- 60 St Paul thought to have been shipwrecked at Malta
- 1098 Crusaders defeat Prince Redwan of Aleppo at Antioch
- 1355 The St. Scholastica's Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 62 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days
Prussian Homage
1525 Albert of Prussia pledges a personal oath to Sigismund I the Old and is invested with the duchy for himself and his heirs
- 1535 12 nude anabaptists run through Amsterdam streets
- 1549 Tomé de Sousa appointed as the 1st Governor-General of Brazil
- 1635 The Académie française forms in Paris (by Cardinal Richelieu)
- 1676 Wampanoag Indians under King Philip kill all men in Lancaster Mass
- 1713 Netherlands & Britain sign accord concerning anti-French Barrier [OS=Jan 31]
- 1716 Scottish pretender to the throne James III Edward returns to France
Astronomer Royal Edmond Halley
1720 Edmond Halley appointed as the second Astronomer Royal at the Greenwich Observatory
Pelham Brothers Resign
1746 The Pelham brothers resign from the British government, but resume office when King George II backs down.
Music Premiere
1794 Joseph Haydn's 99th Symphony in E premieres
Battle of Champaubert
1814 Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Champaubert, the French beat the Russians
Dictator Simón Bolívar
1824 Simón Bolívar named dictator by the Congress of Peru
- 1837 Russian poet Alexander Pushkin is fatally injured in a duel with French officer Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès (1/29 OS)
- 1842 Moreton Bay Penal Colony abolished and opened for free settlement (modern city of Brisbane, Australia) [1]
- 1846 Beginning of Mormon march to western US
- 1846 British defeat Sikhs in battle of Sobraon, India
- 1855 US citizenship laws amended; all children of US parents born abroad granted US citizenship
The Indian Mutiny
1859 General Horsford defeats Begum of Oude and Nana Sahib in Indian Mutiny
- 1860 Johannes Brahms' orchestral music piece "Serenade No. 2 in A" premieres in Hamburg
- 1862 Dutch 2nd government of Thorbecke forms
Lily of Killarney Premieres
1862 Julius Benedict and Dion Boucicault's opera "Lily of Killarney" premieres at Convent Garden in London
- 1863 1st US fire extinguisher patent granted to Alanson Crane of Virginia
- 1866 Dutch government of Frans van der Putte forms
- 1868 Conservatives & military seize Convention Hall in Florida
- 1870 City of Anaheim in California incorporates for the 1st time, but disincorporates after two years as the tax burden was too high
- 1870 The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) forms in NYC
- 1878 Pact of Zanjón signed between Cubans rebels and the Spanish bringing the 10 Years War to an end
- 1879 1st electric arc light used (California Theater)
Historic Expedition
1879 Henry Morton Stanley departs for the Congo
- 1881 Jacques Offenbach's opera "Les Contes d'Hoffman" premieres in Paris
- 1882 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "Snyegurochka" premieres in St Petersburg
- 1883 Fire at un-insured New Hall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, kills 71
- 1890 Around 11 million acres ceded to US by Sioux Indians, then opened for settlement
- 1897 NY Times begins using slogan "All the News That's Fit to Print"
- 1899 -39°F (-39°C), Milligan, Ohio (state lowest record temperature)
- 1900 Peter Ostlund skates world record 500m (45.2 sec)
- 1904 Japan and Russia declare war
- 1906 British battleship HMS Dreadnought launches after only 100 days, renders all other capital ships obsolete with its revolutionary design
- 1906 State of siege proclaimed in Zululand
Boxing Title Fight
1908 Canadian world heavyweight boxing champion Tommy Burns KOs Englishman Jack Palmer in round 4 in London in his 8th title defense
Gandhi's Passive Resistance
1914 In accordance with the understanding reached by General Jan Smuts and Mahatma Gandhi, 60 passive resistance prisoners are released from Pietermaritzburg Prison; 40 passive resisters released in Durban, 8 in Newcastle, 11 in Port Elizabeth
