- 475 Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople
Holland Aligns with France
1296 Floris V, Count of Holland, signs an accord with Philip IV of France after the English move their wool trade to Flanders
- 1317 Phillips V, the Tall, crowned King of France
- 1349 Black Death Massacre: 700 Jews of Basel Switzerland, are burnt to death in a specially constructed building on suspicion of poisoning the community during the Bubonic Plague; part of a wave of pogroms across Western Europe
Trial of Joan of Arc
1431 Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government
- 1464 First meeting of the States General of the Netherlands
Columbus Describes Mermaids
1493 Christopher Columbus mistakes manatees for mermaids, describing them as "not half as beautiful as they are painted"
- 1522 Adriaan F Boeyens elected only Dutch pope (Adrian VI)
- 1558 Geneva becomes independent from Berne canton, Switzerland
1580 Francis Drake's ship the 'Golden Hind' strikes a reef off the Celebes islands, slips off the next day and sails onward to Java then around the Cape of Good Hope and back to Plymouth in England [1]
- 1718 France declares war on Spain
- 1728 Coronation of 12-year-old Peter II Alexeyevich as Tsar of Russia takes place in Moscow
- 1760 Afghans defeat the Indian Maratha Empire in the Battle of Barari Ghat
- 1768 Philip Astley stages the world's first modern circus in London
1788 Connecticut becomes the fifth state to ratify the US Constitution
- 1792 Russia and Turkey sign the Peace of Jassy
- 1793 Dutch Prince Willem V establishes 2 brigades Drive Artillery
- 1793 First hot-air balloon flight in the US lifts off in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, piloted by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, it lands 15 miles away in Deptford, New Jersey
Nelson's State Funeral
1806 Admiral Viscount Horatio Nelson receives a state funeral and is interred in St Paul's Cathedral, London
- 1811 First Women's Golf Tournament is held
Napoleonic Wars
1812 French forces prepare to seize Swedish Pomerania (Germany) on Napoleon's orders; full occupation is completed by late January
I Stay Day
1822 Dia do Fico ("I Stay Day"): Prince Pedro of Portugal determines to stay in Brazil despite being recalled to Lisbon, leading him to become Dom Pedro I of Brazil
- 1839 Thomas Henderson measures 1st stellar parallax (Alpha Centauri)
- 1847 1st San Francisco newspaper published (California Star)
- 1848 Dr. Stephen A. Wright establishes the" Miner's Bank" in San Francisco, California
- 1854 Astor Library opens in New York City
- 1855 Clipper "Guiding Star" disappears in Atlantic, 480 dead
- 1857 7.9 earthquake shakes Fort Tejon, California
- 1858 Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide
- 1860 Dion Boucicault's stage drama "Jeanie Deans" opens at Laura Keene's Theatre, NYC
1861 A Union merchant ship, the Star of the West, is fired upon by cadets from the South Carolina Military Academy as it tries to deliver supplies to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina; considered to be the first shots fired in US Civil War
- 1861 US Civil War: Mississippi secedes from the Union
- 1862 The first petroleum shipment (1,329 barrels) from the U.S. to Europe arrives at Victoria Docks, London, England aboard the Elizabeth Watts
- 1863 -Jan 11th] Battle of Arkansas Post, Arkansa (Fort Hindman)
- 1866 Fisk University opens in Nashville, Tennessee
- 1868 Last convict ship the Hougoumont arrives in Fremantle, ending 80 years of penal transportation to Australia [1]
- 1878 Umberto I becomes King of Italy.
- 1879 Cheyenne prisoners led by Dull Knife revolt at Ft Robinson
- 1879 Kirland Warbler discovered on Andros Island in Bahamas
- 1880 6' (1.83 metres) of snow falls in Seattle in 5 days
- 1880 The Great Gale of 1880 devastates parts of Oregon and Washington with high wind and heavy snow
- 1894 Georges Feydeau's "Un à la Patte" premieres in Paris
- 1894 New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts.
