On This Day In History January 1 - 31 (ancient, war, Romans)

[Da Grouch]

January 1


(A rather busy day...)

~45 BC – The Julian Calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, came into effect for the first time.

~404 - The last gladiator competition took place in Rome.

~1001 – Grand Prince Stephen I of Hungary is named the first King of Hungary by Pope Silvester II. (Some sources indicate that this took place on Christmas Day 1000.)

~1259 – Michael VIII Palaiologos was proclaimed co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea along with his ward John IV Laskaris.

~1438 – Albert II of Habsburg was crowned King of Hungary.

~1515 - Died this day: "The Father of the People", King Louis XII of France.

~1515 – King Francis I of France ascended the French throne.

~1600 – Scotland changed its numbered year to begin on January 1st from the previous date of March 25th.

~1651 – After being proclaimed king on January 30th, 1649, Charles II was finally crowned King of Scotland.

~1707 – John V was acclaimed King of Portugal.

~1739 – The most remote island in the world, Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic, was discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier. (Actually it was discovered by one of his drunken seamen who was up in the crowsnest sleeping off a New Year's Eve hangover: "Hey Jean-boy...Ah tinks ahz sees sumptin ober dere wutz youze otta tayke a lookat...!")

~1772 – The first traveler's cheques, which could be used in 90 European cities, went on sale in London. (And you didn't even need 2 pieces of ID, 1 with picture, to cash them!)

~1781 – 1,500 soldiers of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment under General Anthony Wayne's command rebelled against the Continental Army's winter camp in Morristown, New Jersey as part of the Continentals Mutiny of 1781.

~1788 – The first edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register, was published.

~1801 – With its charter expiring the previous day, the bankrupt Dutch East India Company was dissolved.

~1801 – The legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland was completed to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

~1801 – The dwarf planet Ceres was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi.

~1803 – Emperor Gia Long ordered all bronze wares of the Tây Sơn Dynasty to be collected and melted into 9 cannons for the Royal Citadel in Huế, Vietnam.

~1804 – French rule ended in Haiti making the nation the first black republic and second independent country on the American Continent after the U.S.

~1853 - The first practical (horse-drawn) fire engine in the US entered service.

~1861 – The Liberalist army of Porfirio Díaz defeated the forces of the Conservatives and conquered Mexico City.

~1863 – The Emancipation Proclamation took effect in Confederate territory.

~1863 – The first claim under the Homestead Act was made by Daniel Freeman for a farm in Nebraska.

~1876 – In Berlin the Reichsbank opened its doors for business.

A 100 Goldmark banknote issued by the German Reichsbank in 1908

Image courtesy www.GermanNotes.com


~1877 – Britain's Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.

~1890 – Eritrea was consolidated into a colony by the Italian government.

~1892 – In New York Harbor, Ellis Island opened to begin the processing of what would amount to more than 20 million immigrants to the United States. The immigration center was also used as a deportation station and a Coast Guard Station. It is now a national park and museum.

Ellis Island Immigrant Landing Station (taken on February 24th, 1905)

Photo by A. Coeffler, courtesy the Library of Congress


~1894 – In England, the Manchester Ship Canal was officially opened to traffic.

A cargo ship heading west out of Irlam locks towards the Mersey and Irish Sea on September 26th, 2005


Photo by Keith Williamson


~1898 – New York City annexed land from surrounding counties creating the City of Greater New York. The 4 initial boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, were joined on January 25th by Staten Island to create the modern city of 5 boroughs.

~1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia federated as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton was appointed the first Prime Minister.

~1902 – The first American college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, was held in Pasadena.

~1909 – Drilling began on what would become the Lakeview Gusher.

~1910 – Captain David Beatty is promoted to Rear Admiral, and becomes the youngest admiral in the Royal Navy (except for Royal family members), since Horatio Nelson.

~1911 – The Northern Territory was separated from South Australia and transferred to Commonwealth control. (The Auzzies were NOT impressed!)

~1912 – The Republic of China was established.

~1916 – In West Africa, German troops abandoned Yaoundé and their Kamerun colony to British forces and began their long march to Spanish Guinea.

~1919 – Edsel Ford succeeded his father, Henry Ford, as president of the Ford Motor Company.

~1925 – Astronomer Edwin Hubble announced his discovery of galaxies outside of the Milky Way.

~1928 – Boris Bazhanov defected through Iran. He was the only assistant of Joseph Stalin's secretariat to defect from the Eastern Bloc. Stalin's subsequent attempts to hunt down and kill Bazhanov in France failed.

~1929 – The former municipalities of Point Grey and South Vancouver (Marpole) were amalgamated into the City of Vancouver.

~1932 – The US Post Office Department issued a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth. The stamps were first offered at the post office in Washington, D.C.

~1934 – Alcatraz (Island), in San Francisco Bay, opened as a United States federal prison.

Alcatraz as seen from Treasure Island on the morning of January 7th, 2005
Photo by Ben Peoples


~1934 – The "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" came into effect in Nazi Germany. The most infamous sterilization program of the 20th century it was signed into law by Hitler himself in July, 1933, over 200 eugenic courts were created specifically as a result of the law. Under the law, all doctors in the Reich were required to report patients of theirs who were mentally retarded, mentally ill (including schizophrenia and manic depression), epileptic, blind, deaf, or physically deformed, and a steep monetary penalty was imposed for any patients who were not properly reported. As per the statute, individuals suffering from alcoholism or Huntington's Disease could also be sterilized.