US Neutrality
1915 US President Woodrow Wilson protests to Britain on the use of US flags on British merchant ships to deceive the Germans
- 1915 US President Woodrow Wilson warns Germany that the US will hold it 'to a strict accountability' for 'property endangered or lives lost'
Biggest Oil Gusher Ever
1916 Biggest oil well gusher ever - Edward L. Doheny's Cerro Azul No. 4 first gushes 600 feet in the air near Tampico, Mexico
Russia Quits the War
1918 Leon Trotsky declares that Russia is leaving World War I
- 1920 Baseball outlaws all pitches involving tampering with ball
- 1920 Jozef Haller de Hallenburg performs symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea
- 1923 Ink paste manufactured for 1st time by Standard Ink Company
- 1923 Owen Davis' "Icebound" premieres in NYC
- 1923 SDAP speaks out against allied occupation of the Ruhr
- 1924 Bucky Harris at 27, becomes youngest baseball manager (Washington Senators)
- 1925 1st waterless gas storage tank put into service, Michigan City, Indiana
- 1925 AL decides to alternate leagues for game 1 of World Series each year
- 1926 Building of Olympic Stadium Amsterdam, begins
Conference of Interest
1927 US President Calvin Coolidge asks for 2nd disarmament conference
Music Premiere
1931 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's musical "America's Sweetheart" premieres on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre, NYC
German History
1933 Adolf Hitler proclaims end of Marxism
- 1933 Delivery of 1st singing telegram (Postal Telegram Co NYC)
- 1933 Dutch seaplane bombs Dutch ship
- 1933 Mutiny on "7 Provinces" ends (began Feb 4th), 23 killed
- 1934 1st Jewish immigrant ship to break the English blockade in Palestine
- 1934 Byrd souvenir sheet issued, NYC; 1st unperforated ungummed US stamp
Music History
1934 Howard Hanson's "Merry Mount" premieres in NYC
- 1938 King Carol II of Romania drives out dictator Goga
Stagecoach Premieres
1939 "Stagecoach" western film directed by John Ford, starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne, premieres in Miami
#1 in the Charts
1940 "In The Mood" by Glenn Miller hits #1
Film & TV History
1940 "Tom & Jerry" cartoon created by William Hanna & Joseph Barbera debut by MGM
- 1940 US female Figure Skating championship won by Joan Tozzer
- 1941 1st highway post office makes 1st trip, Washington, D.C. to Harrisonburg, Virginia
- 1941 Anti-Nazi "Het Parool" begins publishing in Netherlands
Historic Invention
1942 American chemist James Franklin Hyde is granted a patent for fused silica
1st Ever Gold Record
1942 Glenn Miller awarded 1st ever gold record for selling 1 million copies of "Chattanooga Choo Choo"
- 1943 "Manifesto of Algerian People" calls for equality & self-determination
- 1943 British 8th Army sweeps through North Africa to Tunisia
- 1943 Van der Veen Resistance starts fire in Amsterdam employment bureau
- 1944 Belgian resistance fighter and author Kamiel van Baelen arrested
- 1944 U-666/U-545/U-283 sink off Ireland
- 1945 "Rum and Coca-Cola" by the Andrews Sisters hits #1
Theater Premiere
1949 Arthur Miller's stage drama "Death of a Salesman", starring Lee J. Cobb and Arthur Kennedy, and directed by Elia Kazan, opens at Morosco Theatre, NYC; runs for 742 performances, winning 6 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize
- 1951 "John and Marsha" by Stan Freberg, a parody of daytime soap operas which had only two voices repeating each other's names, peaks at #21 in the USA
Election of Interest
1952 India holds its first general election: Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru remains in power
- 1953 Ice Dance Championship at Davos won by Westwood & Demmy GRB
- 1953 Ice Pairs Championship at Davos won by Jennifer & John Nicks of GRB
Sports History
1953 Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Davos won by Tenley Albright USA
