Today's 3 January Major Events in History

Photo for the article Today's 3 January Major Events

236 Reign of St Anterus as Catholic Pope ends with his death after only 40 days
936 Duke Alberik II of Spoleto appoints his son Pope Leo VII
1338 Jacob of Arteveld elected mayor of Ghent

1407 Bloody battles between Hoeken and Kabeljauwen in Dordrecht

Trial of Joan of Arc

1431 Joan of Arc is handed over to Bishop Pierre Cauchon

1521 Martin Luther is excommunicated by Pope Leo X from the Roman Catholic Church for refusing to recant parts of his Ninety-Five Theses, which started the Protestant Reformation

1638 Dutch Premier Van Joost speaks of "Hostage Rights of Aemstel"
1638 Schouwburg Theater, the 1st in Amsterdam, opens
1653 The Coonan Cross Oath is taken in the Saint Thomas Christian community in an effort to avoid submission to Portuguese rule in India
1667 Resistance of Androsovo in Russia-Poland
1749 Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.
1750 Tax revolt in Haarlem, Netherlands
1752 East Indies invasion "Geldermalsen" leaves at Malacca: 92 killed

Battle of Princeton

1777 General George Washington's Revolutionary Army defeats British forces at the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey

1780 Danish national anthem "Kong Kristian stod ved højen mast" 1st sung
1815 France, the United Kingdom, and Austria form an alliance against Russia and Prussia

Austin Granted Land

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

1825 Scottish factory owner Robert Owen buys 30,000 acres in Indiana as site for New Harmony utopian community
1831 First US building and loan association organized in Frankford, Pennsylvania
1833 Britain seizes control of Falkland Islands in South Atlantic
1834 The government of Mexico imprisons Stephen F. Austin in Mexico City
1840 First deep-sea sounding by James Clark Ross in the South Atlantic at 2,425 fathoms (14,450 feet)

Dickens Travels to America

1842 Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine leave Liverpool, England for America on board the RMS Britannia

1843 Gaetano Donizetti's opera "Don Pasquale" premieres at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, France
1848 Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first President of the independent African Republic of Liberia
1852 First Chinese immigrants arrive in Hawaii
1853 Solomon Northup, author of the memoir "Twelve Years a Slave, is freed after 7 illegal years in slavery with aid of Washington Hunt, Governor of New York
1861 US Fort Pulaski and Fort Jackson, Savannah, seized by Georgia
1861 US state of Delaware legislature rejects proposal to join Confederacy

1868 Meiji Restoration returns authority to Japan's emperors

1870 Construction begins on New York's Brooklyn Bridge; completed May 24, 1883

1871 Oleomargarine patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton, NY
1872 First patent list issued by the US Patent Office
1885 Battle of Núi Bop begins in northern Vietnam during the Sino-French War
1888 First wax drinking straw is patented by Marvin C. Stone in Washington, D.C.
1889 Admissions convention meets in Ellensburg, WA, asks for statehood

Nietzsche's Breakdown

1889 German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche suffers a mental breakdown after supposedly witnessing a horse flogging

1890 First US college-level dairy school opens at the University of Wisconsin

1896 Emperor Wilhelm congratulates President Kruger on the Jameson Raid
1899 First known use of the word "automobile" appears in an editorial in The New York Times
1900 Gerhart Hauptmann's play "Schluck und Jau," premieres in Berlin
1902 Due to a bad pitch Australian batsman Reggie Duff is held back to No. 10 on Test debut v England at MCG; scores 104
1910 British miners strike for 8 hour working day
1911 City of Almaty in Russian Turkestan is destroyed by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake
1911 The Government of India announces that emigration to Natal, Southern Africa, is prohibited with effect from 1 July

Siege of Sidney Street

1911 The Siege of Sidney Street: fire fight breaks out in London's East End between Latvian gang and Police, who request army back-up. First Siege caught on camera by Pathé News with Winston Churchill observing [1]

1911 US postal savings bank inaugurated

1912 Southern Pacific Railroad offers to bring the Liberty Bell to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco for free

1918 US Employment Service opens as a unit of the Department of Labor

1919 The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, which was a short-lived agreement for the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, is signed by the King of Iraq and the President of the World Zionist Organization
1920 Arthur Honegger's symphonic poem "Chant de Nigamon" (The Song of Nigamon) premieres at the Cirque d'Hiver in Paris, France

Curse of the Bambino

1920 Boston Red Sox baseball club owner Harry Frazee announces agreement to sell slugger Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000 in cash and a $350,000 loan; start of the 84 year "Curse of the Bambino"

1921 "Svoboda", Ukrainian language newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey, expands to daily publication (reverts to weekly in 1998)
1921 Turkey makes peace with Armenia
1922 First living person is depicted on a U.S. coin when Governor Thomas Kilby appears on the Alabama Centennial half dollar

