- 878 Alfred, King of Wessex, is surprised by a nighttime attack in Chippenham, by the Great Viking Army led by Guthrum the Dane. Alfred escapes into the Somerset marshes.
Coronation of Cnut
1017 Cnut the Great crowned King of England in London by Lyfing, Archbishop of Canterbury
- 1205 Philip of Swabia becomes King of the Romans
- 1227 Ferrand, Count of Flanders, freed from the Louvre after being held prisoner for 12 years by the French
- 1322 Stephen Uros III becomes King of Serbia
- 1352 French King Jean II introduces Order of the Star
- 1355 Charles I of Bohemia is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy
- 1443 San Marco convent designed by architect Michelozzo, with an altarpiece by Fra Angelico is consecrated in the presence of Pope Eugene IV in Florence
- 1449 Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI is crowned at Mistra
- 1453 Emperor Frederick III becomes Archduke of Austria
- 1494 The first Mass in the New World is celebrated at La Isabela, Hispaniola
- 1497 Jews are expelled from Graz in Styria, Austria
Jerónimos Monastery
1501 Construction begins on Portugal's Jerónimos Monastery, designed by architect Diogo de Boitaca to commemorate the return of Vasco da Gama from India [1]
- 1579 Northern Hasburg Netherlands counties of Artois and Hainault and city Dowaai sign pro-Spanish and pro-Roman Catholic Union of Arras (Unie van Atrecht)
- 1622 Pope Gregory XV forms Congregatio the Propagande Fide
- 1639 Virginia orders half of its tobacco crop destroyed to support plunging prices and avoid an economic catastrophe, the first colony to order the destruction of crops
Charles I Put on Trial
1649 The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial for treason and other high crimes
- 1661 The Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempt to seize control of London
- 1681 First recorded boxing match is organized by Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle, between his butler and his butcher
- 1690 Joseph I, later Holy Roman Emperor and son of Emperor Leopold I, becomes King of the Romans and King in Germany
- 1720 The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings
- 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlies' Jacobite army draws close to Glasgow
- 1773 Massachusetts slaves petition legislature for freedom
- 1781 Battle of Jersey: Major Francis Peirson and his men defeat invading French troops
- 1784 Turkey and Russia sign a treaty in Constantinople
Conquest of Cayenne
1809 Napoleonic Wars: Invasion of Cayenne, by combined British, Portuguese and colonial Brazilian forces, begins
- 1821 Indiana state legislature approves development of the future capital city of Indianapolis
- 1832 New England Anti-Slavery Society organizes (Boston)
1838 Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail demonstrate their telegraph machine in New Jersey
- 1839 Two-day storm off the Irish and English coasts is immortalized as the "Big Wind"
- 1842 4,500 British & Indian troops leave Kabul, massacred before reaching India
Tragedy for Pierce
1853 US President-elect Franklin Pierce and his family are involved in a train wreck in Massachusetts that kills his 11-year-old son Benny
- 1857 Patent for reducing zinc ore granted to Samuel Wetherill, Penn
- 1861 Florida troops seize Federal arsenal at Apalachicola
- 1861 NYC mayor proposes NY become a free city, trading with North and South
- 1870 Inauguration of the Musikverein concert hall in Vienna, Austria; designed by Danish architect Theophil Hansen for the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna, built on land provided by Emperor Franz Joseph I
- 1873 Pope Pius IX encyclical "On the Church in Armenia"
Crédit Mobilier Scandal
1873 US Congress begins investigating the Crédit Mobilier scandal, a fraud by the Union Pacific Railroad and Crédit Mobilier of America in the construction of the first transcontinental railroad
- 1880 Record snow cover in Seattle - 120 cm
- 1883 Ontario Rugby Football Union forms
Battle of Chelenqo
1887 `Abd-allah II of Harar opens the Battle of Chelenqo with an attack on the camp of the Shewan army of Negus Menelik II
- 1893 Great Northern Railway connects Seattle with east coast
Washington National Cathedral
1893 The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress. The charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.