~1937 – Safety glass in vehicle windshields became mandatory in Great Britain.

~1939 – William Hewlett and David Packard founded Hewlett-Packard. (Unanimous agreement on 1939 but January 1st date disputed by 3 out of 7 sources.)

~1939 – Sydney, Australia, baked in a 45 ˚C (113 ˚F) heat, a record for the city. (Don't go to Phoenix, Az. in June, guys...)

~1942 – The Declaration by the United Nations was signed by 26 nations. The signing parties pledged to uphold the Atlantic Charter, to employ all their resources in the war against the Axis powers, and that none of the signatory nations would seek to negotiate a separate peace with Nazi Germany or Japan in the same manner that the nations of the Triple Entente had agreed not to negotiate a separate peace with any or all of the Central Powers in World War I under the Unity Pact.

1943 poster created during the Second World War, according to the
Declaration of the United Nations of 1942

Original work created by the US Office of War Information


~1945 – The Battle of the Bulge: In retaliation for the Malmedy Massacre, U.S. troops massacred 60 German POWs at Chenogne. (Oh well HEY! That showed them how we were so much better than they were, didn't it!)

~1945 – The German Luftwaffe launched Unternehmen Bodenplatte, a massive but failed attempt to knock out Allied air power in northern Europe in a single blow.

~1947 – The American and British occupation zones in Germany after World War II merged to form the Bizone, in order to advance the development of a new political order in Western Germany. This would later become the Federal Republic of Germany.

~1948 – The British railway network was nationalised to form British Railways.

~1949 – A United Nations brokered cease fire took effect in Kashmir (from one minute before midnight on December 31st). With this, the war between India and Pakistan was effectively ended.

~1953 - Died this day: Country singer Hank Williams, of a heart attack at the age of 29. He made his first record in 1946 and scored 36 top 10 US country hits. His best known being Your Cheatin' Heart. Williams was on his way to a concert engagement in Canton, Ohio, when he quietly died of a heart attack while riding in the back seat of a Cadillac.

~1954 – NBC made the first coast to coast NTSC color broadcast when it telecast the Tournament of Roses Parade, with public demonstrations given across the United States on prototype color receivers.

~1956 – The Republic of the Sudan achieved its independence from the Egyptian Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

~1956 – A New Year's event gone wrong caused a panic and a stampede at the Yahiko Shrine in Yahiko, central Niigata, Japan, killing at least 124 people.

Yahiko Shrine beneath Yahiko Mountain

Photo by Kichiverde


~1957 – An Irish Republican Army (IRA) unit attacked the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) barracks at Brookeborough in one of the most famous incidents of the IRA's Operation Harvest.

~1959 – Cuban President Fulgencio Batista fled to the Dominican Republic as forces under Fidel Castro took control of Havana, marking the end of the Cuban Revolution. (A classic case of one dink replacing another.)

~1960 – The Republic of Cameroon achieved its independence from France and Great Britain.

~1962 – Western Samoa achieved its independence from New Zealand; its name was then changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa.

~1962 – The United States Navy SEALs were established.

~1964 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland ceased to exist and was divided into the independent republics of Zambia and Malawi, and the British controlled Rhodesia.

~1966 – The 12 day long New York City Transit Strike began. An injunction issued against the strike the same day it started was ignored by the union and resulted in the arrest of 9 union leaders including the fiery Mike Quill. Quill was obviously in poor health, but immediately before his arrest he told reporters at the Americana Hotel, "The judge can drop dead in his black robes. I don't care if I rot in jail. I will not call off the strike."

~1966 – After a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa assumed power as president of the Central African Republic.

~1971 – Cigarette advertisements, due to be banned on television and radio the following day came to an end. A Virginia Slims brand ad was the last commercial shown, with "a 60 second revue from flapper to Female Lib", shown at 11:59 p.m. during a break on NBC's The Tonight Show.

~1973 – Denmark, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland were admitted into the European Community.

~1978 – Off the coast of Bombay, Air India Flt. 855, a Boeing 747, crashed into the sea, due to instrument failure and pilot disorientation. 213 died in the accident.

~1979 – Formal diplomatic relations were established between the People's Republic of China and the United States of America.

~1983 – The ARPANET changed to using the Internet Protocol, becoming a component of the fledgling Internet.

~1984 – The Sultanate of Brunei became independent of Great Britain.

~1985 – The Internet's Domain Name System was created.

~1986 – Aruba became independent of Curaçao, though it remains in free association with the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

~1988 – The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America came into existence, creating the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.

~1989 – The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer came into force.

~1993 – The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovakia was divided into the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic.

~1994 – The Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiated 12 days of armed conflict in the Mexican State of Chiapas.

~1994 – Both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Economic Area came into effect on the same day.

~1995 – The World Trade Organization went into effect replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

~1995 – The Draupner Wave in the North Sea in Norway was detected, a freak wave with a maximum wave height of 25.6 metres (84 ft), it confirmed the existence of rogue waves.

~1997 – The Republic of Zaïre officially joined the World Trade Organization, as Zaïre. (Proof positive that the WTO will let ANY primates into their organization!)

~1998 – Russia began to circulate new rubles in an attempt to stem inflation and promote confidence in the economy. (To date the effort still hasn't been a stellar success.)

~1999 – The Euro currency was introduced in 11 countries.

~2002 – Taiwan officially joined the World Trade Organization, as Chinese Taipei. (Hey! A member that actually has some cash!)

