This Day in History

[lordroel]

December 31st

406 – Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul.

535 – Byzantine general Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Gothic garrison of Palermo (Panormos), and ending his consulship for the year.

870 – Battle of Englefield: The Vikings clash with ealdorman Æthelwulf of Berkshire. The invaders are driven back to Reading (East Anglia), many Danes are killed.

1225 – The Lý dynasty of Vietnam ends after 216 years by the enthronement of the boy emperor Trần Thái Tông, husband of the last Lý monarch, Lý Chiêu Hoàng, starting the Trần dynasty.

1229 – James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) thus consummating the Christian reconquest of the island of Majorca.

1501 – The First Battle of Cannanore commences.

1600 – The British East India Company is chartered.

1660 – James II of England is named Duke of Normandy by Louis XIV of France.

1687 – The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.

1757 – Empress Elizabeth I of Russia issues her ukase incorporating Königsberg into Russia.

1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Quebec: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army General Richard Montgomery.

1790 – Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, is published for the first time.

1796 – The incorporation of Baltimore as a city.

1831 – Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.

1853 – A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England.

1857 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.

1862 – American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.

1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

1878 – Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.

1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1906 – Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar signs the Persian Constitution of 1906.

1907 – The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in Manhattan.

1944 – World War II: Hungary declares war on Nazi Germany.

1944 – World War II: Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive on the Western Front begins.

1946 – President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.

1951 – Cold War: The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Western Europe.

1955 – General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.

1956 – The Romanian Television begins its first broadcast in Bucharest.

1961 – RTÉ, Ireland's state broadcaster, launches its first national television service.

1963 – The Central African Federation officially collapses, subsequently becoming Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.

1965 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers begins a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko.

1968 – The first flight of the Tupolev Tu-144, the first civilian supersonic transport in the world.

1981 – A coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaces it with the Provisional National Defence Council led by Flight lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.

1983 – The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.

1983 – Benjamin Ward is appointed New York City Police Department's first ever African American police commissioner.

1983 – In Nigeria a coup d'état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Second Nigerian Republic.

1986 – Arson at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico kills 97 people and injures 140.

1991 – All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date five days after the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.

1992 – Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.

1994 – This date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change time zones from UTC−11:00 to UTC+13:00 and UTC−10:00 to UTC+14:00, respectively.

1994 – The First Chechen War: Russian army began a New Year's storming of Grozny.

1998 – The European Exchange Rate Mechanism freezes the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and establishes the value of the euro currency.

1999 – First President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.

1999 – The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.

1999 – Indian Airlines Flight 814 hijacking ended after seven days with the release of 190 survivors at Kandahar Airport, Afghanistan.

2000 – The last day of the 20th Century and 2nd Millennium.

2004 – The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).

2009 – Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur.

2010 – Tornadoes touch down in midwestern and southern United States, including Washington County, Arkansas; Greater St. Louis, Sunset Hills, Missouri, Illinois, and Oklahoma, with a few tornadoes in the early hours. A total 36 tornadoes touched down, resulting in the deaths of nine people and $113 million in damages.

2011 – NASA succeeds in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the Moon.

2014 – A New Year's Eve celebration stampede in Shanghai kills at least 36 people and injures 49 others.

2015 – A fire broke out at the Downtown Address Hotel in Downtown Dubai, United Arab Emirates located near the Burj Khalifa two hours before the fireworks display was due to commence. Sixteen injuries were reported; one had a heart attack, another suffered a major injury, and fourteen others with minor injuries.

2017 – Starting date of Valletta as European Capital of Culture

[lordroel]

January 1st

193 – The Senate chooses Pertinax against his will to succeed Commodus as Roman emperor.

417 – Emperor Honorius forces Galla Placidia into marriage to Constantius, his famous general (magister militum).

1001 – Grand Prince Stephen I of Hungary is named the first King of Hungary by Pope Sylvester II.

1068 – Romanos IV Diogenes marries Eudokia Makrembolitissa and is crowned Byzantine Emperor.

1259 – Michael VIII Palaiologos is proclaimed co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea with his ward John IV Laskaris.

1438 – Albert II of Habsburg is crowned King of Hungary.

1502 – The present-day location of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is first explored by the Portuguese.

1515 – Twenty-year-old Francis, Duke of Brittany, succeeds to the French throne following the death of his father-in-law, Louis XII.

1527 – Croatian nobles elect Ferdinand I of Austria as King of Croatia in the Parliament on Cetin.

1651 – Charles II is crowned King of Scotland.

1700 – Russia begins using the Anno Domini era instead of the Anno Mundi era of the Byzantine Empire.

1707 – John V is proclaimed King of Portugal and the Algarves in Lisbon.

1739 – Bouvet Island, the world's remotest island is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier.

1772 – The first traveler's cheques, which can be used in 90 European cities, is issued by the London Credit Exchange Company.

1773 – The hymn that became known as "Amazing Grace", then titled "1 Chronicles 17:16–17" is first used to accompany a sermon led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.

1776 – American Revolutionary War: Norfolk, Virginia is burned by combined Royal Navy and Continental Army action.

1781 – American Revolutionary War: One thousand five hundred soldiers of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment under General Anthony Wayne's command rebel against the Continental Army's winter camp in Morristown, New Jersey in the Pennsylvania Line Mutiny of 1781.

1788 – First edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register, is published.

1801 – The legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland is completed, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is proclaimed.

1801 – Ceres, the largest and first known object in the Asteroid belt, is discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi.

1803 – Emperor Gia Long orders all bronze wares of the Tây Sơn dynasty to be collected and melted into nine cannons for the Royal Citadel in Huế, Vietnam.

1804 – French rule ends in Haiti. Haiti becomes the first black republic and second independent country in North America after the United States.

1806 – The French Republican Calendar is abolished.

1808 – The United States bans the importation of slaves.

1810 – Major-General Lachlan Macquarie officially becomes Governor of New South Wales.
1822 – The Greek Constitution of 1822 is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.

1847 – The world's first "Mercy" Hospital is founded in Pittsburgh, United States, by a group of Sisters of Mercy from Ireland; the name will go on to grace over 30 major hospitals throughout the world.

1860 – The first Polish stamp is issued, replacing the Russian stamps previously in use.

1861 – Liberal forces supporting Benito Juárez enter Mexico City.

1863 – American Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in Confederate territory.

1877 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Empress of India.

1885 – Twenty-five nations adopt Sandford Fleming's proposal for standard time (and also, time zones).

1890 – Eritrea is consolidated into a colony by the Italian government.

1892 – Ellis Island begins processing immigrants into the United States.

1898 – New York, New York annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The four initial boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, are joined on January 25 by Staten Island to create the modern city of five boroughs.

1899 – Spanish rule ends in Cuba.

1901 – Nigeria becomes a British protectorate.

1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton is appointed the first Prime Minister.
1902 – The first American college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, is held in Pasadena, California.

1910 – Captain David Beatty is promoted to Rear admiral, and becomes the youngest admiral in the Royal Navy (except for Royal family members), since Horatio Nelson.