- 1896 First US women’s six-day bicycle race starts at Madison Square Garden
- 1898 1st telephone message from a submerged submarine, by Simon Lake
- 1900 Boers attack at Ladysmith, about 1,000 killed or injured
- 1903 Dutch Press museum opens in Amsterdam
- 1906 Maurice Ravel's "Miroirs" premieres in Paris
Continental Drift Theory
1912 Geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener presents his controversial theory of continental drift in a lecture to the Geological Association at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt
- 1912 New Mexico becomes 47th state of the Union
- 1913 Attempting to end hostilities in the Balkans, the London Peace Conference breaks down because Turkey refuses to cede Adrianpole, the Aegean island, and Crete
- 1914 Stock brokerage firm Merrill Lynch is founded
- 1921 The Iraqi Army is formed
- 1922 -13] Conference of Cannes concerning German retribution payments
- 1924 Francis Poulenc's ballet "Les Biches", choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, and danced by the Ballets Russe, premieres in Monte Carlo
Fascist Cabinet Forms
1925 Mussolini forms a cabinet composed entirely of Fascists in Italy
- 1925 Paavo Nurmi, sets indoor record, 4:13.6 mile & 14:44.6 5,000m
- 1926 Kees Boeke opens 1st comprehensive school in Holland
- 1927 US marines return to Nicaragua
The Minds of Mortals
1928 Pope Pius XI publishes encyclical Mortalium animos (The minds of mortals) on religious unity and against some presumptions of the early ecumenical movement
- 1929 Alexander I establishes a royal dictatorship in Yugoslavia
Mother Teresa Arrives in India
1929 Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta to begin her work amongst India's poorest
Bradman's World Record Score
1930 Australian cricket icon Don Bradman scores 452 not out for New South Wales v Queensland in Sydney; then world record individual score in a first-class match; runs scored in 415 minutes
- 1930 First diesel engine automobile trip (in a Packard sedan) is completed
Edison's Last Patent
1931 Thomas Edison submits his last patent application for an electroplating component - just two days before his death
Barrow Kills County Sheriff
1933 Clyde Barrow kills Tarrant County Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Davis after walking into a trap set for another criminal
- 1936 Barbara Hanley becomes Canada's 1st woman mayor in Webbwood, Ontario
Henry Hudson Statue
1938 Bronze memorial statue of explorer Henry Hudson erected in the Bronx, New York
- 1940 Mass execution of Poles, committed by Germans in the city of Poznań, Warthegau.
1941 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms speech during his State of the Union address, outlining freedom of speech and worship and freedom from want and fear [1] [2]
- 1942 MLB pitcher Bob Feller reports for duty in Norfolk, Virginia, after enlisting in the US Navy
- 1942 Pan American Airways becomes the first commercial airline to complete a flight around the world; the aircraft "California Clipper" is rechristened "Pacific Clipper" after the feat
Quemadmodum
1946 Pope Pius XII publishes the encyclical Quemadmodum, pleading for the care of the world's destitute children after World War II
- 1946 Vietnam holds its first ever general election
- 1947 Pan American Airlines offers a round-the-world-ticket, the first commercial airline to do so
- 1947 Ray Lindwall smashes 100 v England in MCG Test
- 1950 Britain recognizes Communist government of China
- 1951 Ganghwa massacre: Hundreds of South Korean communist sympathisers are slaughtered
- 1951 Indianapolis Olympians beat Rochester Royals, 75-73 in NBA-record 6 overtimes; also the longest game in NBA history
- 1953 Dutch passenger ships Willem Ruys and Oranje collide in the Red Sea near Port Sudan, seriously damaging both vessels without injuring the 1,750 passengers
- 1953 The first Asian Socialist Conference opens in Burma
- 1953 WKBN TV channel 27 in Youngstown, Ohio (CBS) begins broadcasting - without sound, until January 11 [1]
- 1956 Federal court bars former Little League Commissioner Carl Stotz from forming a rival group
- 1956 KGNS TV channel 8 in Laredo, TX (NBC/ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1957 Yeshiva Kol Ya'ackov opens in Moscow Russia
- 1958 BOAC Britannia flies from London to New York in a record 7 hours and 57 minutes
- 1958 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to E. E. Cummings
- 1958 WIPR TV channel 6 in San Juan, PR (PBS) begins broadcasting
1959 USSR's Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to escape Earth's gravity
- 1963 "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" with Marlin Perkins begins on NBC
- 1964 Charlie Finlay announces he wants to move KC A's to Louisville
- 1964 Rolling Stones' 1st tour of England as headline act: The Ronettes and The Swinging Blue Jeans open for them
- 1965 Geoff Boycott takes 3-47 against South Africa, his best Test bowling
- 1967 KHTV TV channel 39 in Houston, TX (IND) begins broadcasting
- 1967 Two homemade buses collide on a mountain road in Terpate, Philippines and plunge off a cliff, killing 84 people and injuring 140
- 1967 United States Marine Corps and ARVN troops launch "Operation Deckhouse Five" in the Mekong River delta.
