On this day in 1922, Joseph Stalin became the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
On this day in 1942, during World War II, Japanese forces began an assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.
On this day in 1948, US President Harry S. Truman signed the Marshall Plan, authorizing US$5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.
And on this day in 1973, Martin Cooper of Motorola made the first handheld mobile phone call, though it took ten years for the device to become the first such phone to be commercially released.