• On Jan. 14, 1639, in Hartford, Connecticut, the first constitution in the American colonies, the “Fundamental Orders,” is adopted. The Fundamental Orders declared that “the foundation of authority is in the free consent of the people.”• On Jan. 13, 1842, a British army doctor reaches the British sentry post at Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the lone survivor of a 16,000-strong Anglo-Indian expeditionary force that was slaughtered in its retreat from Kabul. He told of a terrible massacre in which the Afghans killed 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 camp followers.• On Jan. 15, 1870, the first recorded use of a donkey to represent ...