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The History Channel
• On Jan. 23, 1922, at Toronto General Hospital, 14-year-old Canadian Leonard Thompson becomes the first person to receive an insulin injection as treatment for diabetes. The teenager improved dramatically, and the University of Toronto immediately gave pharmaceutical companies license to produce insulin, free of royalties.
• Jan. 24, 1935, canned beer makes its debut. The Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale to Richmond, Va. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production.
• On Jan. 20, 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to three terms in office, is inaugurated to his fourth term. In 1947, the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed, limiting future presidents to a maximum of two elected terms in office, or one elected term if the president already served more than two years of another president’s elected term.
• On Jan. 19, 1953, episode No. 56, “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” of hit 1950s sitcom “I Love Lucy” airs for the first time. The episode, in which Lucy Ricardo, famously played by Lucille Ball, gives birth to a son, was one of the most popular in television history.
• On Jan. 21, 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter grants an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War. In total, some 100,000 young Americans went abroad in the late 1960s and early ’70s to avoid serving in the military.