1912 – The Republic of China is established.

1914 – The SPT Airboat Line becomes the world's first scheduled airline to use a winged aircraft.

1923 – Britain's Railways are grouped into the Big Four: LNER, GWR, SR, and LMS.

1927 – New Mexican oil legislation goes into effect, leading to the formal outbreak of the Cristero War.

1928 – Boris Bazhanov defects through Iran. He is the only assistant of Joseph Stalin's secretariat to have defected from the Eastern Bloc.

1929 – The former municipalities of Point Grey, British Columbia and South Vancouver, British Columbia are amalgamated into Vancouver.

1932 – The United States Post Office Department issues a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth.

1934 – Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay becomes a United States federal prison.

1934 – A "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" comes into effect in Nazi Germany.

1942 – The Declaration by United Nations is signed by twenty-six nations.

1945 – World War II: In retaliation for the Malmedy massacre, U.S. troops kill 60 German POWs at Chenogne.

1945 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches Operation Bodenplatte, a massive, but failed attempt to knock out Allied air power in northern Europe in a single blow.

1947 – Cold War: The American and British occupation zones in Germany, after World War II, merge to form the Bizone, which later (with the French zone) became part of West Germany.

1947 – The Canadian Citizenship Act 1946 comes into effect, converting British subjects into Canadian citizens.Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King becomes the first Canadian citizen.

1948 – The British railway network is nationalized to form British Railways.

1949 – United Nations cease-fire takes effect in Kashmir from one minute before midnight. War between India and Pakistan stops accordingly.

1956 – Sudan achieves independence from Egypt and the United Kingdom.

1957 – George Town, Penang, is made a city by a royal charter of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

1958 – European Economic Community is established.

1959 – Cuban Revolution: Fulgencio Batista, dictator of Cuba, is overthrown by Fidel Castro's forces.

1960 – Cameroon achieves independence from France and the United Kingdom.

1962 – Western Samoa achieves independence from New Zealand; its name is changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa.

1964 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is divided into the independent republics of Zambia and Malawi, and the British-controlled Rhodesia.

1965 – The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan is founded in Kabul, Afghanistan.

1971 – Cigarette advertisements are banned on American television.

1973 – Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom are admitted into the European Economic Community.

1978 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747, crashes into the sea, due to instrument failure, spatial disorientation, and pilot error, off the coast of Bombay, India, killing all 213 people on board.

1979 – Formal diplomatic relations are established between China and the United States.

1981 – Greece is admitted into the European Community.

1982 – Peruvian Javier Pérez de Cuéllar becomes the first Latin American to hold the title of Secretary-General of the United Nations.

1983 – The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.

1984 – The original American Telephone & Telegraph Company is divested of its 22 Bell System companies as a result of the settlement of the 1974 United States Department of Justice antitrust suit against AT&T.

1984 – Brunei becomes independent of the United Kingdom.

1985 – The first British mobile phone call is made by Michael Harrison to his father Sir Ernest Harrison, chairman of Vodafone.

1987 – The Isleta Pueblo tribe elect Verna Williamson to be their first female governor.

1988 – The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America comes into existence, creating the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.

1989 – The Montreal Protocol comes into force, stopping the use of chemicals contributing to ozone depletion.

1990 – David Dinkins is sworn in as New York City's first black mayor.

1993 – Dissolution of Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovakia is divided into the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.

1994 – The Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiates twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

1994 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect.

1995 – The World Trade Organization comes into being.

1995 – The Draupner wave in the North Sea in Norway is detected, confirming the existence of freak waves.

1995 – Austria, Finland and Sweden join the EU.

1998 – Following a currency reform, Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence.

1999 – Euro currency is introduced in 11 member nations of the European Union (with the exception of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Sweden; Greece later adopts the euro).

2002 – Euro currency becomes legal tender in twelve of the European Union's member states.

2004 – In a vote of confidence, General Pervez Musharraf wins 658 out of 1,170 votes in the Electoral College of Pakistan, and according to Article 41(8) of the Constitution of Pakistan, is "deemed to be elected" to the office of President until October 2007.

2007 – Bulgaria and Romania join the EU.

2007 – Adam Air Flight 574 breaks apart in mid-air and crashes near the Makassar Strait, Indonesia killing all 102 people on board.

2009 – Sixty-six people die in a nightclub fire in Bangkok, Thailand.

2010 – A suicide car bomber detonates at a volleyball tournament in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan, killing 105 and injuring 100 more.

2011 – A bomb explodes as Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, leave a new year service, killing 23 people.

2011 – Estonia officially adopts the Euro currency and becomes the 17th Eurozone country.

2013 – At least 60 people are killed and 200 injured in a stampede after celebrations at Félix Houphouët-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

2015 – The Eurasian Economic Union comes into effect, creating a political and economic union between Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

2017 – An attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, during New Year's celebrations, kills at least 39 people and injures more than 60 others.

[lordroel]

January 2nd

AD 69 – The Roman legions in Germania Superior refuse to swear loyalty to Galba. They rebel and proclaim Vitellius as emperor.

366 – The Alemanni cross the frozen Rhine in large numbers, invading the Roman Empire.

533 – Mercurius becomes Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a new name upon elevation to the papacy.

1492 – Reconquista: The Emirate of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, surrenders.

1680 – Trunajaya rebellion: Amangkurat II of Mataram and his bodyguards stabbed Trunajaya to death a month after the rebel leader was captured by the Dutch East India Company.

1777 – American Revolutionary War: American forces under the command of George Washington repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.

1788 – Georgia becomes the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution.

1791 – Big Bottom massacre in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the Northwest Indian War.

1818 – The British Institution of Civil Engineers is founded.

1833 – Reassertion of British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.

1860 – The discovery of the planet Vulcan is announced at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris, France.

1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River (a.k.a. Battle of Murfreesboro) resumes in central Tennessee after a day's respite, resulting in a significant Union victory.

1865 – Uruguayan War: The Siege of Paysandú ends as Brazilian and Coloradans capture Paysandú, Uruguay.

1900 – American statesman and diplomat John Hay announces the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China.

1905 – Russo-Japanese War: The Russian garrison surrenders at Port Arthur, China.

1920 – The second Palmer Raid takes place with another 6,000 suspected communists and anarchists arrested and held without trial. These raids take place in several U.S. cities.

1941 – World War II: German bombing severely damages the Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.

1942 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtains the conviction of 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history—the Duquesne Spy Ring.

1942 – World War II: Manila, Philippines is captured by Japanese forces.

1945 – World War II: Nuremberg, Germany is severely bombed by Allied forces.

1949 – Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.

1954 – India establishes its highest civilian awards, the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan.

1955 – Panamanian president José Antonio Remón Cantera is assassinated.

1959 – Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the Soviet Union.

1963 – Vietnam War: The Viet Cong wins its first major victory.

1967 – Ronald Reagan, past movie actor and future President of the United States, is sworn in as Governor of California.

1971 – The second Ibrox disaster kills 66 fans at a Rangers-Celtic association football (soccer) match.

1974 – United States President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.

