Today is Friday, Jan. 8, the eighth day of 2016. There are 358 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights in History:

On Jan. 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson outlined his Fourteen Points for lasting peace after World War I. Mississippi became the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which established Prohibition.

On this date:

In 1642, astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.

In 1790, President George Washington delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress in New York.

In 1815, the last major engagement of the War of 1812 came to an end as U.S. forces defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, not having gotten word of the signing of a peace treaty.

In 1863, America’s First Transcontinental Railroad had its beginnings as California Gov. Leland Stanford broke ground for the Central Pacific Railroad in Sacramento. (The transcontinental railroad was completed in Promontory, Utah, in May 1869.)

In 1912, the African National Congress was founded in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

In 1935, rock-and-roll legend Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.

In 1959, Charles de Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France’s Fifth Republic.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, in his State of the Union address, declared an “unconditional war on poverty in America.”

The Associated Press