1982 Plane Crash Near Washington, D.C.

Air Florida Flight 90 took off from Washington, D.C., bound for Tampa, Florida.  Soon after takeoff, the plane crashed into the 14th Street Bridge and went down in the Potomac River, killing 78 people. A severe snow storm engulfed the area at the time of the accident, making visibility poor, but investigators found that the pilots failed to turn on an engine-warming system, and ice build-up on intakes starved the engines of power.

1987 Mafia Bosses Sentenced to Prison

Mafiosi Fat Tony and Carmine Peruccia were sentenced to 100 years in prison.

1990 First African American Elected Governor

Lawrence Douglas Wilder, the grandson of a slave, grew up in a segregated South.  On Jan. 13, 1990, Former Lieutenant Governor Douglas Wilder took the oath of office in Richmond, Virginia, and became the first African-American to be elected as a governor in the United States.

Famous Birthdays

1938 William B. Davis

1940 Edmund White

1957 Lorrie Moore

1961 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

1966 Patrick Dempsey

1968 Traci Bingham

1970 Keith Coogan

1976 Michael Pena

1977 Orlando Bloom

1990 Liam Hemsworth

Jump back to Jan. 12: Day in History.

View more videos from This Month in History: January.