~2002 – The Open Skies mutual surveillance treaty, initially signed in 1992, officially came into force. (Hey boys and girls, can you say "Give up a huge chunk of your national sovereignty for no damned good reason"?)

~2004 – In a vote of confidence, General Pervez Musharraf won 658 out of 1,170 votes in the Electoral College of Pakistan, and according to Article 41(8) of the Constitution of Pakistan, was "deemed to be elected" to the office of President until October 2007.

~2006 – Sydney, Australia sweltered through the 2nd "Hottest New Years Day on Record". The thermometer peaked at 45 degrees celsius, sparking bushfires and power outages. (Ooh! a replay of 1939!)

~2007 – Adam Air Flt. 574, a Boeing 737, disappeared over Indonesia with 102 people on board. The plane was ultimately determined to have crashed into the ocean, from which some smaller pieces of wreckage were recovered.

~2009 – The Santika Club Fire: In Bangkok, Thailand 66 people died and another 222 were injured when the nightclub went up in flames.

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[Da Grouch]

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~366 - The Alamanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Gallic provinces of the Roman Empire, only to be defeated by the forces of Valentinian at the Battle of Solicinium in 367.

~533 – Mercurius became Pope John II. He was the first pope to adopt a new name upon elevation to the papacy.

~1492 – Reconquista: Muhammad XII, the emirate of Granada (the last Moorish stronghold in Spain) surrendered to the Spanish.

Muhammad XII (Boabdil) confronts Ferdinand and Isabella.

Painting by Francisco Pradilla Ortiz (1882)


~1777 – American forces under the command of George Washington repulsed three British attacks at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.

~1788 – Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution.

~1791 – The Big Bottom Massacre in the Ohio Country occurred. The Indian attack marked the beginning of the Northwest Indian War.

~1815 - Lord Byron's short-lived (1 year 14 days) marriage to Anna Isabella Milbanke took place at Seaham in County Durham. (One of the coolest little seaside towns in the British Isles.)

Portrait of Anne Isabella Milbanke (1792-1860)

Painting by Sir George Hayter (c. 1812),
courtesy the National Portrait Gallery


~1818 – Britain's Institution of Civil Engineers was founded at the Kendal Coffee House on Fleet Street, London. (And speaking from personal experience I can assure you all that it is a fine institution to be a member of.)

~1859 - Erastus Beadle published The Dime Book of Practical Etiquette. (Being a guide to true gentility and good-breeding, and a complete directory to the usages and observances of society...)

~1860 – The discovery of the planet Vulcan was announced at a meeting of the Académie des Sciences in Paris. Vulcan was later proven to be non-existent.

~1882 - John D. Rockefeller united his oil holdings into the Standard Oil Trust.

~1900 – US Secretary of State John Hay announced the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China. (2 out of 6 sources dispute this date.)

~1905 – With the Russian fleet lying wrecked in the harbor, the defending garrison at Port Arthur, China surrendered to the surprised Japanese.

~1917 - The Royal Bank of Canada took contrtol over Quebec Bank.

~1920 – The second Palmer Raid took place with another 6,000 suspected communists and anarchists arrested and held without trial. The raids, named for United States Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer under Woodrow Wilson, took place in several U.S. cities. (So much for the rights of those US citizens...)

~1935 – In New Jersey, Bruno Hauptmann went on trial for the murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr., the 20 month old infant son of famed aviators Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

~1941 – During the Cardiff Blitz, Luftwaffe bombing severely damaged the Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales.

~1942 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtained convictions on 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in US history, they were known as the Duquesne Spy Ring.

~1942 – Imperial Japanese forces marched into the (open) City of Manila.

~1945 – Nuremberg was severely bombed by the RAF and USAAF. The city's medieval centre was systematically bombed and about 90% of it was destroyed in less than one hour, with only the Old Fortifications escaping destruction. Over 1,800 residents killed and roughly 100,000 more were displaced.

Old fortifications of Nuremberg

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons


~1949 – Luis Muñoz Marín became the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.

~1955 – Panamanian president Jose Antonio Remon was murdered, by machinegun fire, at a Panama City racetrack.

~1959 – Luna 1 was launched by the U.S.S.R. It was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon. It is presently in orbit of the Sun between Earth ands Mars.

A full scale model of Luna 1 on display at
Moskva Kosmicheskaya
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b3/Luna_1.jpg (broken link)
Photo courtesy of Alexander Chernov,
the Virtual Space Museum and NASA

~1971 – The (second) Ibrox Disaster: A stairway crush killed 66 fans and injured over 200 more at a Rangers-Celtic football match in Glasgow.

~1974 – US President Richard Nixon signed a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during the Arab Oil Embargo.

~1981 - Police in South Yorkshire, England arrested a man who was in the company of a known prostitute, on the grounds of having fitted his car with false number (license) plates. During questioning they discovered that they had in fact apprehended the Yorkshire Ripper.

~1999 – The Blizzard of '99: A fierce snowstorm smashed into the Midwestern United States, dumping 14 inches (359 mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 19 inches (487 mm) of snow were recorded in Chicago where temperatures plunged to -13°F (-25°C). 68 deaths were attributed to the storm.

~2004 – NASA's spacecraft Stardust successfully flew past Comet Wild 2, taking photos and collecting particle samples that were returned to Earth on January 15th, 2006.

Photo of Wild 2's icy nucleus taken by Stardust on January 2nd, 2004

Photo courtesy of NASA


CG: Stardust approaching Wild 2

Image courtesy NASA

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[Da Grouch]

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~236 - Pope Anterus died. He was succeeded by Pope Fabian.

