By The Associated Press

Today in History

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 10, the 10th day of 2018. There are 355 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Jan. 10, 1776, Thomas Paine anonymously published his influential pamphlet, “Common Sense,” which argued for American independence from British rule.

On this date:

In 1861, Florida became the third state to secede from the Union.

In 1863, the London Underground had its beginnings as the Metropolitan, the world’s first underground passenger railway, opened to the public with service between Paddington and Farringdon Street.

In 1870, John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.

In 1920, the League of Nations was established as the Treaty of Versailles (vehr-SY’) went into effect.

In 1946, the first General Assembly of the United Nations convened in London. The first manmade contact with the moon was made as radar signals transmitted by the U.S. Army Signal Corps were bounced off the lunar surface.

In 1948, future country music star Loretta Lynn (nee Webb) married Oliver “Mooney” Lynn; she was 15 at the time, he was 21 (the marriage lasted until Oliver Lynn’s death in 1996).

In 1957, Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation of Anthony Eden.

In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson, in his State of the Union address, asked Congress to impose a surcharge on both corporate and individual income taxes to help pay for his “Great Society” programs as well as the war in Vietnam. That same day, Massachusetts Republican Edward W. Brooke, the first black person elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote, took his seat.

In 1978, the Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz 27 capsule for a rendezvous with the Salyut 6 space laboratory.

In 1984, the United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton, attending a NATO summit meeting in Brussels, Belgium, announced completion of an agreement to remove all long-range nuclear missiles from the former Soviet republic of Ukraine.