[ W O R T H  1 0 0 0  W O R D S  ]

• Sean Delonas

• Lisa Benson

• A.F. Branco

• Randall Enos

• Randall Enos BONUS!

• Ed Gamble

• Joe Heller

• Steve Sack

• Tom Stiglich

• Gary Varvel

• Michael Ramirez

• Michael Ramirez BONUS!

[ T O D A Y  I N  H I S T O R Y ]

On this day in . . .

• 1610, Galileo Galilei observes three of the four largest moons of Jupiter for the first time. He named them, and in turn the four are called the Galilean moons. Ganymede was not discovered by him until January 13

• 1782, the first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens

• 1789, the first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president

• 1904, the Marconi International Marine Communication Co. of London announced that the telegraphed letters "CQD" would serve as a maritime distress call (it was later replaced by "SOS")

• 1920, the New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen

• 1927, commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London. ALSO: Harlem Globetrotters play their first game

• 1929, Chrysler is Time magazine's Man of the Year

• 1942, the World War II siege of Bataan began

• 1948, Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO

• 1953, President Truman announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb

• 1954, Georgetown-IBM experiment: the first public demonstration of a machine translation system, is held in New York at the head office of IBM

• 1959, the United States recognized the new government of Cuba, six days after Fidel Castro led the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista

• 1965, civilian government is restored in Saigon

• 1979, Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government

• 1990, the interior of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public because of safety concerns

• 1999, for the second time in history, an impeached American president (this time Clinton) went on trial before the Senate. ALSO: U.S. Representative Dan Burton, R-Ind., subpoenaed Elian Gonzalez to testify before Congress in a bid to keep Elian in the United States for at least another month while courts decided whether the 6-year-old should be returned to Cuba. (Elian never actually testified.)

• 2003, police in London announced they had found traces of the deadly poison ricin in a north London apartment and arrested six men in connection with the virulent toxin that had been linked to al-Qaida terrorists and Iraq

• 2004, President George W. Bush proposed legal status, at least temporarily, for millions of illegal immigrants working in the U.S.

• 2008, the Pentagon reported an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. Navy convoy passing near Iranian waters, then vanished as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire

• 2010, practitioners of that "religion of peace" praise Allah before opening fire on a crowd of Egyptian Coptic Christians leaving church after celebrating a midnight Christmas mass, killing eight of them as well as one Muslim bystander

• 2012, the Pakistani government released 179 Indian fishermen imprisoned for violating territorial waters. The men, some of whom had been held for a year, said they sailed into Pakistani waters by mistake.

• 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to Georgia's ban on carrying guns into churches

• 2015, practitioners of that "religion of peace" stormed the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 members of the satirical publication's staff. French President Francois Hollande described it as "an act of exceptional barbarism."

• 2018, global warming proponents worked overtime in trying to explain why -- and how -- the arctic air that engulfed parts of the East Coast broke cold temperature records from Maine to West Virginia

[ I N S I G H T ]

Hugh Hewitt: The red line in Syria is still there. In fact, it's a darker red

News of the Weird: Wait, What? | Surprise!

Gina Barreca: I shouldn't be telling you this, but . . .

Argus Hamilton's The News in Zingers!

• SICK: A woman in a vegetative state gave birth. Now police are investigating a sexual assault

• 'World's oldest woman' was 122 when she died, but researcher says she was lying about age

• Restriction on transgender troops serving in military can stand for now, D.C. federal appeals court rules

• AMERICA'S NEWEST VOTING BLOCK: 1.4 million former felons

David Weigel: Warren, traveling this weekend in Iowa's Pocahontas, Sac and Cherokee counties, finally reveals why she took that DNA test

Erik Larson: The courts run out of cash on Friday. Here's what happens then

Robert Barnes: Are congressional maps in North Carolina and Maryland so extreme that they violated the rights of voters? High Court, with new conservative majority, to decide

Robert Barnes: Supreme Court to decide if trademark protection can be denied to 'scandalous' brands

Noah Feldman: This man's protest is free speech, but now he's a felon

(THOUGHT PROVOKING) Megan McArdle: What connects Trumpish figures around the world? No, not that

The Fact Checker: The Truth Behind the Rhetoric: Claim that Trump has spent only 6 percent of the 'wall' money is misleading

Aaron Blake: History-making Muslim pol's vulgar comment spotlights Dems' impeachment dilemma

Paul Kane: Why Congress isn't feeling the pressure for a fast deal to end the shutdown --- yet

(SPOT ON) Henry Olsen: Impeach the Emm-Effer? Darn right they should!

Sen. David Perdue: Faux conservative unites by dividing. Heckuva job, Mitt-ens

George Will: Today's Germany is the best Germany the world has seen

• Dry Bones

• Mallard Filmore