- 1894 William K.L. Dickson's motion picture "Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze" aka "Fred Ott's Sneeze" receives first US copyright for the format; it was filmed a few days earlier at Edison Studio, West Orange, New Jersey [1]
- 1903 Baseball's National & American Leagues make peace
- 1903 Frank Farrell and Bill Devery purchase the American League's Baltimore baseball franchise for $18,000 and move it to NYC (later the NY Yankees)
- 1903 Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota, established
- 1908 Frans Schollaert succeeds Jules De Trooz as premier of Belgium
- 1908 Muir Woods National Monument, California, established
Nimrod Reaches Farthest South
1909 Ernest Shackleton, as part of the British Nimrod Expedition, reaches a record farthest southern latitude of 88°23' south
- 1912 US Marines send troops to Honduras
- 1915 Exposition (now Civic) Auditorium dedicated in San Francisco
1916 The Ottoman Empire prevails in the Battle of Çanakkale, as the last British troops evacuated
- 1917 World War I: the Battle of Rafa occurs near the Egyptian border with Palestine.
- 1922 KQV-AM in Pittsburgh PA begins radio transmissions
- 1922 Rotterdam metalworkers strike ends
- 1923 Juan de la Cierva makes 1st autogiro flight, Spain
Swaraj Party
1923 Swaraj political party founded in India with Chittaranjan Das as president and Motilal Nehru its secretary
- 1925 German Postal Minister A Hofle resigns due to corruption
- 1927 Dmitri Shostakovich' Octet opus 11 premieres in Moscow
- 1927 Fire in Laurier Palace cinema in Montreal, 78 children died
- 1928 Eugene O'Neill's play "Marco Millions" premieres in NYC
- 1929 Buddy DeSylva & Lew Brown's musical "Follow Thru" premieres in NYC
- 1929 KDB-AM in Santa Barbara CA begins radio transmissions
Albert Kahn Architects the Soviet Union
1930 Architectural firm Albert Kahn Associates becomes the consulting architects for all industrial construction in the Soviet Union
- 1930 Boston Bruins wins then NHL record 14th straight game
- 1933 Amsterdam confectionery workers go on strike against wage reduction
- 1936 Noël Coward's stage drama "Astonished Heart" premieres in London
- 1936 US Army adopts M1 semi-automatic rifle, designed by John C. Garand, as new standard issue weapon [1]
- 1937 Italian regime bans marriages between Italians & Abyssinians
High Tor
1937 Maxwell Anderson's stage drama "High Tor" premieres at Martin Beck Theatre, NYC; runs for 171 performances, wins Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play
- 1940 2 German officers make emergency landing in Belgium
- 1941 Maiden flight by Canada's British-built Avro Lancaster military plane
Louis vs. Baer
1942 In his 20th title defense, Joe Louis KOs Buddy Baer in the 1st round of their rematch to retain his world heavyweight boxing title at New York’s Madison Square Garden
- 1942 US Joint Chiefs of Staff created
- 1943 Japanese government in Java limits sale & use of motorcars
Warsaw Ghetto Deportation
1943 Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler views the Warsaw Ghetto and orders the deportation of 8,000 Jews
MacArthur Invades Luzon
1945 US soldiers led by General Douglas MacArthur invade Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, at Lingayen Gulf during World War II
