
Beaumont, Texas, produced an enormous gusher of crude oil,
coating the landscape for hundreds of feet and signaling the
advent of the American oil industry.

The geyser was discovered at a depth of over 1,000 feet, flowed
at an initial rate of approximately 100,000 barrels a day and took
nine days to cap.

1963

On January 9, 2007, Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs unveils the
iPhone—a touchscreen mobile phone with an iPod, camera
and Web-browsing capabilities, among other features—at
the Macworld convention in San Francisco.

When it went on sale in the United States six months later, on
June 29, amidst huge hype, thousands of customers lined up
at Apple stores across the country to be among the first to
purchase an iPhone.

In November 2007, by which point more than 1.4 million
iPhones had been sold—Time magazine named the sleek,
4.8-ounce device, originally available in a 4GB, $499 model
and an 8GB, $599 model, its invention of the year.