MOMENTS IN TIME

The History Channel

• On Jan. 5, 1643, in the first record of a legal divorce in the American colonies, Anne Clarke of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a divorce from her absent and adulterous husband, Denis Clarke, by the Quarter Court of Boston.

• On Jan. 7, 1785, Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon, making the first crossing of the English Channel by air. After almost crashing, the two men were forced to throw nearly everything out of the balloon to lighten the ship.

• On Jan. 4, 1847, Samuel Colt...