- 1968 Dr Norman E. Shumway performs 1st US adult cardiac transplant operation
- 1968 Surveyor 7 (last of series) launched by US for soft-landing on Moon
- 1968 The Beatles' album "Magical Mystery Tour" goes #1 and stays #1 for 8 weeks
- 1969 WLIW TV channel 21 in Garden City, NY (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1970 Australian boxer Johnny Famechon retains his WBC featherweight title with a 14th-round knockout of Fighting Harada in Tokyo; re-match of questionable 15-round decision in 1969 in his first title defense
- 1971 Berkeley chemists announce the first synthetic growth hormones
- 1971 Cecil Partee elected president pro tem of Illinois state senate
Neil Young's Canadian Homecoming
1971 Neil Young returns to his homeland of Canada for his first concert there since his pre-stardom days, performing at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver, British Columbia
- 1972 Vladimir Bukovsky is exiled from USSR
- 1973 "Schoolhouse Rock" premieres on ABC-TV with Multiplication Rock
- 1974 "CBS Mystery Theater" premieres on radio
- 1974 In response to the 1973 energy crisis, daylight saving time begins nearly four months earlier in the United States
- 1974 United Kingdom begins three-day work week during energy crisis
- 1975 "AM America" premieres on ABC-TV with Bill Beutel as host
- 1975 A thousand Led Zeppelin fans, waiting overnight inside the lobby of the Boston Garden for tickets to the group's February 4th gig to go on sale, cause a riot and an estimated $30,000 damage
- 1975 TV game show "Wheel of Fortune" debuts on NBC
- 1976 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
Turner Buys Atlanta Braves
1976 Ted Turner purchases Atlanta Braves for reported $12 million
- 1977 Charter 77, a document criticising the Czech government's human rights abuses, is published in Prague
EMI Drops Sex Pistols
1977 Record label EMI drops punk rock group the Sex Pistols
- 1978 First US postage stamp is copyrighted, the Carl Sandburg stamp
- 1978 US hand over St Stephan crown to Hungary
- 1979 Shapour Bakhtiar government established by the Shah in Iran, will preside until unrest in the country subsides
- 1979 Village People's "Y.M.C.A." becomes their only UK #1 single; at its peak, it sells over 150,000 copies per day
- 1980 NHL Philadelphia Flyers set North American professional sports record of 35 straight games without a defeat (25-0-10)
- 1980 The beginning of the first GPS epoch
- 1981 50th hat trick in Islander history-John Tonelli scored 5 goals
- 1984 Challenger moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for mating of STS 41 B mission
- 1984 Last day of Test cricket for Chappell, Marsh and Lillee
- 1986 British Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine resigns after the 'Westland affair'
- 1986 Impala Platinum fires 20,000 black mine workers in Johannesburg
- 1986 STS 61-C scrubbed at T-31sec because of liquid oxygen valve problem
- 1987 100th US Congress convenes
- 1987 Astronomers at the University of California witness the first observation of the birth of a galaxy
- 1990 NY Lotto pays $35 million to one winner (#s are 18-25-26-32-42-44)
- 1991 "Real Life With Jane Pauley" premieres on NBC-TV
- 1991 Jorge Serrano Elias elected President of Guatemala
- 1991 Portland Trail Blazers beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 114-111 before a sellout crowd at the Portland Memorial Coliseum; marks the Blazers' 600th consecutive sellout at home
- 1991 Qian Hong swims female world record 50m butterfly (27.30 sec)
- 1992 NY Yankees sign free agent Danny Tartabul
- 1992 Robert Schenkkan's series of plays "Kentucky Cycle" premieres in LA
- 1992 The US Government urges doctors to stop using silicone breast implants, outlining the health effects
- 1992 Zviad Gamskahurdia, the President of Georgia, flees the country because of a military coup
- 1993 55 Kashmiri civilians are killed in Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir by Indian Border Security Force units
- 1993 Bassist Bill Wyman announces he will leave the band the Rolling Stones
- 1993 Jean Mueller discovers comet Mueller/1993a
- 1994 Dow Jones Industrial Average hits record 3803.88
Nancy Kerrigan Attacked
1994 US figure skating champion Nancy Kerrigan is attacked by Tonya Harding's bodyguard at the US Championships in Detroit, Michigan
Wilkens Sets New Win Record
1995 Atlanta Hawks' coach Lenny Wilkens passes the legendary Red Auerbach to become the NBA's all-time winningest coach, with 939 career victories; Hawks beat Washington, 112-90 at the Omni
- 1995 Chemical fire in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines, leads to the discovery of plans for Project Bojinka, a mass-terrorist attack