Il Duce the Dictator

1925 Benito Mussolini dissolves the Italian Parliament and proclaims himself dictator of Italy, taking the title Il Duce (the Leader)

1926 Greek gen Theodorus Pangulos names himself dictator
1929 27-year-old businessman William S. Paley becomes CBS president

Bradman's 1st Test Century

1929 Australian cricket icon Don Bradman follows up a first-innings 79 by scoring 112 in the third Test against England in Melbourne; his first of 29 Test centuries

1931 Montreal Maroons centre Nels Stewart scores fastest 2 goals in NHL history with a pair 4 seconds apart in a 5-3 win over Boston Bruins at Montreal Arena
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 March of Dimes established to fight polio

1939 Gene Cox becomes 1st girl page in US House of Representatives
1940 WPG-AM in Atlantic City NJ consolidates with WBIL & WOV as "new" WOV
1941 American National Collegiate Football Rules Committee announces a new rule permitting free substitution of players
1941 Canada and the US acquire air bases in Newfoundland on a 99-year lease
1941 Italian counter offensive in Albania

1942 American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command forms
1943 1st missing persons telecast (NYC)
1943 Canadian Army troops arrive in North Africa
1943 Max and Doug Bentley assist on brother Reg's only NHL goal in Chicago Blackhawks' 3-3 tie with the Rangers in NYC; only time in NHL history trio of family members score and assist on a scoring play

Flying Ace Shot Down

1944 World War II: Top US flying ace Major Pappy Boyington shot down in his Corsair by Japanese Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Zero (survives as POW)

1945 Allies land on west coast of Burma, conquer Akyab
1945 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visits France
1945 Cato-Meridian School, New York, installs germicidal lamps in every room
1945 Greek General Plastiras forms government
1945 John Patrick's play "The Hasty Heart" premieres in NYC
1945 US aircraft carriers attack Okinawa

1947 First opening session of Congress is televised; it does not happen again until 1977
1949 "Colgate Theater" dramatic anthology series premieres on NBC TV
1949 The central bank of the Philippines, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, is founded
1949 US Representative William Dawson becomes 1st Black to head congressional committee - Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments (now known as Committee on Oversight and Reform)
1949 West Indian cricket batsman Everton Weekes scores 101 in 3rd Test against India in Calcutta; his world record fifth consecutive Test century
1951 9 Jewish Kremlin physicians "exposed" as British/US agents
1952 "Dragnet" with Jack Webb premieres on NBC TV
1953 Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress, both representing Ohio
1955 Jose Ramon Guizado becomes president of Panama
1956 A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.
1957 1st electric watch, the Hamilton Electric 500, introduced by the Hamilton Watch Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
1958 Australian cricket fast bowler Lindsay Kline takes a hat-trick (Eddie Fuller, Hugh Tayfield, Neil Adcock) as South Africa dismissed for 99 in follow-on 2nd Test at Cape Town

Hillary Reaches the South Pole

1958 Edmund Hillary leads a Commonwealth team to the South Pole using modified Ferguson tractors, becoming the first to reach the Pole by land since 1912

1958 The West Indies Federation is formed, made up of former British Caribbean territories, with the capital Port of Spain
1959 Alaska is admitted as the 49th US state

1961 An explosion at the Nuclear Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls kills three operators
1961 US breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba
1962 Ground is broken for the Houston Astrodome, a multi-purpose domed stadium, in Houston, Texas

1963 WOUB TV channel 20 in Athens, OH (PBS) begins broadcasting

Beatlemania

1964 Jack Paar shows a clip of the Beatles singing "She Loves You", and says he understands that science was working on a cure for the Beatlemania phenomenon

1966 Floyd B McKissick, named national director of CORE
1967 "The Tonight Show" is shortened from 105 to 90 minutes
1967 Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys is indicted for draft evasion
1967 WJAN TV channel 17 in Canton, OH (IND) begins broadcasting
1969 Adam Clayton Powell Jr returns to seat in US House of Representatives, having been re-elected after previously being expelled from Congress
1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono's album "Two Virgins" is declared obscene in New Jersey
1970 Marxist government takes over in Congo
1970 WHAG TV channel 25 in Hagerstown, MD (NBC) begins broadcasting
1972 The Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb in Callender Street, Belfast, injuring over 60 people

NY Yankees Sale

1973 A 12-man syndicate led by Michael Burke and George Steinbrenner III buys MLB's New York Yankees from CBS for US$10 million

1974 Arias Navarro succeeds Carrero Blanco as Premier of Spain
1974 Burma accepts its constitution
1974 Miguel Pinero's "Short Eyes," premieres in NYC
1974 Price of gold hits record $121.25 an ounce in London
1976 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1977 "The Police Tapes" premiere on New York City TV station WNET, based somewhat on 1960s NYPD officers who worked in its South Bronx
1977 Former Home Secretary Roy Jenkins announces his intention to be Britain's first President of the European Commission