- 1953 Men's Figure Skating Champion in Davos won by Hayes Alan Jenkins USA
Event of Interest
1954 President Dwight Eisenhower warns against US intervention in Vietnam
- 1954 World Figure Skating Championship at Oslo: Ice Dancing - won by Great Britain's team of Jean Westwood and Lawrence Demmy
- 1954 World Figure Skating Championship at Oslo: Pairs - won by Canadian team of Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden
- 1954 World Figure Skating Championship in Oslo: Ladies - won by West Germany's Gundi Busch
- 1954 World Figure Skating Championship in Oslo: Men - won by American Hayes Alan Jenkins
- 1955 The US Navy evacuate 1000s from Tachen Islands in the Pacific
- 1956 "My Friend Flicka" premieres on CBS (later NBC) TV
- 1959 Dutch Princess Wilhelmina publishes "Lonely, but not alone"
- 1959 Tornado in St Louis kills 19 & injures 265
- 1960 "Unsinkable Molly Brown" closes at Winter Garden NYC after 532 performances
- 1960 Charles Ives' "Lincoln, the Great Commoner" premieres
- 1961 AFL's LA Chargers move to San Diego
- 1961 Niagara Falls hydroelectric project begins producing power
Music Premiere
1961 Walter Piston's 7th Symphony, commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra premieres under direction of Eugene Ormandy; wins 1961 Pulitzer Prize
- 1962 Jim Beatty sets American indoor mile record (3:58.9) in LA
- 1962 USSR swaps spy Francis Gary Power to US for Rudolph Abel
- 1963 US female Figure Skating championship won by Lorraine Hanlon
- 1963 US male Figure Skating championship won by Thomas Litz
- 1964 Australian destroyer HMAS Voyager sinks after colliding with aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne, killing 82
- 1964 WBGU TV channel 27 in Bowling Green, OH (PBS) begins broadcasting
Historic Publication
1966 "Valley of the Dolls" by Jacqueline Susann is published by Bernard Geis Associates in the US - sold over 31 million copies
Olympic Gold
1968 American 2-time world champion Peggy Fleming comfortably wins Olympic women's figure skating gold medal at the Grenoble Winter Games
Sports History
1969 LSU Pete Maravich scores 66, despite losing to Tulane 101-94
- 1970 26.4 cm precipitation falls on Mount Washington NH (state record)
- 1970 Dry powder avalanche moving at 120 mph smashes into youth hostel at Val d'Isere, France, killing 40 Belgian, French, & German youths
Album Release
1971 A&M Records releases "Tapestry", the second album by singer-songwriter Carole King (wins 4 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year 1972); tops charts in 4 countries, goes on to sell over 30 million copies
- 1971 American Mensa Ltd incorporates in New York
- 1971 Bill White becomes 1st African American baseball announcer (NY Yankees)
- 1971 John Guares' stage comedy "House of Blue Leaves" opens at the Truck and Warehouse Theatre, NYC; runs for 337 performances
- 1972 BBC bans "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" by Wings
- 1972 Ras al Khaima joins United Arab Emirates
- 1972 Two British soldiers are killed in a land mine attack near Cullyhanna, County Armagh; an IRA member is shot dead during an exchange of gunfire with RUC officers
- 1972 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1973 2nd time Rangers shut-out Islanders 6-0
- 1973 83m wide gas tank on Staten Island explodes, 40 die
- 1973 Pakistani cricketer Mushtaq Mohammad scores 201 runs in a match against New Zealand
- 1974 "Gigi" closes at Uris Theater NYC after 103 performances
- 1974 Iran / Iraqi border fight breaks out
- 1974 Judy Ikenberry wins 1st Us women's marathon (2:55:17)
- 1974 Silver futures hit record $4.81½ an ounce in London
- 1975 The Provisional Irish Republican Army agrees to a truce and ceasefire with the British government and the Northern Ireland Office; Seven "incident centres" are established in nationalist areas to monitor the ceasefire
- 1975 William "Judy" Johnson selected to baseball Hall of Fame
