On Jan. 3, 1968, Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-Minnesota) announced he would challenge incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination. In March, spurred by public opposition to Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War, McCarthy came within a few hundred votes of beating Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. At the end of March, Johnson withdrew from the race.
On Jan. 3, 1777, General George Washington evaded the numerically superior forces of British General Cornwallis dispatched to trap him in Trenton and went north to rout the British rear guard in the Battle of Princeton.