1975 – A bomb blast at Samastipur, Bihar, India, fatally wounds Lalit Narayan Mishra, Minister of Railways.

1975 – Bangladesh revolutionary leader Siraj Sikder is killed by police while in custody.

1975 – The Federal Rules of Evidence are approved by the United States Congress.

1976 – The Gale of January 1976 begins, which results in coastal flooding around the southern North Sea coasts, resulting in at least 82 deaths and US$1.3 billion in damage.

1978 – On the orders of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, paramilitary forces opened fire on peaceful protesting workers in Multan, Pakistan, its known as 1978 massacre at Multan Colony Textile Mills.

1981 – One of the largest investigations by a British police force ends when serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper", is arrested in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

1991 – Sharon Pratt Kelly becomes the first African American woman mayor of a major city and first woman Mayor of the District of Columbia.

1992 – Leaders of armed opposition declare the President Zviad Gamsakhurdia deposed during a military coup in Georgia.

1993 – Sri Lankan Civil War: The Sri Lanka Navy kill 35–100 civilians on the Jaffna Lagoon.

1999 – A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern United States, causing 14 inches (359 mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 19 inches (487 mm) in Chicago, where temperatures plunge to -13 °F (-25 °C); 68 deaths are reported.

2004 – Stardust successfully flies past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples that are returned to Earth.

2006 – An explosion in a coal mine in Sago, West Virginia traps and kills 12 miners, leaving only one survivor.

[lordroel]

January 3rd

1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.

1653 – By the Coonan Cross Oath, the Eastern Church in India cuts itself off from colonial Portuguese tutelage.

1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.

1749 – The first issue of Berlingske, Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, is published.

1777 – American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.

1815 – Austria, the United Kingdom, and France form a secret defensive alliance against Prussia and Russia.

1823 – Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.

1833 – The United Kingdom claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.

1848 – Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of Liberia.

1861 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.

1868 – Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power.

1870 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.

1871 – Battle of Bapaume, a battle in the Franco-Prussian war occurs.

1885 – Sino-French War: Beginning of the Battle of Núi Bop

1888 – The James Lick telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest refracting telescope in the world at the time.

1911 – A magnitude 7.7 earthquake destroys the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan.

1911 – A gun battle in the East End of London left two dead and sparked a political row over the involvement of then-Home Secretary Winston Churchill.

1913 – An Atlantic coast storm sets the lowest confirmed barometric pressure reading for a non-tropical system in the continental United States.

1919 – At the Paris Peace Conference, Emir Faisal I of Iraq signs an agreement with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1925 – Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.

1932 – Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers fired by the United Fruit Company.

1933 – Minnie D. Craig becomes the first woman elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first woman to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.

1938 – The March of Dimes is established as a foundation to combat infant polio by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1944 – World War II: Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Vought F4U Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Mitsubishi A6M Zero.

1945 – World War II: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima and Okinawa in Japan.

1946 – Popular Canadian American jockey George Woolf dies in a freak accident during a race; the annual George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award is created to honor him.

1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.

1949 – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines, is established.

1953 – Frances P. Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.

1956 – A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.

1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.

1958 – The West Indies Federation is formed.

1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.

1961 – Cold War: The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba over the latter's nationalization of American assets.

1961 – The SL-1 nuclear reactor is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities.

1961 – A protest by agricultural workers in Baixa de Cassanje, Portuguese Angola, turns into a revolt, opening the Angolan War of Independence, the first of the Portuguese Colonial Wars.

1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.

1976 – International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights entered into force.

1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated.

1990 – United States invasion of Panama: Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces.

1993 – In Moscow, Russia, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

1994 – More than seven million people from the former apartheid Homelands receive South African citizenship.

1999 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched by NASA.

2000 – Final daily edition of the Peanuts comic strip.

2002 – Israeli–Palestinian conflict: Israeli forces seize the Palestinian freighter Karine A in the Red Sea, finding 50 tons of weapons.

2004 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea, resulting in 148 deaths, making it one of the deadliest aviation accidents in Egyptian history.

2009 – The first block of the blockchain of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, was established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.

2015 – Boko Haram militants raze the entire town of Baga in north-east Nigeria, starting the Baga massacre and killing as many as 2,000 people.

2016 – Following the fallout caused by the execution of Nimr al-Nimr, Iran ends its diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.

2018 – Computer analysts report two major security vulnerabilities, named "Meltdown" and "Spectre," affecting the microprocessors of almost all computers in the world.

[lordroel]

January 4th

46 BC – Julius Caesar fights Titus Labienus in the Battle of Ruspina.

871 – Battle of Reading: Æthelred of Wessex fights, and is defeated by, a Danish invasion army.

1384 – King Razadarit ascends the Hanthawaddy throne.

1490 – Anne of Brittany announces that all those who would ally with the King of France will be considered guilty of the crime of lèse-majesté.

1642 – King Charles I of England attempts to arrest Five Members of Parliament, commencing England's slide into civil war.

1649 – English Civil War: The Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial.

1717 – The Netherlands, Great Britain, and France sign the Triple Alliance in an attempt to maintain the Treaty of Utrecht; Britain having signed a preliminary alliance with France on November 28 (November 17, 1716).

1762 – Great Britain enters the Seven Years' War against Spain and Naples.

1798 – Constantine Hangerli arrives in Bucharest, Wallachia, as its new Prince, invested by the Ottoman Empire.

1847 – Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.

1853 – After having been kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South, Solomon Northup regains his freedom; his memoir Twelve Years a Slave later becomes a national bestseller.

1854 – The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.

1863 – The New Apostolic Church, a Christian and chiliastic church, is established in Hamburg, Germany.

1865 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters near Wall Street in New York City.

1878 – Russo-Turkish War (1877–78): Sofia is liberated from Ottoman rule and becomes capital of Liberated Bulgaria in 1879.

1884 – The Fabian Society is founded in London, England, United Kingdom.

1896 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.

1903 – Topsy, an elephant, is electrocuted by the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island. The Edison film company shoots the film Electrocuting an Elephant of Topsy's death.

1912 – The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Empire by royal charter.

1918 – The Finnish Declaration of Independence is recognized by Russia, Sweden, Germany and France.

1944 – World War II: Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins.

1948 – Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom becoming an independent republic, named the Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President and U Nu its first Prime Minister.

1951 – Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul.

1955 – The Greek National Radical Union is formed by Konstantinos Karamanlis.

1958 – Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from orbit.

1959 – Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.

1959 – Gypsy opened and closed on Broadway after 120 performances and four previews.

1966 – A military coup takes place in Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso), dissolving the National Parliament and leading to a new national constitution.

1972 – Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London, England.

1974 – United States President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over materials subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.

1976 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force shoots dead six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The next day, gunmen shoot dead ten Protestant civilians nearby in retaliation.

1987 – The Maryland train collision: An Amtrak train en route to Boston from Washington, D.C., collides with Conrail engines in Chase, Maryland, killing 16 people.

1989 – Second Gulf of Sidra incident: A pair of Libyan MiG-23 "Floggers" are shot down by a pair of US Navy F-14 Tomcats during an air-to-air confrontation.