- 1977 Bomb explosion in Moscow metro
- 1977 Jonathan Netanyahu Lane in the Bronx, New York, named in honor of the Bronx-born Israeli soldier who died freeing hostages in Entebbe Raid in Uganda in 1976
- 1977 Revival of musical revue "A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green" opens at Morosco Theatre, later transferring to the Little Theatre, NYC; runs for 92 performances
- 1978 Frank C. Carlucci succeeds John F. Blake as deputy director of CIA
- 1978 U.S. premiere of "Blue Collar", Paul Schrader's first film direction
#1 in the Charts
1979 "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" by Rod Stewart peaks at #1
Cricket History
1979 Allan Border is named 12th man for Australia, only Test Cricket he misses
- 1980 Ianford Wilsons "Talley's Folly" premieres in NYC
- 1981 33rd NHL All-Star Game, The Forum, Inglewood: Campbell Conference beats Wales Conference, 4-1; MVP: Mike Liut, St. Louis Blues, G
- 1981 8 killed & 198 injured by fire at Las Vegas Hilton
- 1981 Dennis Lillee becomes Australian Cricket's top wicket-taker with 249
- 1982 28 skiers perform backflips while holding hands, Bromont, Quebec
- 1983 Anglican synod vote 338-100 against unilateral UK nuclear disarmament
Olympic Gold
1984 Soviet cross-country skier Nikolay Zimyatov wins a career 4th Olympic gold medal when he takes out the 30k event in Sarajevo; 3 gold in Lake Placid 1980
- 1985 35th NBA All-Star Game, Hoosier Dome, Indianapolis: West beats East, 140-129; MVP: Ralph Sampson, Houston Rockets, C
- 1985 Andrea Schöne skates ladies world record 5 km (7:32.82)
- 1985 Challenger moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for mating of STS 51-E mission
- 1985 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
Album Release
1986 "John Lennon: Live in NYC" album is released posthumously
- 1987 Philippine troops murder 17 civilians in Lupao Massacre
- 1988 3-judge panel of 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco strikes down Army's ban on homosexuals (later overturned by appeal)
- 1988 Rocky Malebane-Metsing coup in Bophuthatswana fails
- 1989 39th Berlin International Film Festival: "Rain Man" wins the Golden Bear
Hall of Fame
1989 Celtic KC Jones & Cavalier Lenny Wilkens elected to NBA Hall of Fame
- 1989 Miami Vice's 100th episode seen on TV
- 1989 Minor League Football System opens organizational meeting, St Louis
- 1989 Ron Brown chosen 1st African American chairman of a major US party (Democrats)
- 1989 Test Cricket debut of Aaqib Javed, Pak v NZ age 16 years 189 days
- 1989 To gain deregulation WWF admits pro wrestling is an exhibition & not a sport, in a NJ court
- 1989 Tony Robinson of Jamaica becomes Nottingham's 1st black sheriff
- 1989 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1990 6th Largest wrestling crowd (63,900-Tokyo Dome)
- 1990 Perrier Water pulls product from shelf due to benzine in water
De Klerk Frees Mandela
1990 South African President F. W. de Klerk announces Nelson Mandela will be freed on February 11th
- 1990 US female Figure Skating championship won by Jill Trenary
- 1991 "La Bete" opens at Eugene O'Neill Theater NYC for 24 performances
NBA All-Star Game
1991 41st NBA All-Star Game, Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte, NC: East beats West, 116-114; Charles Barkley, Philadelphia 76ers, F
- 1991 Johann Koss skates world record 10 km (13:43.54)
- 1991 Lithuania votes for independence from USSR
- 1992 "Dangerous Women" final episode on WWOR-TV
Olympic Gold
1992 Bonnie Blair wins 1992 Olympics 1st gold medal for USA
Trial of Interest
1992 Mike Tyson convicted of raping Desiree Washington in Indiana
Michael Jackson Talks to Oprah
1993 "Michael Jackson Talks To Oprah Winfrey" airs on ABC & drew an astounding 39.3 rating/56 share, 90 million people
- 1993 Jani Sievinen swims world record 200m backstroke (1:55.59)
- 1993 US officially backs peace plan in Bosnia