1978 Indian cricket spin bowler B. S. Chandrasekhar becomes first in Test history to register identical figures in both innings (6 for 52) in Indian innings win over Australia in 3rd Test in Melbourne
1980 Babrak Karmal defends the Soviet-backed coup in first public appearance since taking power as President of Afghanistan
1980 Price of gold hits record $634 an ounce

Million Dollar World Challenge

1981 American golfer Johnny Miller wins the sport's first $1 million tournament when he beats Seve Ballesteros of Spain in a playoff in the inaugural Million Dollar World Challenge at Sun City, South Africa

1981 NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers retire jersey # 34, Austin Carr
1983 Dallas running back Tony Dorsett sets NFL record with 99-yard rush in the Cowboys' 31-27 defeat at Minnesota Vikings

Syria Frees US Pilot

1984 Syria frees captured US pilot after appeal from Rev. Jesse Jackson

1985 Future Indian cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin scores 110 on debut in drawn 3rd Test against England in Kolkata
1985 Israel's government confirms the resettlement of 10,000 Ethiopian Jews

Price's Final Aida Appearance

1985 Leontyne Price makes her final operatic appearance in a televised performance of "Aida" at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

1987 Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

1988 Israel orders 9 Palestinian "instigators" deported from West Beirut

Thatcher Longest-Serving PM

1988 Margaret Thatcher becomes longest-serving British Prime Minister of the century

1988 Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night premieres on Cinemax; concert performance includes James Burton; Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and k.d. lang
1989 Russian newspaper Izvestia gets its 1st commercial advertisement

Noriega Surrenders

1990 Panama's leader General Manuel Noriega surrenders to US authorities

1991 8 Iraqi embassy officials are expelled from the UK
1991 Israel reopens consulate in USSR after 23 years

Gretsky Youngest to 700

1991 Wayne Gretzky becomes fastest and youngest player in NHL history to score 700 goals (886 games at age 29 years, 342 days) in LA Kings’ 6-3 win over the NY Islanders at the Nassau Veteran Memorial Coliseum

1992 32 Cubans defect to the US via helicopter
1992 English club Wigan pays Widnes a world record rugby league transfer fee of £440,000 for Great Britain international winger Martin Offiah
1993 "The Comeback", QB Frank Reich leads Buffalo Bills back from a 32-point deficit, to defeat the Houston Oilers 41-38 in overtime in a wild card playoff game, the greatest comeback ever in NFL history

1993 Michael Milkin, the "junk bond king", is released from jail after 22 months
1994 100s killed in Venezuela in prison revolt
1994 35-foot-tall Chief Wahoo, trademark of Indians on top of Stadium since 1962, is taken down, to be moved to Jacob's Field

Black Citizenship Restored

1994 More than 7 million Black South Africans have their citizenship restored (announced on 15 December 1993 by parliament of President F. W. de Klerk, effective four months before first non-racial polls 27 April, 1994)

1994 Steve Young of the San Francisco 49ers becomes first quarterback to win 3 straight NFL passing titles despite a 37-34 OT loss to the Philadelphia Eagles; first to lodge 3 consecutive passer ratings of 100+
1994 Tupolev-154M crashes at Irkutsk, Siberia: 122 killed
1996 First successful clamshell flip mobile phone, the Motorola StarTAC, goes on sale; eventually, 60 million units are sold
1997 Bryant Gumbel co-hosts his final "Today" show on NBC-TV
1997 Texas-El Paso head basketball coach Don Haskins becomes 10th coach in NCAA Division I history to record 700 career wins when the Miners edge SMU, 66-64
1997 The People's Republic of China announces it will spend $US27.7 billion to fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys
1997 Zimbabwe cricket fast bowler Eddo Brandes takes ODI hat-trick as home team scores another upset against England, winning by 131 runs and sweeping series, 3-0 in Harare
1998 American "Hee Haw" banjo player Grandpa Jones suffers a stroke
1998 Los Angeles Clippers Bill Fitch coaches his 2,000th NBA game, a 97-88 win against the Dallas Mavericks at the LA Memorial Sports Arena
1999 Israel detains, and later expels, 14 members of Concerned Christians.
1999 NASA's Mars Polar Lander launched, mission later fails after communication lost trying to land on Mars (Dec 3 1999)
2002 The Palestinian freighter Karine A is seized by Israeli forces in the Red Sea

American Top 40

2004 After hosting the show for over 30 years, Casey Kasem steps down as host of "American Top 40" and is succeeded by Ryan Seacrest