- 1996 Record £42 million ($65.2 million) British lottery won by 3 people (2-3-4-13-42-44)
- 1998 Barry Switzer resigns as Dallas Cowboy coach
- 1999 An agreement is reached by the NBA and the players union to end a 204-day lockout which shortened the season by 50 games
- 2000 The flu outbreak in Britain puts pressure on NHS
- 2000 The last Pyrenean ibex is found dead after being crushed by a tree
- 2002 Daniel Bedingfield returns to No.1 on the UK singles chart for the second time with Gotta Get Thru This
- 2004 Costas Simitis announces his resignation as president of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement in Greece
- 2005 Mississippi Civil Rights Workers Murders: Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect in the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers
- 2009 Israel begins an assault on the Gaza Strip
- 2012 A suicide bomber blows himself up at a police station in Damascus, Syria, killing 26 people and wounding 63
- 2012 Thierry Henry re-signs for Arsenal on a two-month loan deal
- 2013 10 people are killed by a US drone attack in South Waziristan, Pakistan
- 2013 The NHL reaches an agreement to end a 113 day lockout
Damascus Truce in Syria
2014 Truce begins between Free Syrian Army and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in northern Damascus
2015 Randy Johnson, Pedro Martínez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
- 2016 "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" breaks North American box office record, passing the $760.5M taken by "Avatar"
LA Methane Gas Leak
2016 Governor of California Jerry Brown declares state of emergency over methane gas leak on outskirts of Los Angeles
- 2016 North Korea states that they have successfully conducted their fourth nuclear test, saying it was a hydrogen bomb in a claim disputed by most international experts
- 2016 Opera "Angel's Bone" by composer Du Yun and librettist Royce Vavrek premieres at the Prototype Festival, New York City (Pulitzer Prize for Music 2017)
Warren Announces Second Term
2017 Elizabeth Warren announces her intention to run for a second term as Massachusetts Senator
- 2018 Jon Gruden returns to the NFL as Oakland Raiders head coach after nearly a decade of broadcasting (ESPN Monday Night Football 2009-17)
- 2018 Oil tanker Sanchi collides with a freighter off the coast of Shanghai with 32 probable deaths
- 2018 Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota scores a touchdown off own pass in 22-21 victory over Kansas City Chiefs, second NFL quarterback to do so
- 2019 Malaysian king Sultan Muhammad V abdicates after two years of rule in historic first
- 2019 Record $3.1 million (333.6 million yen) price for giant bluefin tuna at Tokyo's Toyosu fish market bought by sushi restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura
- 2020 Crawford Steel executives Sid Spiegel and Gary Stern via holding company S & S Sportsco purchase the Montreal Alouettes from the Canadian Football League
- 2021 More than 50 pro-democracy activists rounded up and arrested in Hong Kong
Economic Plan Failure
2021 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says country's five-year economic plan has failed at opening of a rare meeting of the Workers' Party
Trump Supporters Storm Capitol
2021 Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump storm the Capitol in Washington, D.C., during Congress’s certification of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s victory, resulting in five deaths and prompting the evacuation of lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence
- 2022 Tennis world No. 1 Novak Đoković's visa into Australia cancelled after uproar over his COVID-19 vaccination exemption
- 2023 New Study discovers ancient Roman concrete is stronger than modern concrete because of the use of a hot mixing technique, with quicklime that self-healed any cracks over time [1]
- 2023 US teacher shot by her six-year-old student at Richneck Elementary School, Newport, Virginia, later hospitalised with gunshot wounds [1]
- 2024 Israeli army claims it has destroyed Hamas's command centre in northern Gaza and killed more than 8,000 militants [1]
Trudeau Promises to Resign
2025 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promises to resign once a successor for the Liberal Party is found
- 2025 Large winter storm caused by a polar vortex moves east across the US from the central plains to the mid Atlantic, bringing 18 inches of snow to Kansas [1]
- 2025 US records its first person to die from bird flu, in southwest Louisiana [1]
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