Last Sighting of the Black Dahlia
1947 Elizabeth "Betty" Short, the Black Dahlia, is last seen alive.
- 1947 Providence Steamrollers guard Dino Martin becomes the first NBA player to ever score 40 points in a game, in a 91-68 win over Cleveland Rebels at Rhode Island Auditorium
- 1947 Roger Sessions' 2nd Symphony premieres in San Francisco with Pierre Monteux conducting the San Francisco Symphony,
- 1948 Walter Piston's 3rd Symphony in E, premieres in Boston by the Boston Symphony Orchestra; conducted by Serge Koussevitzky; wins 1948 Pulitzer Prize
- 1951 Washington Capitals NBA team folds
- 1952 Belgian Pholien government resigns
- 1952 Karel Sys wins European heavyweight boxing title
- 1952 Marines give notice that they will recall Ted Williams to active duty
- 1953 Korean ferryboat "Chang Tyong-Ho" sank off Pusan killing 249
- 1954 -87°F (-66°C), Northice Station, Greenland (Greenland record)
- 1954 Bert Olmstead of the Montreal Canadiens, ties NHL record of 8 points in game
- 1954 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Louise Bogan & Leonie Adams
- 1956 Abigail Van Buren's "Dear Abby" advice column 1st appears in newspapers
Peter Pan
1956 Musical "Peter Pan," starring Mary Martin, is broadcast live for a second time on NBC as part of the "Producers' Showcase" series
- 1956 Samir el-Rifai forms government in Jordan
- 1957 Checheno-Ingush ASSR reformed in RSFSR
- 1957 Dutch Newspaper Society expels communist daily paper "Truth"
- 1957 Kalmyk Autonomous Region reformed in RSFSR
- 1957 Karachayevo-Cherkess Autonomous Region reestablished in RSFSR
- 1958 In basketball Oscar Robertson (Cin) scores 56, Seton Hall team 54
Castro Arrives in Havana
1959 Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro arrives in recently captured capital city of Havana
- 1959 Dam across Tera River in Northwestern Spain collapses after heavy winter rains, killing 135
- 1959 Pat O'Connor beats Dick Hutton in St Louis, to become NWA champ
- 1960 Construction of the Aswan High Dam begins in Egypt
- 1961 Twins agree on $500,000 payment to AA for Minn/St Paul territory
- 1962 Mister M (Dr X) beats Verne Gagne in Minneapolis, to become NWA champ
- 1962 NFL prohibits grabbing of face masks
- 1962 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Reply to Comrade Kuo Mo-jo
1963 Mao Zedong writes his poem "Reply to Comrade Kuo Mo-jo"
- 1964 Anti-US rioting breaks out in Panama Canal Zone
- 1965 Beatles '65 album goes #1 and stays #1 for 9 weeks
- 1966 Polish government denies exit visa to Cardinal Wyszynski, barring him from travel abroad
1967 "More of the Monkees" second album by The Monkees is released
- 1967 Georgia legislature seats Representative Julian Bond
- 1967 NFL New Orleans' franchise takes name "Saints"
- 1968 1st ABA All-Star Game: East 126 beats West 120 at Indiana
- 1968 Surveyor 7 space probe soft-lands on the Moon
- 1969 First test flight of the Concorde supersonic jetliner in Bristol, England
O'Neil Briefs Callaghan
1969 Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Terence O'Neill travels to London to meet Home Secretary James Callaghan and brief him on the growing violence in Northern Ireland
- 1970 Constitution of Singapore enacted
Hughes Denounces Bio
1972 Billionaire Howard Hughes says Clifford Irving's autobiography on him is a fake - Irving goes on to serve prison time for the hoax
- 1972 British coal miners begin a national strike, the first for half a century
Laker's Streak Ends
1972 Led by future Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Milwaukee Bucks beat LA Lakers, 120-104, ending LA's consecutive win streak at 33, the longest winning streak in major league sports history
- 1972 Retired passenger liner Queen Elizabeth destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbour
- 1973 Luna 21 launches to the Moon
- 1975 600 employees of Royal Canadian Mint go on strike
- 1976 Bryan Trottier failed in 4th Islander penalty shot
- 1976 C. W. McCall CB song "Convoy" hits #1 on the country music charts
1977 Super Bowl XI, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA: Oakland Raiders beat Minnesota Vikings, 32-14; MVP: Fred Biletnikoff, Oakland, WR
- 1978 Commonwealth of Northern Marianas established