2004 Flight 604, a Boeing 737 owned by Flash Airlines, an Egyptian airliner, plunges into the Red Sea, killing all 148 people on board.
2004 Panthers kicker John Kasay ties NFL-playoff record with 5 field goals to lead Carolina to a 29-10 win over Dallas Cowboys in the Wild Card round of playoffs in Charlotte, North Carolina

The Late Late Show

2005 Scottish comic Craig Ferguson becomes the host of "The Late Late Show" on CBS; hosts the program through 2014

2007 High profile Miami Dolphins NFL head coach Nick Saban resigns after agreeing to return to college football and take head coaching job at Alabama
2007 National Express has its worst ever coach crash just outside Heathrow Airport.
2009 Israeli ground forces invade Gaza.
2009 The Bitcoin network is created as the first block of the digital currency is mined by a person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto
2010 Phil Taylor successfully defends his PDC World Darts title with a 7–3 victory over Simon Whitlock of Australia in the final in London; Taylor's 13th PDC and 15th overall world championship
2011 Adrian Lewis of England wins his first PDC World Darts Championship with a 7-5 win over Scotsman Gary Anderson at the Alexandra Palace, London
2012 Michael van Gerwen named Young Player of the Year at the PDC annual awards ceremony
2013 27 Shiite pilgrims are killed and 60 are injured by a suicide bombing in Musayyib, Iraq
2014 Cambodian garment workers go on strike demanding a wage increase
2014 Tommy Lynn Sells is executed at Texas State Penitentiary, Huntsville, for the murder of nine-year-old Mary Perez, thought to have committed 21 more murders
2015 18 people are killed after the Norwegian cargo ship MS Bulk Jupiter sinks off the coast of Vietnam
2015 Over 2,000 people are killed in north-east Nigeria after Boko Haram militants raze the town of Baga
2016 Jimmy Butler breaks Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls record for points in an NBA half, scoring 40 of his 42 points in the second half to lead the Bulls in a 115-113 victory over the Toronto Raptors
2016 Scotsman Gary Anderson retains his PDC World Darts Championship beating Adrian Lewis of England, 7-5 at the Alexandra Palace, London
2018 First bionic hand with a sense of touch, for use outside a lab unveiled in Rome
2018 Landslide and flooding caused by heavy rains in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, kills at least 37
2018 Previously unknown ancient Beringian group is unearthed in Alaska, among the earliest known Native American groups, dating to about 11,500 years ago
2018 Security expert reveal two security flaws, Meltdown and Spectre which affect most microprocessors
2019 "Surviving R. Kelly" docuseries investigating sexual abuse by R&B singer R. Kelly premieres on Lifetime in the US

116th Congress

2019 116th US Congress convenes in Washington, D.C., electing Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House of Representatives for the second time

2019 Archaeologists in Mexico announce discovery of pre-Aztec temple to god Xipe Tótec in Puebla state (dated 900-1150 AD)
2019 Chinese Chang'e-4 spacecraft becomes the first ever to touch down on the far side of the Moon
2020 US drone strike kills top Iranian security and intelligence commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani outside Baghdad airport in Iraq
2021 Welshman Gerwyn Price wins his first PDC World Darts Championship; beats Gary Anderson of Scotland, 7-3 at the Alexandra Palace in London
2022 America records one million new COVID-19 cases for the first time, Omicron accounting for an estimated 95% of these [1]
2022 Apple becomes the first US company to be worth $3 trillion in value, after tripling its price in under four years [1]

Holmes Guilty of Fraud

2022 Elizabeth Holmes, founder of blood-testing start-up Theranos is found guilty on four counts of fraud in San Jose, California [1]

2022 Rock singer David Lee Roth cancels his pre-retirement residency in Las Vegas due to "unforeseen circumstances related to COVID"
2022 Scotsman Peter Wright wins his second PDC World Darts Championship; beats Michael Smith of England, 7-5 at the Alexandra Palace in London
2023 England's Michael Smith hits a nine-dart finish on the way to his first PDC world darts title, beating Dutchman Michael van Gerwen, 7-4 at the Alexandra Palace, London
2024 In an all-English final, Luke Humphries claims his first PDC World Darts Championship with a 7-4 win over 16-year-old prodigy Luke Littler at the Alexandra Palace, London
2024 Jeffery Epstein court documents listing his associates made public from 2015 defamation trial of Ghislaine Maxwell [1]
2024 Lowest January temperature of -43.6 C (minus 46.5 F), recorded in Sweden for 25 years in Kvikkjokk-Årrenjarka, Swedish Lapland, amid a very cold spell across Scandinavia [1]
2024 Two explosions kill at least 95 people during a commemorative ceremony marking the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in Kerman, Iran

Youngest Ever Darts Champion

2025 17-year-old English darts prodigy Luke Littler becomes the youngest-ever world champion when he beats three-time title winner Michael van Gerwen 7-3 in the PDC World Championship final in London