~1496 – Leonardo da Vinci tested a flying machine of his own design. (Unlike with many of his other ideas...things didn't go too well for old Leo that day.)

Model of a flying machine by Leonardo in the Victoria and Albert Museum (2006)

Photo by T Taylor


~1521 – Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem (It Pleases the Roman Pontiff) which excommunicated Martin Luther.

~1749 – Benning Wentworth issued the first of the New Hampshire Grants. The first grant was for Bennington, a township west of the Connecticut River. These grants eventually led to the establishment of Vermont.

~1777 – The American army led by general George Washington defeated British forces under general Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.

General Washington rallying his troops at the Battle of Princeton
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f6/Princetonwashington.jpg (broken link)
Painting by William T. Ranney (1848)


~1815 – Austria, the United Kingdom, and France signed a secret defensive alliance treaty against Prussia and Russia. (Good thing the Prussians didn't find out about that before Waterloo!)

~1823 – Stephen F. Austin, the Father of Texas, received a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico. Austin had traveled to Mexico City and managed to persuade the junta instituyente to authorize the grant to his father.

~1833 - 300 miles off the coast of Argentina, British rule was re-established on the Falkland Islands.

~1848 – American born Joseph Jenkins Roberts was sworn in as the first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia.

~1861 – During the American Civil War, Delaware voted not to secede from the United States. As the governor said, Delaware had been the first state to embrace the Union by ratifying the Constitution and would be the last to leave it.

~1870 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began in New York.

The Brooklyn Bridge in 1896

Photo by Geo. P. Hall & Son, courtesy the
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division


~1888 – The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 57 ft long and 3ft (91 cm) in diameter, saw its first use. It was the largest telescope in the world at that time.

The Great Lick 36 inch refractor, in an 1889 engraving
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/90/Lick_Telescope_1889.jpg (broken link)
Image courtesy the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division


~1888 - Marvin C. Stone of Washington, DC invented the drinking straw.

~1892 - Born this day: The great British writer J. R. R. Tolkien (d. 1973).

~1921 – Turkey made peace with Armenia. (Kinda sorta...)

~1921 - Italy halted the issuing of passports to those wishing to emigrate to the United States. (Didn't stop 'em from leaving though, they just lied from then on.)

~1925 – Benito Mussolini announced that he was assuming dictatorial powers over Italy.

~1932 – Martial law was declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers that had been fired by United Fruit.

~1933 – Minnie D. Craig made history when she became the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives and the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States. (Atta girl, Minnie!)

~1938 – The March of Dimes was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to fight poliomyelitis (Roosevelt himself was afflicted with polio). The organization was originally called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (as the disease was commonly known).
The March of Dimes accomplished its mission within 20 years. Research led by Dr. Jonas Salk and supported by funds (those marching little dimes) raised annually by thousands of volunteers, resulted in the announcement in April 1955 that the Salk Polio Vaccine was “safe, potent and effective”. The foundation also supported the research that led to the Sabin Oral Vaccine; another safe, effective polio preventative discovered by Dr. Albert B. Sabin.

~1944 – In the South Pacific, top US ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington was shot down in his F4U Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Mitsubishi A6M Zero. (Boyington was a drunk who was over-rated in the TV show.)

~1945 – After being appointed Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy on December 15th, 1944 Chester W Nimitz assumed command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Japan.

~1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress were televised for the first time.

~1953 – Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, became the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.

~1956 – The top of the Eiffel Tower was damaged by fire.

~1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduced the first electric watch.

~1958 – In the Caribbean, the short lived West Indies Federation was formed.

~1959 – US President Eisenhower signed a special proclamation admitting the territory of Alaska into the Union as the 49th (and largest) state.

~1961 – The United States severed diplomatic ties with Cuba after Fidel Castro announced he was a communist.

~1961 – The SL-1, a government run reactor near Idaho Falls, Idaho, underwent a steam explosion and meltdown that killed 3 people present at the time. To date, this event is the only fatal reactor accident in the US. (An valid argument against that claim could be made with regards to the 3 Mile Island incident.)

~1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro on the basis of Pope Pius XII's Decree against Communism, a 1949 decree forbidding Catholics from supporting communist governments.

~1977 – Apple Computer was incorporated.

~1980 - Alfred Hitchcock was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

~1988 – Margaret Thatcher became the longest serving British Prime Minister of the 20th Century.

~1990 - In Panama, deposed leader Manuel Antonio Noriega surrendered to US authorities after spending 10 days under siege in the Vatican embassy following the US invasion. He was quickly shipped off to Florida to face charges of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering.

~1993 – US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), in Moscow.

~1994 – An Aeroflot Tupolev TU-154 crashed and exploded just after takeoff from Irkutsk, Russia, killing 125 people including one on the ground.

~1994 – More than 7 million people from the former Apartheid Homelands, received South African citizenship.

~1999 – NASA launched the Mars Polar Lander. (The Russian built craft would go on to die a dog's death while landing upon the Red Planet on December 3rd, 1999.)

In the Spacecraft Assembly and Encapsulation Facility-2 (SAEF-2), a KSC technician looks over the Mars Polar Lander before its encapsulation inside the backshell, a protective cover on October 29th, 1998.

Photo courtesy NASA


~1999 – Israel detained and later expelled 14 members of Concerned Christians as part of an Israeli effort to protect the Al-Aqsa mosque from extremist Christian groups, codenamed "Operation Walk on Water".

