- 871 Battle of Ashdown: Ethelred of Wessex and his brother Alfred (the Great) beat invading Danish army
- 1198 Lotario di Segni elected Pope Innocentius III
- 1214 Earl Ferrand of Flanders drops ties with France
- 1297 Monaco gains its independence.
- 1558 French troops under Duc de Guise occupy Calais
- 1598 Jews are expelled from Genoa, Italy
Historic Discovery
1610 Simon Marius. a German astronomer, independently discovers the first three moons of Jupiter one day after Galileo
Galileo Galilei
- 1656 Oldest surviving commercial newspaper begins (Haarlem, Netherlands)
- 1675 1st American commercial corporation chartered (NY Fishing Co)
- 1708 Spanish armada headed by the San Jose and loaded with gold sunk after British squadron attacks off coast of Colombia (rediscovered 2015)
- 1716 Dutch gang leader "Sjako" arrested
- 1745 Britain, Austria, Netherlands & Saxony sign anti-Prussian Quadruple Alliance
- 1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupy Stirling [NS=Jan 19]
- 1760 Comet C/1760 A1 (Great comet) approaches within 0.0682 AUs of Earth
Event of Interest
1790 1st US President George Washington delivers 1st state of the union address
George Washington
- 1798 11th Amendment ratified, judicial powers construed
- 1800 Austrians defeat French in Second Battle of Novi
- 1800 Wild Boy of Aveyron (approx.12) discovered in southern France after possibly 7 years in the wild, later christened Victor of Aveyron
- 1806 Battle of Blaauwberg: British forces attack French vassal, the Batavian Republic near Cape Town, modern day South Africa
- 1806 Lewis & Clark find skeleton of 105' blue whale in Oregon
- 1811 Louisiana slave revolt by Charles Deslondes at German Coast
- 1815 Battle of New Orleans (War of 1812); the war had ended on 24th December 1814 but none of the combatants knew
Event of Interest
1816 Sophie Germain is the first woman to win a prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her paper on elasticity
Sophie Germain
- 1835 US national debt is $0 for the first and only time in history
- 1838 Rebellion at Amherstburg, Ontario breaks out
- 1842 Dutch King Willem II charters Technical College Delft
- 1848 Austrian soldiers kill 10 students, Pavia
- 1853 1st US bronze equestrian statue (of Andrew Jackson) unveiled, Washington
- 1856 Dr John A Veatch discovers borax, Tuscan Springs, California
- 1857 Dion Boucicauly's "Poor of NY" premieres in NYC
- 1863 American Civil War: Second Battle of Springfield
Event of Interest
1867 African American men granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C. despite President Andrew Johnson's veto
Andrew Johnson
- 1870 US mint at Carson City, Nevada begins issuing coins
Battle of Interest
1877 Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).
Crazy Horse
Event of Interest
1878 Secret meeting of King Leopold II's agent & Henry Morton Stanley
Henry Morton Stanley
- 1884 Chrome tanning process for leather patented by Augustus Schultz
- 1889 Dr Herman Hollerith receives 1st US patent for a mechanical tabulating machine
- 1894 Columbus World's fair in Chicago destroyed by fire
- 1897 Michael Eagan wins 1st US national amateur handball championship
- 1901 New South Wales score 918 all out vs South Australia in 560 minutes
- 1902 1st National Bowling Championship held (Chicago, Illinois)
- 1902 The United Irish League, a leading force for unification in all Ireland and independence from Britain, holds its convention in Dublin
- 1904 Pope Pius X banned low cut dresses in the presence of churchmen
- 1906 A landslide in Haverstraw, New York, caused by the excavation of clay along the Hudson River, kills 20 people.
- 1912 Chiefs, representatives of people's and church organisations, and other prominent individuals form the African National Congress and declare its aim to bring all Africans together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms
- 1913 Frank Chance becomes Yankee manager
- 1916 WWI: ANZAC forces withdraw from the Gallipoli Peninsula after Ottoman forces successfully defend access to Constantinople
- 1917 Austria-Hungarian troops conquer Forlani Italy
- 1918 Mississippi becomes 1st state to ratify 18th amendment (prohibition of alcohol) of the US Constitution
Event of Interest
1918 US President Woodrow Wilson outlines his Fourteen Points for peace after the Great War
Woodrow Wilson
- 1929 1st telephone connection between Netherlands & West-Indies
- 1929 "Man with a Movie Camera", Soviet experimental documentary film directed by Dziga Vertov, is released
- 1932 Ratification of present SF City Charter
- 1934 Jaap Speyers "Bluejackets" premieres in Amsterdam
- 1935 Spectrophotometer patented, AC Hardy
- 1937 -50°F (-45.6°C), San Jacinto, Nevada (state record)
- 1940 Britain's 1st WW II rationing (bacon, butter & sugar)
- 1942 British Air Marshal Richard Peirse replaced as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Bomber Command
- 1945 "Youth for Christ" organizes
Event of Interest
1947 General George Marshall becomes US Secretary of State
George Marshall
- 1948 Queen Wilhelmina signs death sentence against Ans van Dijk for treason
- 1951 Thought extinct since 1615, a Cahow (the Bermuda petrel) is rediscovered in Bermuda
- 1952 Jordan adopts constitution
- 1953 Indians bar night games with Browns (who refuse to share TV receipts)
- 1953 René Mayer forms French government
- 1956 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Conrad Aiken
- 1956 Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
- 1958 Cuban revolutionary forces capture Havana
Event of Interest
1959 Charles de Gaulle inaugurated as president of France's 5th Republic
Charles de Gaulle
- 1961 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Yvor Winters
- 1961 The French vote for Algerian independence from French rule in the wake of seven years of guerrilla war
- 1962 Dutch express train crashes into slow commuter train, 93 die (Neth)
- 1963 "Mona Lisa", on loan, unveiled in America's National Gallery of Art
Event of Interest
1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson declares "War on Poverty"
Lyndon B. Johnson
Event of Interest
1966 Georges Pompidou re-appointed French Prime Minister and forms new government
Georges Pompidou
Event of Interest
1968 Jacques Cousteau's 1st undersea special on US network TV
Jacques Cousteau
- 1968 Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill travels to Dublin to meet with Irish Prime Minister Jack Lynch to continue discussions on matters of joint interest to the two governments
- 1971 29 pilot whales beach themselves & die at San Clemente Island, California
- 1971 Voyageurs National Park, Minn, established
- 1973 Greg Chappell's best Test bowling, 5-61 v Pakistan at SCG
- 1973 Secret peace talks between US & North Vietnam resumed near Paris
- 1973 USSR launches Luna 21 for Moon landing
- 1973 Judge Sirica begins the trial of the Watergate burglars in Washington, D.C.
