Timeline January 3 to 5

January 3
1521  Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
1777  Gen. George Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton, N.J.
1833  Britain seized control of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
1892  J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
1959  US President Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Alaska to the Union as the 49th state.
1977  Apple Computer was incorporated.

January 4
1797  Wilhelm Beer, German astronomer, who made first map of the moon, was born.
1809  Louis Braille, French educator and inventor of Braille, was born.
1813  Sir Isaac Pitman, English educator and inventor of shorthand, was born.
1903  Topsy the elephant died by electrocution.
1998  A massive ice storm hits eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, continuing through January 10 and causing widespread destruction.

January 5
1066  Edward the Confessor, King of England, died. (b. 1004)
1779  Zebulon Montgomery Pike, American army officer and explorer, was born. Died April 27, 1813 at York, Upper Canada [War of 1812].
1855  King Camp Gillette, American inventor and manufacturer, was born.
1896  The Austrian newspaper Wiener Presse reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as an X-ray.
1922  Sir Ernest Shackleton, Irish explorer, died. (b. 1874)
1943  Educator and scientist George Washington Carver died in Tuskegee, Ala., at age 81.