~2004 – Flt. 604, a Boeing 737 owned by Egypt's Flash Airlines, plunged into the Red Sea, killing all 148 people on board.

~2007 – In London, National Express had its worst ever coach crash just outside Heathrow Airport.

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[Da Grouch]

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~46 BC – Despite incurring tremendous losses the forces of Julius Caesar defeated the much larger army of Titus Labienus at the Battle of Ruspina.

~871 – At the Battle of Reading, the West Saxon army under King Ethelred of Wessex and his brother, Alfred the Great were defeated by an invading force of Vikings. The Saxons would get their revenge 4 days later at Ashdown.

~1493 – Christopher Columbus set sail from the New World, returning to Spain on his first journey.

~1642 – King Charles I of England sent soldiers to arrest 5 members of Parliament who had already slipped away, commencing England's slide into civil war.

~1643 - Born this day: Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is generally considered as one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be amongst the most influential of books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the 3 laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next 3 centuries.

1689 portrait of Isaac Newton

Painted by Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723)


~1698 – In London, most of the Palace of Whitehall was destroyed by fire. It was the main residence of the English monarchs.

The Old Palace of Whitehall

Painted by Hendrick Danckerts (c. 1675)


~1717 – The Netherlands, Great Britain, and France signed the Triple Alliance in an attempt to stem Spain's emerging military power. (Only 2 of 6 sources give an actual date of Jan 4th for this.)

~1762 – Great Britain declared war on Spain and Naples. (Kinda saw that one coming then, didn't we?)

~1809 - Born this day: Louis Braille, the inventor of braille, a worldwide system used by blind and visually impaired people for reading and writing. Braille is read by passing the fingers over characters made up of an arrangement of one to six embossed points. It has been adapted to almost every known language.

~1821 Died this day: (Saint) Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American born saint.

~1854 – The McDonald Islands, located 1000 miles from Antarctica, were discovered by Captain William McDonald and his crew aboard the Samarang.

~1865 – The New York Stock Exchange opened its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad Street in New York City.

~1878 – Sofia, Bulgaria was emancipated from Ottoman rule when it was taken by Russian forces during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78).

~1885 – Dr. William West Grant performed the first successful appendectomy on 22 year old Mary Gartside.

~1896 – Utah was admitted as the 45th state of the Union.

~1903 – Thomas Edison executed Topsy the elephant by means of electrocution because she had killed 3 men in as many years. To reinforce the execution, Topsy was fed carrots laced with 460 grams of potassium cyanide before the deadly current from a 6,600-volt AC source was sent coursing through her body. She was dead in seconds.

~1912 – The Scout Association was incorporated throughout the British Commonwealth by Royal Charter.

Scouting certificate from December 3rd, 1914
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Scout-card-front.jpg (broken link)
Designed by Mullock & Sons, artwork by Robert Baden-Powell

~1944 – Operation Carpetbagger: The USAAF began the dropping of arms and supplies from modified B-24 bombers to resistance fighters in France, Italy and the Low Countries.

~1948 – Burma regained its independence from Britain. (Now THERE is a place that's gone to hell in a handbasket!)

~1951 – Chinese and North Korean troops captured Seoul from the forces of UN Command.

~1958 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 burned up as it fell from orbit upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere, after travelling about 60 million km (37 million miles) and spending 3 months in orbit.

~1962 – New York City Transit introduced a train that operated without a crew onboard. (Unlike Vancouver, BC's ultra-successful SkyTrain that opened in late 1985, this effort proved to be a failure.)

~1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed his "Great Society" during the State of the Union Address.

~1967 – British car and motorboat racer Donald Campbell was killed on Coniston Water when Bluebird K7 flipped and disintegrated at a speed in excess of 300 mph (480 km/h) while attempting to break the world water speed record.

Replica of the Campbell Bluebird K7

Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)


~1972 – Rose Heilbron became the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London.

~1974 – US President Richard Nixon refused to hand over materials subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee. (At the same time he assured us all that he was not a crook!)

~1987 – The Chase, Maryland Rail Wreck: An Amtrak train en route to Boston, Massachusetts from Washington, D.C., collided with a pair of Conrail engines in Chase, Maryland while travelling at well over 100 m.p.h. 16 people were killed.

~1989 – The Second Gulf of Sidra Incident: a pair of Libyan MiG-23 "Floggers" were shot down by 2 US Navy F-14 Tomcats during an air to air confrontation. (Going up against Tomcats in Mig-23's...a quick means of getting a one-way trip to the hereafter.)

~1998 – Wilaya of Relizane Massacres in Algeria: In yet another massacre over 170 people were killed in 3 remote villages by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).

~1998 – The Great Ice Storm of 1998: A massive ice storm struck eastern Canada and the northeastern United States. Continuing through until January 10, it caused massive damage to trees and electrical infrastructure all over the area, leading to widespread long term power outages. Millions were left in the dark for periods varying from days to weeks resulting in more than 30 fatalities, a shut down of activities in large cities like Montreal and Ottawa, and an unprecedented effort in reconstruction of the power grid.

The Ice Storm of '98 - Tree damage and thick ice on electrical wires
January 8th, 1998

Photo by J. Jensenius, courtesy NOAA


~1999 – Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura took office as the governor of Minnesota. (Only in America...)

~1999 – Gunmen opened fire on Shiite Muslims worshipping in an Islamabad mosque, killing 16 people and wounding another 25.

~2004 – Spirit, a NASA Mars Rover, landed successfully on Mars on 04:35 Ground UTC, 3 weeks before its twin Opportunity (MER-B) landed on the other side of the planet. Its name was chosen through a NASA sponsored student essay competition.