1990 – In Pakistan's deadliest train accident an overloaded passenger train collides with an empty freight train, resulting in 307 deaths and 700 injuries.

1998 – Wilaya of Relizane massacres in Algeria: Over 170 are killed in three remote villages.

1998 – A massive ice storm hits eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, continuing through January 10 and causing widespread destruction.

1999 – Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is sworn in as governor of Minnesota.

2004 – Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.

2004 – Mikheil Saakashvili is elected President of Georgia following the November 2003 Rose Revolution.

2006 – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel suffers a second, apparently more serious stroke. His authority is transferred to acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

2007 – The 110th United States Congress convenes, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history.

2010 – The Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world, officially opens in Dubai.

2013 – A gunman kills eight people in a house-to-house rampage in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines.

2018 – A passenger train operated by Shosholoza Meyl collided with a truck on a level crossing at Geneva Station between Hennenman and Kroonstad, Free State, South Africa. 20 people were killed and 260 were injured.

[stevep]

   Lordroel

   "1762 – Great Britain enters the Seven Years' War against Spain and Naples."

   That is rather weird wording as Britain had been fighting in the conflict since 1757!  More accurately Spain, along with its fellow Bourbon monarchy of Naples had joined the war, under the so called Bourbon Compact. 

  Steve

[lordroel]

January 5th

1066 – Edward the Confessor dies childless, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.

1477 – Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is killed and Burgundy becomes part of France.

1500 – Duke Ludovico Sforza conquers Milan.

1527 – Felix Manz, a leader of the Anabaptist congregation in Zürich, Switzerland, is executed by drowning.

1554 – A great fire occurs in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

1664 – Maratha forces under Chhatrapati Shivaji defeat the Mughals in the Battle of Surat.

1675 – Battle of Colmar: The French army beats Brandenburg.

1757 – Louis XV of France survives an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, the last person to be executed in France by drawing and quartering, the traditional and gruesome form of capital punishment used for regicides.

1781 – American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia, is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.

1846 – The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom.

1875 – The Palais Garnier, one of the most famous opera houses in the world, is inaugurated in Paris.

1882 – Charles J. Guiteau is found guilty of assassinating US President James A. Garfield, and is sentenced to death by hanging.

1895 – Dreyfus affair: French army officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.

1911 – Kappa Alpha Psi, the world's third oldest and largest black fraternity, is founded at Indiana University.

1912 – The Prague Party Conference takes place.

1913 – First Balkan War: During the Battle of Lemnos, Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it did not venture for the rest of the war.

1914 – The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and minimum daily wage of $5 in salary plus bonuses subject to restrictions and imposed "character standards."

1919 – The German Workers' Party, which would become the Nazi Party, is founded.

1925 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female governor in the United States.

1933 – Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.

1944 – The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.

1945 – The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.

1949 – United States President Harry S. Truman unveils his Fair Deal program.

1950 – In the Sverdlovsk air disaster, all 19 of those on board were killed, including almost the entire national ice hockey team (VVS Moscow) of the Soviet Air Force – 11 players, as well as a team doctor and a masseur.

1953 – The play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is first performed.

1957 – In a speech given to the United States Congress, United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces the establishment of what will later be called the Eisenhower Doctrine.

1968 – Alexander Dubček comes to power; "Prague Spring" begins in Czechoslovakia.

1970 – The 7.1 Mw  Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 10,000–15,621 were killed and 26,783 were injured.

1972 – United States President Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program.

1974 – Warmest reliably measured temperature below the Antarctic Circle of +59 °F (+15 °C) recorded at Vanda Station.

1975 – The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.

1976 – The Khmer Rouge proclaim the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea.

1976 – The Troubles: Gunmen shoot dead ten Protestant civilians after stopping their minibus at Kingsmill in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, UK, allegedly as retaliation for a string of attacks on Catholic civilians in the area by Loyalists, particularly the killing of six Catholics the night before.

1991 – Georgian forces enter Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, Georgia, opening the 1991–92 South Ossetia War.

1991 – The United States Embassy to Somalia in Mogadishu is evacuated by helicopter airlift days after violence enveloped Mogadishu during the Somali Civil War.

1993 – The oil tanker MV Braer runs aground on the coast of the Shetland Islands, spilling 84,700 tons of crude oil.

2000 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician Kumar Ponnambalam is shot dead in Colombo.

2005 – Eris, the most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System, is discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory.

2014 – A launch of the communication satellite GSAT-14 aboard the GSLV MK.II D5 marks the first successful flight of an Indian cryogenic engine.

[lordroel]

January 6th

1066 – Harold Godwinson (or Harold II) is crowned King of England.

1205 – Philip of Swabia becomes King of the Romans.

1322 – Stephen Uroš III is crowned King of Serbia having defeated his half-brother Stefan Konstantin in battle.

1355 – Charles I of Bohemia is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy as King of Italy in Milan.

1449 – Constantine XI is crowned Byzantine Emperor at Mystras.

1492 – The Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella enter Granada, completing the Reconquista.

1540 – King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves.

1579 – The Union of Arras unites the southern Netherlands under the Duke of Parma (Ottavio Farnese), governor in the name of King Philip II of Spain.

1661 – English Restoration: The Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempt to seize control of London, England.

1690 – Joseph, son of Emperor Leopold I, becomes King of the Romans.

1721 – The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings.

1781 – In the Battle of Jersey, the British defeat the last attempt by France to invade Jersey in the Channel Islands.

1809 – Combined British, Portuguese and colonial Brazilian forces begin the Invasion of Cayenne during the Napoleonic Wars.

1838 – Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).

1839 – The Night of the Big Wind, the most damaging storm in 300 years, sweeps across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.

1870 – The inauguration of the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria.

1893 – The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress. The charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.

1900 – Second Boer War: Having already besieged the fortress at Ladysmith, Boer forces attack it, but are driven back by British defenders.

1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome, Italy.

1912 – New Mexico is admitted to the Union as the 47th U.S. state.

1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift.

1929 – King Alexander of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes suspends his country's constitution (the January 6th Dictatorship).

1929 – Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta, India, to begin her work among India's poorest and sick people.

1930 – The first diesel-powered automobile trip is completed, from Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York, New York.

1931 – Thomas Edison signs his last patent application.

1941 – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms speech in the State of the Union address.

1946 – The first general election ever in Vietnam is held.

1947 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to offer a round-the-world ticket.

1949– General Su Yu, deputy commander of the communist Third Field Army, launched final offensive against nationalist forces south of Xuzhou, Huaihai Campaign ends four days later.

1950 – The United Kingdom recognizes the People's Republic of China. The Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with the UK in response.

1951 – Korean War: An estimated 200–1,300 South Korean communist sympathizers are slaughtered in what becomes the Ganghwa massacre.

1960 – National Airlines Flight 2511 is destroyed in mid-air by a bomb, while en route from New York City to Miami.

1960 – The Associations Law comes into force in Iraq, allowing registration of political parties.