Bruins Retire #4
1979 Bobby Orr's #4 jersey is retired by the Boston Bruins
- 1979 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to W. S. Merwin
- 1979 High-school player Daryl Moreau makes 126th consecutive free throws
Let's Get Small
1979 K-Mart pulls Steve Martin's "Let's Get Small" for being in "bad taste"
- 1979 Supreme Court strikes down (6-3) PA law requiring doctors performing an abortion to try to preserve lives of potentially viable fetuses
- 1980 63 beheaded in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
- 1980 Princess Victoria becomes Crown Princess of Sweden following new royal succession rules allowing the oldest child to inherit the throne
- 1981 Francisco Balsamao elected President of Portugal
- 1982 5.9 earthquake in New England & Canada; 1st since 1855
- 1982 Steve D'Innocenzo scores 3 hockey goals in 12 sec in Mass HS game
- 1984 "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes" premieres on NBC TV (Whoops)
- 1984 EAA moves operations to Oshkosh
Nobody Told Me
1984 John Lennon's single "Nobody Told Me" is released posthumously
- 1984 MLB Atlanta Braves pitcher Pascual Perez is arrested for cocaine possession
1984
1984 Rock band Van Halen release their most successful album "1984"
- 1985 Flames set NHL record 264th regular season game without being shut-out
- 1986 After losing a patent battle with Polaroid, Kodak must give up its instant camera business.
- 1986 Barry Bingham Sr. announces he is selling The Louisville Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times amid familial disputes [1]
- 1986 NY Islanders repeat their greatest shutout margin (9-0) vs Pittsburgh Penguins
- 1987 Chinese Vietnamese border fights, 1,500 killed
- 1987 New Nicaraguan constitution takes effect
- 1990 64th US manned space mission STS 32 (Columbia 10) launches into orbit
- 1990 Boston Celtics worst ever (6 pts in 2nd vs NJ Nets) & lose 87-78
- 1990 US Supreme Court strikes down Dallas' ordinance imposing strict zoning on sexually oriented businesses
- 1991 Baker & Aziz meet in Geneva; talks fail to defuse gulf crisis
Pete Rose Banned
1991 Baseball officially bans Pete Rose from being elected to the Hall of Fame for betting on baseball
Jordan Reaches 15,000 Points
1991 Chicago's Michael Jordan scores a game-high 40 points to lead the Bulls to a 107-99 win over Philadelphia at the Spectrum; reaches the 15,000 point mark of his career
- 1991 Dean Smith of NC is 6th to win 700 career coaching basketball games
- 1992 Alison Halford, Assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside Police (Britain's most senior policewoman) is suspended after allegations of misconduct
- 1993 Franziska van Almsick swims world record 100m free style (53.33)
- 1994 14th United Negro College Fund raises $11,000,000
- 1994 Gunda Niemann skates world record (167.282 pts)
- 1994 Rintje Ritsma skates world record (156.201 points)
- 1995 Ecuador & Peru involved in boundary fight
- 1995 Worker accidentally cuts electrical wires at Newark Airport
3rd Rock from the Sun
1996 TV sitcom "3rd Rock from the Sun" by Bonnie and Terry Turner and starring John Lithgow, Jane Curtain, and Kristen Johnston debuts on NBC
- 1997 After 5 days missing, Tony Bullimore rescued alive after his boat capsized in Southern Ocean
- 1997 Heart attacks sends singer Frank Sinatra back to hospital
Seven Gates of Jerusalem
1997 Krzysztof Penderecki's choral symphony "Seven Gates of Jerusalem" premieres in Jerusalem, Israel
- 1998 Anatoly Solovyov & Pavel Vinogradov spacewalk record 3 hrs 8 mins
- 1998 Boston Red Sox Mo Vaughn pleads not guilty to drunken driving
- 1998 Decapitated head of The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, Denmark, is returned
Gretsky Best Player Ever
1998 Hockey News selects Wayne Gretzky as the best NHL player ever
Marino's Last Game
2000 Miami Dolphin QB Dan Marino wins his last career NFL game (20-17 vs Seattle)
- 2001 American version of Belgian reality game show "The Mole" premieres on ABC-TV
- 2001 Apple announced iTunes at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, for organizing and playing digital music and videos
- 2001 Shenzhou 2, an unmanned Chinese spacecraft, is launched.