Main Apollo Hills on Mars from the Spirit landing site

Photo courtesy NASA


~2006 – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel suffered a second, much more serious stroke that left him in a persistent coma. His authority was transferred to acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

~2007 – The 110th United States Congress convened, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history. (Good on you, Nancy...even if you are a political nutbag.)

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[Da Grouch]

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~1355 – Charles I of Bohemia received the Lombard Crown in St. Ambrose Basilica, Milan becoming King of Italy.

~1463 - The French poet François Villon (also thief, and vagabond) was arrested, tortured and condemned to be hanged but the sentence was later commuted to banishment by the Parlement. (OOH! Banned from France...and here he thought they were going to punish him!)

~1477 – The Battle of Nancy: The final and decisive battle of the Burgundian Wars it was fought outside the walls of Nancy between the forces of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and René, Duke of Lorraine. René's forces won the battle and Charles' mutilated body was found 3 days later. Following the battle Burgundy became a part of France.

~1527 – Felix Manz, a leader of the Anabaptist congregation in Zürich, was executed by drowning.

~1554 – More than 3/4 of Eindhoven in the Netherlands was lost when the city was ravaged by fire.

~1675 – The Battle of Colmar: French forces led by the Vicomte of Turenne defeated the Brandenburgian and Austrian armies commanded by Frederick William.

~1757 – Louis XV of France survived an assassination attempt by Robert–François Damiens sustaining only a minor stab wound. Damiens wasn't quite so lucky, he was the last person to be executed in France by drawing and quartering.

~1781 – Richmond, Virginia, was burned by forces of the British Navy led by Benedict Arnold.

~1846 – The United States House of Representatives voted to end the sharing agreement of the Oregon Territory with the Britain.

~1854 – The steamship San Francisco foundered and sank. Over 300 people died in the mishap. (300 people die in a major maritime disater off the US coast and there is virtually NO information to be found about the event!)

~1895 - The Dreyfus Affair: Wrongfully convicted as a traitor, French officer Alfred Dreyfus was stripped of his rank before being sent to Devil's Island to serve a life sentence. The military degradation took place on the Champ de Mars. 2 years later, when evidence surfaced that indicated his innocence, it was suppressed by high ranking military officials. (Justice; just something else the French can’t get right.)

Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Alfred-Dreyfus.jpg (broken link)
Photographer unknown


~1912 – The Prague Party Conference, a conference of Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party took place.

~1914 – The Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from 9 hours to 8, moves that were not popular with rival companies.

~1919 – In Munich, Anton Drexler, together with Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart and Karl Harrer, and 20 workers from Munich's railway shops along with some others met to discuss the creation of a new political party based on the political principles which Drexler endorsed. This would eventually go on to become the Nazi party.

~1925 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming became the first female governor in the United States.

~1933 – Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began in San Francisco. The project was to cost more than $35 million. (We're talking REAL MONEY here at the height of the Great Depression.)

The Golden Gate Bridge

Photo by Aaron Logan, taken on December 29th, 2003


~1961 – A talking horse took to the airwaves as Mr. Ed debuted on the small screen.

~1968 – Alexander Dubček comes to power and the Prague Spring began in Czechoslovakia.

~1969 – Members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary damaged property and assaulted occupants in the Bogside in Derry, Northern Ireland. In response, residents erected barricades and established Free Derry.

"Free Derry Corner" in 2005

Photo by Zubro


~1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered the development of a space shuttle program.

~1973 - The Netherlands recognized East Germany. (Up to that point they weren’t sure if they’d ever seen East Germany before...)

~1974 – The warmest reliably measured temperature in Antarctica of +59°F (+15°C) was recorded at Vanda Station.

~1975 – The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, was struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra. The impact caused 2 pylons and 3 sections of concrete decking, totaling 127 metres (417 ft), to fall from the bridge and sink the ship. 7 of the ship's crewmen were killed, and 5 motorists died when 4 cars drove over the collapsed sections before the traffic was stopped.

~1980 - Hewlett-Packard announced the release of its first personal computer. (It had been held captive in a cage before this...)

~1993 – The oil tanker MV Braer ran aground on the coast of the Shetland Islands, spilling 84,700 tons of crude oil.

~1993 – Washington state executed a convicted serial killer, child molester and paedophile by hanging. This was the last legal hanging in America (to date).

~1996 – Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash "the Engineer" was killed by an Israeli planted booby trapped cell phone. A master of disguise, Ayyash was the most wanted man in Israel for 3 years, and the target of a massive manhunt.

~2002 – 15 year old student pilot Charles Bishop committed suicide by crashing a Cessna 172 into the 28th floor of the Bank of America Tower in Tampa, Florida evoking fear of a copycat 9/11 terrorist attack. A note written by Bishop was found in the wreckage and expressed his support for Osama bin Laden and the September 11th attacks.

Cessna 172

Photo by P. Alejandro Díaz


~2003 – In London, police arrested 7 suspects in connection with the Wood Green Ricin Plot.

~2005 – Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, was discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory.

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[Da Grouch]

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~1066 - Died this day: Edward the Confessor, King of England and usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex.

~1066 – Upon the death of Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson was chosen by the Witenagemot to be King of England. The last Anglo-Saxon King of England before the Norman Conquest, Harold reigned until his death at the Battle of Hastings on October 14th of that same year, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror. Harold is one of only three Kings of England to have died as a result of battle, alongside Richard the Lionheart and Richard III.

