Today's 19 January Fun Facts in History

1607 San Agustin Church in Manila is officially completed; the oldest church in the Philippines
1785 First manned balloon flight in Ireland

Electric Lighting Begins

1883 The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey

1903 First regular transatlantic radio broadcast between the US and England
1903 French newspaper L'Auto announces new 5-stage, long distance bicycle race, "Tour de France"
1922 Geological survey says US oil supply will be depleted in 20 years

1955 "Scrabble" debuts on board game market

1955 First presidential news conference filmed for TV (Eisenhower)

1966 Indira Gandhi is elected India's first female Prime Minister

1977 World's largest crowd gathering, the Hindu Kumbh Mela in India, attracts a record 15 million people

1978 The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW's plant in Emden; Beetle production in Latin America would continue until 2003

2006 The New Horizons probe is launched by NASA on the first mission to Pluto
2013 Calcium deposits are discovered on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity Rover
2024 Japan is the fifth nation to land a spacecraft on the Moon with its SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) using "pinpoint landing" technology [1]
2025 TikTok app stops working in the US shortly before a federal ban on the app is due to take effect [1]