1967 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and ARVN troops launch "Operation Deckhouse Five" in the Mekong River delta.

1974 – In response to the 1973 oil crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly four months early in the United States.

1978 – The Crown of St. Stephen (also known as the Holy Crown of Hungary) is returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held after World War II.

1989 – Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh are sentenced to death for conspiracy in the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi; the two men are executed the same day.

1992 – President of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia flees the country as a result of the military coup.

1993 – Indian Border Security Force units kill 55 Kashmiri civilians in Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir, in revenge after militants ambushed a BSF patrol.

1995 – A chemical fire in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines, leads to the discovery of plans for Project Bojinka, a mass-terrorist attack.

2001 – The US Congress certifies George W. Bush winner of 2000 presidential election.

2005 – American Civil Rights Movement: Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect in the 1964 murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.

2005 – A train collision in Graniteville, South Carolina, releases about 60 tons of chlorine gas.

2012 – Twenty-six people are killed and 63 wounded when a suicide bomber blows himself up at a police station in Damascus.

2017 – Five people are killed and six others injured in a mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport in Broward County, Florida.

2017 – The US Congress certifies Donald Trump winner of 2016 presidential election.

[lordroel]

January 7th

1131 – Canute Lavard was murdered at Haraldsted, Denmark by his cousin, Magnus I of Sweden.

1325 – Alfonso IV becomes King of Portugal.

1558 – French troops, led by Francis, Duke of Guise, take Calais, the last continental possession of England.

1566 – Pope Pius V is elected.

1608 – Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia.

1610 – Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able to distinguish the last two until the following day.

1738 – A peace treaty is signed between Peshwa Bajirao and Jai Singh II following Maratha victory in the Battle of Bhopal.

1782 – The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens.

1785 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.

1835 – HMS Beagle drops anchor off the Chonos Archipelago.

1894 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film.

1904 – The distress signal "CQD" is established only to be replaced two years later by "SOS".

1919 – Montenegrin guerrilla fighters rebel against the planned annexation of Montenegro by Serbia, but fail.

1920 – The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.

1922 – Dáil Éireann ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by a 64–57 vote.

1927 – The first transatlantic telephone service is established from New York City to London.

1928 – A disastrous flood of the River Thames kills 14 people and causes extensive damage to much of riverside London.

1931 – Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast.

1935 – Benito Mussolini and French Foreign minister Pierre Laval sign the Franco-Italian Agreement.

1939 – Marguerite Perey discovers Francium, the last element first discovered in nature, rather than by synthesis.

1940 – Winter War: The Finnish 9th Division stop and completely destroy the numerically superior Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road.

1942 – World War II: The siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.

1945 – World War II: British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference in which he claims credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge.

1948 – Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO.

1954 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system, is held in New York at the head office of IBM.

1955 – Contralto Marian Anderson becomes the first person of color to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.

1959 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

1968 – Surveyor Program: Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off from launch complex 36A, Cape Canaveral.

1973 – Mark Essex fatally shoots ten people and wounds 13 others at Howard Johnson's Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana, before being shot to death by police officers.

1979 – Third Indochina War: Cambodian–Vietnamese War: Phnom Penh falls to the advancing Vietnamese troops, driving out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.

1984 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

1985 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union.

1991 – Roger Lafontant, former leader of the Tonton Macoute in Haiti under François Duvalier, attempts a coup d'état, which ends in his arrest.

1993 – The Fourth Republic of Ghana is inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as President.

1993 – Bosnian War: The Bosnian Army executes a surprise attack at the village of Kravica in Srebrenica.

1999 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins.

2005 – Crevalcore train crash in Italy: 17 dead and dozens injured.

2012 – A hot air balloon crashes near Carterton, New Zealand, killing all 11 people on board.

2015 – Two gunmen commit mass murder at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, shooting twelve people execution style, and wounding eleven others.

2015 – A car bomb explodes outside a police college in the Yemeni capital Sana'a with at least 38 people reported dead and more than 63 injured.

[lordroel]

January 8th

307 – Jin Huidi, Chinese emperor of the Jin Dynasty, is poisoned and succeeded by Jin Huaidi.

387 – Siyaj K'ak' conquers Waka.

871 – Alfred the Great leads a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by Danelaw Vikings.

1297 – François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, leads his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco.

1454 – The papal bull Romanus Pontifex awards the Kingdom of Portugal exclusive trade and colonization rights to all of Africa south of Cape Bojador.

1499 – Louis XII of France marries Anne of Brittany in accordance with a law set by his predecessor, Charles VIII.

1547 – The first Lithuanian-language book, Simple Words of Catechism, is published in Königsberg.

1735 – Premiere performance of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

1746 – Second Jacobite rising: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.

1790 – George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in New York City.

1806 – Cape Colony becomes a British colony.

1811 – An unsuccessful slave revolt is led by Charles Deslondes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana.

1815 – War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.

1816 – Sophie Germain wins the Paris Academy of Sciences' Grand Prize for her mathematical work on Elasticity (physics).

1828 – The Democratic Party of the United States is organized.

1835 – The United States national debt is zero for the only time.

1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Springfield.

1867 – African American men are granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.

1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.

1889 – Herman Hollerith is issued US patent #395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' — his punched card calculator.

1904 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system.

1912 – The African National Congress is founded.

1918 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I.

1920 – The steel strike of 1919 ends in a complete failure for the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers labor union.

1925 – The All-Woman Supreme Court met for the first time in Texas, the first all-female supreme court in the history of the United States.

1926 – Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thuỵ ascends to the throne, the last monarch of Vietnam.

1926 – Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud was crowned King of Hejaz.

1936 – Kashf-e hijab decree is enforced by Reza Shah ordering the police to physically remove the Hijab from any woman in public.

1940 – World War II: Britain introduces food rationing.

1945 – World War II: Philippine Commonwealth troops under the Philippine Commonwealth Army units enter the province of Ilocos Sur in Northern Luzon and attack Japanese Imperial forces.

1956 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.

1961 – In France a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria.

1963 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.

1972 – Bowing to international pressure, President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto releases Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from prison, who had been arrested after declaring the independence of Bangladesh.

1973 – Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched.

1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.

1975 – Ella T. Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband.

1977 – Three bombs explode in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union, within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.

1979 – Password Plus debuts on NBC.

1981 – A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".

1982 – Breakup of the Bell System: AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.

1989 – Kegworth air disaster: British Midland Flight 92, a Boeing 737-400, crashes into the M1 motorway, killing 47 of the 126 people on board.

1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.

1996 – An Antonov An-32 cargo aircraft crashes into a crowded market in Kinshasa, Zaire, killing up to 223 on the ground; two of six crew members are also killed.

2002 – President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.

2003 – Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashes near Diyarbakır Airport, Turkey, killing the entire crew and 70 of the 75 passengers.

2003 – Air Midwest Flight 5481 crashes at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 people on board.

2004 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

2005 – The nuclear sub USS San Francisco collides at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man is killed, but the sub surfaces and is repaired.

2009 – A 6.1-magnitude earthquake in northern Costa Rica kills 15 people and injures 32.

