Today in 1976, Georgia governor and former peanut farmer Jimmy Carter along with Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota as his running mate, defeated incumbent Gerald R. Ford to become the 39th president of the United States.

Today in 1983, in honor of the slain civil rights leader, President Ronald Reagan signs a bill designating every third Monday in January as Martin Luther King Day, the first such federal holiday to be established since the annual celebration of the birth of George Washington.