~1205 – Philip of Swabia was crowned, with great ceremony, King of the Romans by Adolph of Cologne at Aix la Chapelle.

~1449 – The coronation of Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos took place at Mistra, near ancient Sparta.

Overview of the Palace of Mystras

Photo by Aeleftherios, taken on April 24th, 2008

~1540 – England's King Henry VIII donned his wash and wear wedding tux yet again, this time to marry his 4th wife the German noblewoman Anne of Cleves.

~1579 – The Union of Atrecht was signed in Arras (Atrecht), under which the southern states of the Netherlands expressed their loyalty to the Spanish king Philip II and recognized his Governor General, Don Juan of Austria. One of the conditions in the accord was that Catholicism was to be the only religion and any other religion should be abolished. (Ahhh...the good old days when tolerance abounded!)

~1649 – The Rump Parliament, the name of the English Parliament after Colonel Pride purged the Long Parliament (on 6 December 1648) of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason, voted to proceed with an ordinance passed 2 days earlier to put Charles I on trial.

~1661 – The English Restoration: 50 Fifth Monarchists, headed by a wine cooper named Thomas Venner, made a failed attempt to attain possession of London in the name of "King Jesus." Most of the 50 were either killed or taken prisoner. On January 19th and 21st, Venner along with 10 others were hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason.

~1690 – Joseph I, the eldest son of Emperor Leopold I, received the crown of Hungary and became King of the Romans.

~1721 – The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble published its findings.

~1781 – The Battle of Jersey: British forces led by Major Francis Peirson defeated the French troops commanded by Baron Phillipe de Rullecourt in the last attempt by France to invade Jersey. Both commanders died as a result of the battle.

~1838 – Samuel Morse first successfully tested his electrical telegraph.

~1853 – President-elect of the United States Franklin Pierce and his family were involved in a train wreck near Andover, Massachusetts. Pierce's 11 year old son Benjamin was crushed to death in the mishap. Jane Pierce viewed the train accident as a divine punishment for her husband's pursuit and acceptance of high office. (Nothing like a good supportive wife to help one get started in trying to run a country...)

~1870 – The grand concert hall Musikverein was opened in Vienna.

Musikverein

Photo by Andreas Praefcke


~1893 – The Washington National Cathedral was chartered by Congress. The charter was signed by President Benjamin Harrison.

~1900 – Reports first surfaced outside of Asia that millions were starving in India due to drought.

~1900 - The Boer forces of Commandant-General Piet Joubert attempted to end the Siege of Ladysmith by taking the town before the British could launch another attempt to break the siege. This lead to a battle at Platrand and Wagon Hill south of the town where over 250 died.

~1907 – Maria Montessori opened her first school and daycare center, which she called "Casa dei Bambini" or Children's House, for working class children in Rome.

Maria Montessori (c. 1921)

Photographer unknown, originally published by Bain News Service


~1912 – New Mexico was admitted as the 47th state of the Union.

~1929 – King Alexander of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes suspended his country's constitution. The January 6th Dictatorship (Šestojanuarska diktatura) lasted from when the king prorogued parliament and assumed control of the state and ended with his assassination in Marseille on October 9, 1934.

~1929 – Mother Teresa arrived in Calcutta. She would go on to work among India's poorest and most ill people.

~1930 – The first diesel engined automobile trip in America was completed, from Indianapolis to New York City. (2 out of 6 sources dispute this as the actual date.)

~1931 – At the age of 83 Thomas Edison submitted his last patent application. (Yeah...he received it.)

~1936 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the processing taxes instituted under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act were unconstitutional in the case of United States v. Butler et al.

~1941 – US President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.

~1942 – Pan American Airlines became the first commercial airline to schedule a flight around the world.

~1950 – Britain formally recognized the People's Republic of China. Taiwan then severed diplomatic relations with the UK in retaliation.

~1953 – The first Asian Socialist Conference opened in Rangoon, Burma.

~1967 – United States Marine Corps and ARVN troops launched Operation Deckhouse Five in the Mekong River delta. Their mission was to construct a POW cage at Vung Tau, escort and secure POWs from the area of operations to the cage, process the POWs and then escort the POWs to the Army of The Republic of Vietnam III Corps cage at Bien Hoa. The POW capture rate, however, was below that anticipated and the mission ultimately failed.

The mission unfolding during Operation Deckhouse Five, USS Washtenaw County is in the background

Photo courtesy US Naval Historical Center


~1974 – In response to the 1973 energy crisis, daylight saving time in the US commenced nearly 4 months early.

~1978 – The Crown of St. Stephen (also known as the Holy Crown of Hungary) was ordered returned to Hungary from the United States by US President Jimmy Carter. It had been held there after World War II.

~1992 - The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously condemning Israel's treatment of Palestinians. (But of course they wouldn't do anything about it.)

~1994 – Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed in the knee at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit by a hired goon recruited by a rival's ex husband.

~1995 – A chemical fire in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines, led to the discovery of plans for Project Bojinka, a mass terrorist attack.

~2005 – Edgar Ray Killen, a Ku Klux Klan organizer, was arrested and charged with the 1964 murders of 3 civil rights workers in Mississippi.

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[Fred314X]

Late addition! January 5, 1066--death of King Edward "the Confessor" in England, setting off a chain of events that led to the Norman Invasion later that year.

[Da Grouch]

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~1325 – Alfonso IV becomes King of Portugal.