- 1974 Gold hits record $126.50 an ounce in London
- 1974 Silver hits record $3.40 an ounce in New York
Event of Interest
1975 Judge John Sirica orders release of Watergate's John W. Dean III, Herbert W. Kalmbach and Jeb Stuart Magruder from prison
John Sirica
Election of Interest
1978 Harvey Milk becomes the 1st openly gay person elected to public office in California
Harvey Milk
- 1979 512 die as oil tanker Bantry Bay blows up
- 1979 Argentina & Chile sign Beagle Canal accord
- 1979 Today Show gets a new theme song
- 1979 Vietnamese troops overtook Khmer Rouge & occupy Phnom Penh
- 1981 India all out 63 in one-day international v Australia
- 1981 Reds become last team to sign a free agent (Larry Biitner)
Event of Interest
1981 Isabel Allende begins a letter to her dying grandfather that will become her first novel "The House of the Spirits"
Isabel Allende
- 1982 AT&T agrees to divest itself of 22 Bell System companies
- 1982 Johnny Cash Parkway opens in Hendersonville, Tennessee
- 1982 Justice Department withdraws antitrust suit against IBM, pending since
- 1984 Wash Caps Bengt Gustafsson scores 5 goals to beat Philadelphia 7-1
- 1985 Japan launches Sakigake space probe to Halley's Comet
- 1986 Willie McCovey is 16th elected to Hall of Fame in his 1st year
- 1987 Dow Jones closes above 2,000 for 1st time (2,002.25)
- 1988 Dow Jones down 140.58 points
Event of Interest
1988 Hewlett-Packard introduces HP-28S Advanced Scientific Calculator
Bill Hewlett
- 1988 US female Figure Skating championship won by Debi Thomas
- 1989 Boeing 737-400 crashes at Kegworth, England, 46 die
- 1989 Soviet Union promises to eliminate stockpiles of chemical weapons
- 1989 Beginning of Japanese Heisei era.
- 1991 Gaylord Perry, Ferguson Jenkins & Rod Carew elected to Hall of Fame
- 1991 Rod Carew is 22nd player elected to Hall of Fame on 1st try
Event of Interest
1992 George H. W. Bush gets ill & vomits on Japanese prime minister's lap
George H. W. Bush
Event of Interest
1998 Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski asks to act as his own lawyer
Ted Kaczynski
- 1998 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef sentenced to life
Event of Interest
1999 Tree planting protest against the privatisation of Karura Forest, including Wangari Maathai, attacked in Kenya prompting outrage
Wangari Maathai
- 2001 The identities of 2 boys who murdered a toddler in 1993 will be kept secret, the High Court rules
Event of Interest
2002 President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.
George W. Bush
- 2004 The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
- 2006 A magnitude 6.9 earthquake with its epicenter just off the Greek island of Kythira hits much of the country and is felt throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean Sea.
- 2008 New Jersey officially apologizes for slavery, becoming the first Northern state to do so.
- 2009 A 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit Costa Rica´s region of Volcan Poás, with an epicenter near Cinchona. It was caused by Varablanca-Angel fault.
- 2011 Attempted assassination of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona at a Safeway grocery store kills 6 and wounds 13, including Giffords
- 2013 130 wildfires across Australia’s east coast force thousands to evacuate their homes
- 2013 2,130 prisoners held by the Syrian government are exchanged for 48 Iranians kidnapped by Syrian rebels
El Chapo Finally Recaptured
2016 Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announces the recapture of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, six months after he escaped prison
More >>
- 2018 US record year for cost of natural disasters announced - $306 billion in 2017
- 2018 Self-declared republic of Somaliland passes its first ever law against rape
January in History
!['The Most Famous of All Streaks']()
'The Most Famous of All Streaks'
Erika Roe bounced into the history books on this day when, topless, she skipped onto the pitch at a rugby game to the roar of 60,000 cheering spectators.
January 2, 1982![A Crackdown on Lovers in New York]()
A Crackdown on Lovers in New York
New York wasn't always a free and easy city. Time was when not only adultery was a crime, but even looking at a lady in the wrong way could land a guy in trouble.
January 8, 1902![The Man Who Saved Elton John's Life]()
The Man Who Saved Elton John's Life
Long John Baldry was born on this day - a friend of stars from Rod Stewart to The Beatles and who, in 1969, famously took Elton John aside and saved the life.
January 12, 1941![British Museum Opens its Doors]()
British Museum Opens its Doors
The British Museum opened to visitors on January 15, 1759. Fearing damage to the collections by unruly hordes, nobody was admitted without a ticket.
January 15, 1759