2010 – Gunmen from an offshoot the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attack a bus carrying the Togo national football team on its way to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, killing three.

2011 – The attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in which five people were shot dead.

2016 - Joaquín Guzmán, widely regarded as the world's most powerful drug trafficker, is recaptured following his escape from a maximum security prison in Mexico.

[lordroel]

January 9th

475 – Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople, and his general, Basiliscus gains control of the empire.

681 – Twelfth Council of Toledo: King Erwig of the Visigoths initiates a council in which he implements diverse measures against the Jews in Spain.

1127 – Jin–Song Wars: Invading Jurchen soldiers from the Jin dynasty besiege and sack Bianjing (Kaifeng), the capital of the Song dynasty of China, and abduct Emperor Qinzong of Song and others, ending the Northern Song dynasty.

1150 – Wanyan Liang and other court officials murder Emperor Xizong of Jin. Wanyan Liang succeeds him as emperor.

1349 – The Jewish population of Basel, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black Death, is rounded up and incinerated.

1431 – Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen.

1760 – Ahmad Shah Durrani defeats the Marathas in the Battle of Barari Ghat.

1788 – Connecticut becomes the fifth state to ratify the Constitution.

1792 – Treaty of Jassy between Russian and Ottoman Empire is signed.

1793 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first person to fly in a balloon in the United States.

1799 – British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduces an income tax of two shillings to the pound to raise funds for Great Britain's war effort in the Napoleonic Wars.

1806 – Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson receives a state funeral and is interred in St Paul's Cathedral.

1816 – Sir Humphry Davy tests his safety lamp for miners at Hebburn Colliery.

1822 – The Portuguese prince Pedro I of Brazil decides to stay in Brazil against the orders of the Portuguese King João VI, beginning the Brazilian independence process.

1839 – The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.

1857 – The 7.9 Mw  Fort Tejon earthquake shakes Central and Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent).

1858 – Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide.

1861 – American Civil War: "Star of the West" incident occurs near Charleston, South Carolina.

1861 – Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War.

1878 – Umberto I becomes King of Italy.

1894 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts.

1903 – Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, son of the poet Alfred Tennyson, becomes the second Governor-General of Australia.

1909 – Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, plants the British flag 97 nautical miles (180 km; 112 mi) from the South Pole, the farthest anyone had ever reached at that time.

1914 – Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., the first historically black intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity to be officially recognized at Howard University, is founded.

1916 – World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli concludes with an Ottoman Empire victory when the last Allied forces are evacuated from the peninsula.

1917 – World War I: The Battle of Rafa is fought near the Egyptian border with Palestine.

1918 – Battle of Bear Valley: The last battle of the American Indian Wars.

1921 – Greco-Turkish War: The First Battle of İnönü, the first battle of the war, begins near Eskişehir in Anatolia.

1923 – Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro flight.

1923 – Lithuanian residents of the Memel Territory rebel against the League of Nations' decision to leave the area as a mandated region under French control.

1927 – A fire at the Laurier Palace movie theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, kills 78 children.

1941 – World War II: First flight of the Avro Lancaster.

1945 – World War II: The Sixth United States Army begins the invasion of Lingayen Gulf.

1957 – British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden resigns from office following his failure to retake the Suez Canal from Egyptian sovereignty.

1960 – President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser opens construction on the Aswan Dam by detonating ten tons of dynamite to demolish twenty tons of granite on the east bank of the Nile.

1961 – British authorities announce they have uncovered the Soviet Portland Spy Ring in London.

1964 – Martyrs' Day: Several Panamanian youths try to raise the Panamanian flag in the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone, leading to fighting between U.S. military and Panamanian civilians.

1965 – The Mirzapur Cadet College formally opens for academic activities in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

1991 – Representatives from the United States and Iraq meet at the Geneva Peace Conference to try to find a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

1992 – The Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaims the creation of Republika Srpska, a new state within Yugoslavia.

1992 – The first discoveries of extrasolar planets are announced by astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail. They discovered two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257+12.

1996 – First Chechen War: Chechen separatists launch a raid against the helicopter airfield and later a civilian hospital in the city of Kizlyar in the neighboring Dagestan, which turns into a massive hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians.

2004 – An inflatable boat carrying illegal Albanian emigrants stalls near the Karaburun Peninsula en route to Brindisi, Italy; exposure to the elements kills 28. This is the second deadliest marine disaster in Albanian history.
2005 – Mahmoud Abbas wins the election to succeed Yasser Arafat as President of the Palestinian National Authority, replacing interim president Rawhi Fattouh.

2005 – The Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the Government of Sudan sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to end the Second Sudanese Civil War.

2007 – Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone at a Macworld keynote in San Francisco.

2011 – Iran Air Flight 277 crashes near Orumiyeh in the northwest of the country, killing 77 people.

2014 – An explosion at a Mitsubishi Materials chemical plant in Yokkaichi, Japan, kills at least five people and injures 17 others.

2015 – The perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris two days earlier are both killed after a hostage situation; a second hostage situation, related to the Charlie Hebdo shooting, occurs at a Jewish market in Vincennes.

2015 – A mass poisoning at a funeral in Mozambique involving beer that was contaminated with Burkholderia gladioli leaves 75 dead and over 230 people ill.

[lordroel]

January 10th

49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signalling the start of civil war.

AD 9 – The Western Han dynasty ends when Wang Mang claims that the divine Mandate of Heaven called for the end of the dynasty and the beginning of his own, the Xin dynasty.

AD 69 – Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus is appointed by Galba as deputy Roman Emperor.

236 – Pope Fabian succeeds Anterus to become the twentieth pope of Rome.

1072 – Robert Guiscard conquers Palermo in Sicily.

1430 – Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy, establishes the Order of the Golden Fleece, the most prestigious, exclusive, and expensive order of chivalry in the world.

1475 – Stephen III of Moldavia defeats the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vaslui.

1645 – Archbishop William Laud is beheaded for treason at the Tower of London.

1776 – American Revolution : Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense.

1791 – The Siege of Dunlap's Station begins near Cincinnati during the Northwest Indian War.

1806 – Two British brigades occupy Cape Town after the Battle of Blaauwberg.

1812 – The first steamboat on the Ohio River or the Mississippi River arrives in New Orleans, 82 days after departing from Pittsburgh.

1861 – American Civil War: Florida becomes the third state to secede from the Union.

1863 – The Metropolitan Railway, the world's oldest underground railway, opens between Paddington and Farringdon, marking the beginning of the London Underground.

1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.

1901 – The first great Texas oil gusher is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.

1916 – World War I: In the Erzurum Offensive, Russia defeats the Ottoman Empire.

1917 – The Silent Sentinels begin their protest outside the White House, demanding suffrage for women. They continue until June 1919.

1920 – The Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I.

1920 – League of Nations Covenant enters into force. On January 16 the organization holds its first council meeting, in Paris.

1927 – Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany.

1941 – World War II: The Greek army captures Kleisoura.

1946 – The first General Assembly of the United Nations opens in London. Fifty-one nations are represented.

