Silas F. Henry (born 1845)

In 1845, in the year that Silas F. Henry was born, on March 4th, James K. Polk was inaugurated as the 11th President of the United States. Polk, from Tennessee, beat Henry Clay of Kentucky, 49.5% to 48.1%. Polk served one term.

In 1890, on January 2nd, Alice Sanger became the first female staffer to work in the White House. She was hired as a stenographer and, as such, took dictation.

In 1904, the "Teddy's Bear" was first produced. After seeing a political cartoon of President Teddy Roosevelt refusing to kill a clubbed and tied up bear, Jewish Russian immigrant Morris Michtom - who owned a candy shop and sold stuffed animals that he and his wife made at night at the store - made a "Teddy's Bear" and put it in his shop's window. The stuffed bears were an immediate success and Michtom and his wife went on to found the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co.

In 1977, on January 21st, President Carter pardoned "draft dodgers" - men who avoided the draft during the Vietnam War. He fulfilled a campaign promise with the pardon. But it only applied to civilian evaders - the estimated 500,000 to 1 million active-duty personnel who went AWOL were not included.

In 1999, on January 1st, the Euro became the new official single currency of the eurozone. It was used by Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain and has since spread in use. Daily, over 337 million Europeans use the euro.