Fattouch Succeeds Arafat
2005 Elections are held to replace Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is succeeded by Rawhi Fattouh.
- 2005 The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, commonly known as the Naivasha Agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement rebel group in Naivasha, Kenya.
- 2006 "If You're Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)" single released by Rodney Atkins (Billboard Song of the Year 2006)
- 2012 "Time is Love" single released by Josh Turner (Billboard Song of the Year 2012)
2012 FIFA Ballon d'Or: Barcelona forward Lionel Messi wins award for a record 3rd consecutive year; Japanese midfielder Homare Sawa wins women's award
- 2014 Five people are killed at a Mitsubishi Materials chemical plant in Yokkaichi, Japan
- 2014 Taliban suicide car bomb assassinates senior police officer Chaudhry Aslam and kills three others in Pakistan, Pakistan
- 2014 Yaya Toure wins African Footballer of the Year
- 2018 Former White House strategist Steve Bannon leaves Breitbart News after his criticism of the White House in "Fire and the Fury" book
- 2018 Mudslides sweep away 100 houses in Montecito, California, killing at least 20, on land stripped bare by recent fires
- 2018 The first same-sex marriages take place in Australia after legislation passed a month earlier
End of El Salvador's Protected Status
2018 US President Trump cancels program allowing 200,000 Salvadorans 17-year temporary protected status to live in the US
- 2019 California's monarch butterfly count drops by 86% according to 2018 census
- 2019 Car manufacturer Hyundai unveils a model of a proposed walking car, for first responders, in Las Vegas
- 2019 US President Donald Trump makes Oval Office address live on TV over government shutdown and border wall
- 2021 China places two cities, Shijiazhuang and Xingtai, under lockdown after over 130 cases of COVID-19 reported
- 2021 Justin Thomas uses a homophobic slur during the third round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, leading to the end of sponsorships with Ralph Lauren and Woodford Reserve
- 2021 Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 crashes in the Java Sea just after take off from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 62 on board
- 2022 At least 200 people killed and 10,000 displaced by armed bandits in the northwestern Nigerian state of Zamfara, after military raids on their hideouts, amid a continuing struggle for order in the region [1]
- 2022 Dan Campbell finishes his first season as head coach of the Detroit Lions with a 3–13–1 record
- 2022 Fire in a Bronx, New York, residential high rise kills 17 and injures 63
- 2023 Intense storm hits Southern California, forcing evacuations in Montecito and Santa Barbara [1]
- 2024 2023 confirmed as the world's warmest year on record - 1.48°C warmer than the long-term average, driven by climate change and El Niño; surpassed in 2024 [1]
- 2024 Armed gunmen storm a Ecuador Television network in Guayaquil during a live broadcast, amid a state of emergency in the country after increasing attacks and abductions [1]
- 2024 Gabriel Attal named as France's youngest and first openly gay Prime Minister at 34, replacing Élisabeth Borne [1]
- 2024 St Paul, Minnesota becomes the first large US city to swear in an all-female city council, with six out of seven women of color and all under 40 years of age [1]
- 2025 $1 million prize offered for anyone who can decipher the script of the ancient Indus civilisation, by M.K. Stalin, chief minister of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu [1]
- 2025 Lebanon chooses a president - General Joseph Aoun, head of the army, at their 12th attempt at a vote since Michel Aoun's term ended on October 2022 [1]
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