1946 – The United States Army Signal Corps successfully conducts Project Diana, bouncing radio waves off the Moon and receiving the reflected signals.

1954 – BOAC Flight 781, a de Havilland DH.106 Comet 1, explodes and falls into the Tyrrhenian Sea killing 35 people.

1962 – Apollo program: NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket launch vehicle, which became known as the Saturn V Moon rocket, which launched every Apollo Moon mission.

1966 – Tashkent Declaration, a peace agreement between India and Pakistan signed that resolved the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.

1972 – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returns to the newly independent Bangladesh as president after spending over nine months in prison in Pakistan.

1981 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensive, gaining control of most of Morazán and Chalatenango departments

1984 – Holy See–United States relations: The United States and Holy See (Vatican City) re-establish full diplomatic relations after almost 117 years, overturning the United States Congress's 1867 ban on public funding for such a diplomatic envoy.

1985 – Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and vows to continue the transformation to socialism and alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba; American policy continues to support the Contras in their revolt against the Nicaraguan government.

1990 – Time Warner is formed by the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications.

2007 – A general strike begins in Guinea in an attempt to get President Lansana Conté to resign.

2012 – A bombing in Khyber Agency, Pakistan, kills at least 30 people and 78 others injured.

2013 – More than 100 people are killed and 270 injured in several bomb blasts in Pakistan.

2015 – A traffic accident between an oil tanker truck and passenger coach en route to Shikarpur from Karachi on the Pakistan National Highway Link Road near Gulshan-e-Hadeed, Karachi, killing at least 62 people.

[lordroel]

January 11th

532 – Nika riots in Constantinople: A quarrel between supporters of different chariot teams—the Blues and the Greens—in the Hippodrome escalates into violence.

630 – Conquest of Mecca: The prophet Muhammad and his followers conquer the city, Quraysh surrender.

947 – Emperor Tai Zong of the Khitan-led Liao Dynasty invades the Later Jin, resulting in the destruction of the Later Jin.

1055 – Theodora is crowned empress of the Byzantine Empire.

1158 – Vladislaus II, Duke of Bohemia becomes King of Bohemia.

1569 – First recorded lottery in England.

1571 – Austrian nobility is granted freedom of religion.

1693 – A powerful earthquake destroys parts of Sicily and Malta.

1759 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.

1779 – Ching-Thang Khomba is crowned King of Manipur.

1787 – William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus.

1805 – The Michigan Territory is created.

1861 – American Civil War : Alabama secedes from the United States.

1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Arkansas Post: General John McClernand and Admiral David Dixon Porter capture the Arkansas River for the Union.

1863 – American Civil War: CSS Alabama encounters and sinks the USS Hatteras off Galveston Lighthouse in Texas.

1879 – The Anglo-Zulu War begins.

1908 – Grand Canyon National Monument is created.

1912 – Immigrant textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, go on strike when wages are reduced in response to a mandated shortening of the work week.

1917 – The Kingsland munitions factory explosion occurs as a result of sabotage.

1922 – First use of insulin to treat diabetes in a human patient.

1923 – Occupation of the Ruhr: Troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area to force Germany to make its World War I reparation payments.

1927 – Louis B. Mayer, head of film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), announces the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at a banquet in Los Angeles, California.

1935 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California.

1942 – World War II: Japanese forces capture Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Federated Malay States.

1942 – World War II: Japanese forces attack Tarakan in Borneo, Netherlands Indies (Battle of Tarakan).

1943 – The Republic of China agrees to the Sino-British New Equal Treaty and the Sino-American New Equal Treaty.

1943 – Italian-American anarchist Carlo Tresca is assassinated in New York City.

1946 – Enver Hoxha, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Albania, declares the People's Republic of Albania with himself as head of state.

1949 – The first "networked" television broadcasts took place as KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania goes on the air connecting the east coast and mid-west programming.

1957 – The African Convention is founded in Dakar, Senegal.

1961 – Throgs Neck Bridge over the East River, linking New York City's boroughs of The Bronx and Queens, opens to road traffic.

1962 – Cold War: While tied to its pier in Polyarny, the Soviet submarine B-37 is destroyed when fire breaks out in its torpedo compartment.

1962 – An avalanche on Huascarán in Peru causes around 4,000 deaths.

1964 – Surgeon General of the United States Dr. Luther Terry, M.D., publishes the landmark report Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States saying that smoking may be hazardous to health, sparking national and worldwide anti-smoking efforts.

1972 – East Pakistan renames itself Bangladesh.

1973 – Major League Baseball owners vote in approval of the American League adopting the designated hitter position.

1986 – The Gateway Bridge, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia is officially opened.

1994 – The Irish Government announces the end of a 15-year broadcasting ban on the IRA and its political arm Sinn Féin.

1996 – Space Shuttle program: STS-72 launches from the Kennedy Space Center marking the start of the 74th Space Shuttle mission and the 10th flight of Endeavour.

1996 - Ryutaro Hashimoto, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, becomes Prime Minister of Japan.

1998 – Over 100 people are killed in the Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria.

2003 – Illinois Governor George Ryan commutes the death sentences of 167 prisoners on Illinois's death row based on the Jon Burge scandal.

2013 – One French soldier and 17 militants are killed in a failed attempt to free a French hostage in Bulo Marer, Somalia.

[lordroel]

January 12th

1528 – Gustav I of Sweden is crowned King of Sweden, having already reigned since his election in June 1523.

1554 – Bayinnaung, who would go on to assemble the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia, is crowned King of Burma.

1616 – The city of Belém, Brazil is founded on the Amazon River delta, by Portuguese captain Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco.

1808 – John Rennie's scheme to defend St Mary's Church, Reculver, founded in 669, from coastal erosion is abandoned in favour of demolition, despite the church being an exemplar of Anglo-Saxon architecture and sculpture.

1808 – The organizational meeting leading to the creation of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is held in Edinburgh.

1848 – The Palermo rising takes place in Sicily against the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

1866 – The Royal Aeronautical Society is formed in London.

1872 – Yohannes IV is crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in Axum, the first imperial coronation in that city in over 200 years.

1895 – The National Trust is founded in the United Kingdom.

1908 – A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.

1911 – The University of the Philippines College of Law is formally established; three future Philippine presidents are among the first enrollees.

1915 – The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to require states to give women the right to vote.

1916 – Both Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann, for achieving eight aerial victories each over Allied aircraft, receive the German Empire's highest military award, the Pour le Mérite as the first German aviators to earn it.

1918 – The Minnie Pit Disaster coal mining accident occurs in Halmer End, Staffordshire, in which 155 men and boys die.

1921 – Acting to restore confidence in baseball after the Black Sox Scandal, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis is elected as Major League Baseball's first commissioner.

1932 – Hattie Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.

1942 – World War II: United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.

1945 – World War II: The Red Army begins the Vistula–Oder Offensive.

1962 – Vietnam War: Operation Chopper, the first American combat mission in the war, takes place.

1964 – Rebels in Zanzibar begin a revolt known as the Zanzibar Revolution and proclaim a republic.