~1536 – Died this day: Catherine of Aragon, 1st wife of Henry VIII and Queen of England (b. 1485)

~1558 – French forces undser the command of Francis Duke of Guise captured Calais from the English, it had been the last continental possession of England.

~1566 - Pius V became Pope.

~1598 – Boris Godunov became the first non Rurikid tsar. In spite of his acute paranoia he was able to hold the country together in relative stability, but the end of his reign saw Russia descend into the Time of Troubles.

~1608 – A sudden fire destroyed most of Jamestown, Virginia.

~1610 – Galileo Galilei observed the 4 largest moons of Jupiter for the first time. He named them Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callistoand. The 4 moons are known today as The Galilean Moons.

Photographic composite of the Jovian system, includes the edge of Jupiter with its Great Red Spot, and Jupiter's four largest moons

Photos (and compilation) courtesy NASA Planetary Photojournal


~1655 - Died this day: Pope Innocent X (b. 1574)

~1782 – The Bank of North America, the first American commercial bank, opened its doors for business in Pennsylvania.

~1785 РFrenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries traveled from Dover Castle to Gųnes, France, in a gas balloon.

18th century engraving The Crossing of the Channel in a Balloon by Blanchard and Jeffries

Artist unknown


~1835 – HMS Beagle dropped anchor off the Chonos Archipelago on her 2nd voyage that would become a ground breaking scientific expedition.

~1904 – The distress signal CQD was established in Circular 57 of the Marconi International Marine Communication Company, and became effective, for Marconi installations, beginning February 1. This was to be replaced two years later by SOS.

~1920 – The New York State Assembly refused to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.

~1922 – Dáil Éireann ratified the Anglo-Irish Treaty by a 64-57 vote following a lengthy series of debates now known as the Dáil Debates.

~1926 - Comic greats George Burns and Gracie Allen were married. It was somewhat daring for those times, considering Burns's Jewish and Allen's Irish Catholic upbringing.

~1927 – The first transatlantic telephone call was made, from New York City to London. This was a radio-based transatlantic telephone service that charged £9 (roughly $45 USD) for 3 minutes and initially handled about 2000 calls a year. (AT&T immediately applied to the feds for a rate increase.)

~1931 – Guy Menzies flew the first solo non stop flight from Australia to New Zealand in 11 hours and 45 minutes. He crash landed upside down in the La Fontaine Swamp near Hari Hari on New Zealand's west coast.

~1935 – Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval signed the Franco–Italian Agreement. The treaty gave Italy parts of French Somaliland (now Djibouti), redefined the official status of Italians in French held Tunisia, and essentially gave the Italians a free hand in dealing with the Abyssinia Crisis with Ethiopia. In exchange for this, France hoped for Italian support against German aggression. (As usual France was prepared to sell out anybody in order to further their own interests. Can you believe these idiots actually trusted Mussolini enough to enter into a peace treaty with him?)

~1942 – The siege of the Bataan Peninsula (Siege of Bataan) began.

~1945 – Winston Churchill, addressing the House of Commons and regarding the Battle of the Bulge said, "This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory". In spite of this British General Bernard Montgomery held a press conference in which he claimed credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge. (As brilliant as Monty was, a more egotistic, pompous and arrogant bastard has never walked the face of the Earth.)

~1950 – The Mercy Hospital Disaster: In Iowa, a fire broke out in the early morning hours inside the women's mental ward of Davenport's Mercy Hospital. The metal bars in place made escape from the inferno impossible for the patients and a total of 41 women died as a result.

~1953 – US President Harry Truman announced that the United States had developed the hydrogen bomb.

~1954 – The Georgetown-IBM Experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system, was held in New York at the head office of IBM. The experiment involved completely automatic translation of more than 60 Russian sentences into English.

~1960 – The first Polaris missile was successfully test launched from the Cape Canaveral missile base.

Polaris A-1 on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral (c. March 1960)

Photo courtesy USAF


~1968 – Surveyor Program: Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifted off from launch complex 36A at Cape Canaveral. It landed on the moon 65 hours later and sent back total of 21,091 pictures of the lunar surface. Surveyor 7 was the first probe to detect the faint glow on the lunar horizon after dark that is now thought to be light reflected from electrostatically levitated moon dust.

Surveyor 7

Photo courtesy NASA


~1972 – An Iberia Airlines Caravelle 6-R crashed into Mont San Jose on approach to Ibiza Airport killing all 104 on board.

~1973 – A gunman fatally shot 9 people and wounded 13 others at a Howard Johnson's Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana before being shot and killed death by police.

~1979 – The Cambodian-Vietnamese War: Phnom Penh fell to advancing Vietnamese troops, driving out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime.

~1980 – US President Jimmy Carter authorized legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation. (They only needed one and a half bill to save their sorry asses that time, but at least they had the likes of Lee Iacocca at the helm to do it.)

~1989 – Died this day: Hirohito, Emperor of Japan (b. 1901)

Hirohito in dress uniform (1935)

Photographer unknown, courtesy the Japan National Archives


~1990 – The interior of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public because of safety concerns. While the tower was closed, the bells were removed to relieve some weight, and cables were cinched around the third level and anchored several hundred meters away. Apartments and houses in the path of the tower were also vacated for safety.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa (May 19th, 2004)

Photo by Alkaretz


~1993 – The Fourth Republic of Ghana was inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as its President.

~1999 – The Senate impeachment trial of US President Bill Clinton began.

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[Thyra]

On this day in history...871, the Battle of Ashton took place :
Battle of Ashdown - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Da Grouch]

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