1966 – Lyndon B. Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.

1967 – Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.

1969 – The New York Jets of the American Football League defeat the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League to win Super Bowl III in what is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in sports history.

1970 – Biafra capitulates, ending the Nigerian Civil War.

1971 – The Harrisburg Seven: Rev. Philip Berrigan and five other activists are indicted on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and of plotting to blow up the heating tunnels of federal buildings in Washington, D.C.

1976 – The United Nations Security Council votes 11–1 to allow the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in a Security Council debate (without voting rights).

1986 – Space Shuttle program: Congressman Bill Nelson lifts off from Kennedy Space Center aboard Columbia on mission STS-61-C as a payload specialist.

1990 – A seven-day pogrom breaks out against the Armenian civilian population of Baku, Azerbaijan, during which Armenians were beaten, tortured, murdered, and expelled from the city.

1991 – Persian Gulf War: An act of the U.S. Congress authorizes the use of American military force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.

1998 – Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.

2001 – Downtown Disney opens to the public as part of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.

2004 – The world's largest ocean liner, RMS Queen Mary 2, makes its maiden voyage.

2005 – Deep Impact launches from Cape Canaveral on a Delta II rocket.

2006 – A stampede during the Stoning of the Devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills at least 362 Muslim pilgrims.

2010 – An earthquake in Haiti occurs, killing over 100,000 people and destroying much of the capital Port-au-Prince.

2012 – Violent protests occur in Bucharest, Romania, as two-day-old demonstrations continue against President Traian Băsescu's economic austerity measures. Clashes are reported in numerous Romanian cities between protesters and law enforcement officers.

2015 – Government raids kill 143 Boko Haram fighters in Kolofata, Cameroon.

2016 – Ten people are killed and 15 wounded in a bombing near the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

[lordroel]

January 13th

532 – Nika riots in Constantinople.

1435 – Sicut Dudum, forbidding the enslavement of the Guanche natives in Canary Islands by the Spanish, is promulgated by Pope Eugene IV.

1547 – Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey is sentenced to death.

1607 – The Bank of Genoa fails after announcement of national bankruptcy in Spain.

1793 – Nicolas Jean Hugon de Bassville, representative of Revolutionary France, lynched by a mob in Rome

1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: A naval battle between a French ship of the line and two British frigates off the coast of Brittany ends with the French vessel running aground, resulting in over 900 deaths.

1815 – War of 1812: British troops capture Fort Peter in St. Marys, Georgia, the only battle of the war to take place in the state.

1822 – The design of the Greek flag is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.

1830 – The Great Fire of New Orleans begins.

1833 – United States President Andrew Jackson writes to Vice President Martin Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina's defiance of federal authority in the Nullification Crisis.

1840 – The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.

1842 – Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 camp followers when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

1847 – The Treaty of Cahuenga ends the Mexican–American War in California.

1849 – Establishment of the Colony of Vancouver Island.

1849 – Second Anglo-Sikh War – Battle of Tooele: British forces retreat from the Sikhs.

1879 – In Mozart Gardens Brooklyn Ada Anderson completed a great feat of pedestrianism - 2700 quarter miles in 2700 quarter hours, earning her $8000.

1888 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C.

1893 – The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom holds its first meeting.

1893 – U.S. Marines land in Honolulu, Hawaii from the USS Boston to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.

1895 – First Italo-Ethiopian War: the war's opening battle, the Battle of Coatit, occurs; it is an Italian victory.

1898 – Émile Zola's J'accuse…! exposes the Dreyfus affair.

1908 – The Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, Pennsylvania kills 171 people.

1910 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; a live performance of the operas Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci are sent out over the airwaves from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

1915 – The 6.7 Mw  Avezzano earthquake shakes the Province of L'Aquila in Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing between 29,978–32,610.

1935 – A plebiscite in Saarland shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Nazi Germany.

1939 – The Black Friday bushfires burn 20,000 square kilometers of land in Australia, claiming the lives of 71 people.

1942 – Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.

1942 – World War II: First use of an aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.

1942 – Tuan Syed Hamzah Jamalullail was proclaimed as Raja Muda of Perlis by Japan's highest government.

1950 – British submarine HMS Truculent collides with an oil tanker in the Thames Estuary, killing 64 men.

1950 – Finland forms diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.

1951 – First Indochina War: The Battle of Vĩnh Yên begins.

1953 – An article appears in Pravda accusing some of the most prestigious and prominent doctors, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.

1958 – The Moroccan Army of Liberation ambushes a Spanish patrol in the Battle of Edchera.

1963 – Coup d'état in Togo results in the assassination of president Sylvanus Olympio.

1964 – Anti-Muslim riots break out in Calcutta, resulting in 100 deaths.

1964 – In Manchester, New Hampshire, fourteen-year-old Pamela Mason is murdered. Edward Coolidge is tried and convicted of the crime, but the conviction is set aside by the landmark Fourth Amendment case Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971).

1966 – Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member when he is appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

1968 – Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison.

1972 – Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia and President Edward Akufo-Addo of Ghana are ousted in a bloodless military coup by Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong.

1972 – Bernice Gera wins her five year discrimination case against the US National Association of Baseball Leagues, opening up baseball umpiring to women.

1974 – Seraphim is elected Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.

1976 – Sarah Caldwell becomes the first woman to conduct an opera, La traviata, at the Metropolitan Opera.

1978 – United States Food and Drug Administration requires all blood donations to be labeled "paid" or "volunteer" donors.

1982 – Shortly after takeoff, Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737 jet, crashes into Washington, D.C.'s 14th Street Bridge and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 including four motorists.

1985 – A passenger train plunges into a ravine in Ethiopia, killing 428 in the worst railroad disaster in Africa.

1986 – A month-long violent struggle begins in Aden, South Yemen between supporters of Ali Nasir Muhammad and Abdul Fattah Ismail, resulting in thousands of casualties.

1988 – Lee Teng-hui becomes the first native Taiwanese President of the Republic of China.

1990 – Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office as Governor of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia.

1991 – Soviet Union troops attack Lithuanian independence supporters in Vilnius, killing 14 people and wounding around 1000 others.

1993 – Space Shuttle program: Endeavour heads for space for the third time as STS-54 launches from the Kennedy Space Center.

1993 – The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is signed.

1998 – Alfredo Ormando sets himself on fire in St. Peter's Square, protesting against homophobia.

2001 – An earthquake hits El Salvador, killing more than 800.

2002 – A wild fox wanders into the United States Supreme Court Building and evades capture for more than a day despite being spotted by a police officer and observed on video cameras.

2012 – The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off the coast of Italy due to the captain Francesco Schettino's negligence and irresponsibility. There are 32 confirmed deaths.

2018 – The killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud in a fake encounter staged by the police officer Rao Anwar in Karachi, Pakistan sparked countrywide protests against extrajudicial killings. The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (Pashtun Protection Movement), led by Manzoor Pashteen, launched a campaign to seek justice for Naqeebullah Mehsud.

2018 – A false emergency alert warning of an impending missile strike in Hawaii caused widespread panic in the state.